UnbiasedTruth.net

 Charging loan interest higher than the rates allowed by law. Interest rates in consumer credit contracts are controlled by state law, and the highest permitted rate is called the usury rate or the usury ceiling. Since the early 1980s, many state legislatures relaxed statutory controls on consumer credit because rather than protecting consumers from unscrupulous lenders, such controls often make it more difficult for consumers to obtain credit. To alleviate this, and to keep banks from moving their credit card operations to states with more liberal statutes, lawmakers revised state statutes to allow interest rates to be set by market competition, rather than specified by laws. Several states have abolished usury ceilings; most states have raised the interest ceilings to encourage more rate competition among financial institutions, and most of these laws have a Sunset Clause calling for periodic review every three to five years. Some states, including New York, Delaware, and South Dakota have no limits on consumer credit. New York does, however, have a criminal usury ceiling of 25%, a maximum rate of interest that lenders may charge on consumer credit.

 For more info click on:

 http://www.answers.com/topic/usury

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AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE, I DON’T GO BY FEELINGS OR OPINIONS; I GO BY OBSERVING GOD’S CREATION, READING, MEDITATING AND LISTENING FOR THAT STILL SMALL VOICE.

“Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.”  Philippians 2:11-13 (in Context) Philippians 2 (Whole Chapter)

It is a dangerous thing to rely on the opinions of others.  To come closer to the truth we must spend more time in meditation and thought, listening for the Spirit of the Universe who is within the deepest part of our being.  When science (the study of all that is) disagrees with our beliefs, we must reconsider if we are to come closer to the truth.  The following is the closest to finding the truth for me:

The Parable of the Good Samaritan (St. Luke 10: 25-37)

25On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

26“What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”

27He answered: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

28“You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

29But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

30In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead.

31A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side.

32So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.

33But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him.

35The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’

36“Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

37The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”
Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

OF COURSE, JESUS IS NOT THE ONLY ONE THAT TAUGHT THESE THINGS:

“Every religion emphasizes human improvement, love, respect for others, sharing other people’s suffering. On these lines every religion had more or less the same viewpoint and the same goal.” The Dalai Lama

“The Golden Rule” is taught in many religions. Click on: http://www.religioustolerance.org/reciproc.htm

WHAT IS LOVE?

1 Corinthians 13

Love

1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

For a broad definition of “Love” click on:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love

Faith Religion and Spirituality

History was on the march well before Mr. Obama boarded his plane, and his trip was perfectly timed to reap the whirlwind.

What drew them instead was the raw power Mr. Obama has amassed: the power to start shaping events and the power to move markets, including TV ratings. (Even “Access Hollywood” mustered a 20 percent audience jump by hosting the Obama family.) Power begets more power, absolutely.

The growing Obama clout derives not from national polls, where his lead is modest. Never mind. Obama-branded change is snowballing, whether it’s change you happen to believe in or not.

Then, on July 15, Mr. McCain suddenly noticed that more Americans are dying in Afghanistan than Iraq and called for more American forces to be sent there. Lest anyone doubt that the White House had moved away from the rigid stand endorsed by Mr. McCain and toward Mr. Obama’s, a former Rumsfeld apparatchik weighed in on The Wall Street Journal’s op-ed page: “Now Bush Is Appeasing Iran.”

In a flash, as Mr. Obama touched down in Kuwait , Mr. Maliki approvingly cited the Democratic candidate by name while laying out a troop-withdrawal calendar of his own that, like Mr. Obama’s, would wind down in 2010. The Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens has now joined another high-profile McCain supporter, Arnold Schwarzenegger, in knocking the McCain nostrum that America can drill its way out of its energy crisis. The Obama stampede is forcing Mr. McCain to surrender on other domestic fronts. “We have one president at a time,” Mr. Obama is careful to say. — few focused on the alarms that Mr. McCain’s behavior at home raise about his fitness to be president.

The week’s most revealing incident occurred on Wednesday when the new, supposedly improved McCain campaign management finalized its grand plan to counter Mr. Obama’s Berlin speech with a “Mission Accomplished”-like helicopter landing on an oil rig off Louisiana ’s coast. The McCain camp should be careful what it wishes for. As its relentless goading of Mr. Obama to visit Iraq only ratcheted up anticipation for the Democrat’s triumphant trip, so its insistent demand for joint town-hall meetings with Mr. Obama and for more televised chronicling of Mr. McCain’s wanderings could be self-inflicted disasters in the making.

The election remains Mr. Obama’s to lose, and he could lose it, whether through unexpected events, his own vanity or a vice-presidential misfire.

For the entire article click on: nytimes.com

Politics Barack Obama, John McCain, T. Boone Pickens

caring for the elderly

Millions of middle aged Americans who love their elderly parents are silently losing their savings and other assets to help take care of them.

The government should help take care of the many instead of enriching the few who don’t need it. We are the only industrial nation that doesn’t provide healthcare for all.

Why do we ignore the promise of LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS?

The following article reveals what is going on quietly with those who care enough about others that they are willing to lose everything.

Elder-Care Costs Deplete Savings of a Generation

By JANE GROSS

To care for her ailing 97-year-old father over the past three years, Elizabeth Rodriguez, a vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank in New York, has borrowed against her 401(k) retirement plan, sold her house on Staten Island and depleted nearly 20 years of savings.

The money has gone to lawyers’ fees ($50,000) to win a contested guardianship. It has gone for home-care equipment like the mattress for his hospital bed (about $3,000 in all) and for a food service to deliver meals ($400 a month).

It has gone for a two-bedroom rental apartment big enough for herself, her dad and a home aide ($1,600 a month more than a one-bedroom apartment in the same building), and for a wheelchair-accessible van to get him to doctors’ appointments ($330 a trip).

Asked to tally the costs, Ms. Rodriguez, 58, said she had no idea how much she was spending. “A shower chair, body cream with no alcohol, new shoes,” she said. “You don’t stop and calculate. You just buy what you have to buy.”

Click here for the rest of the story

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• US inflation rate at 26-year high

Health elderly, healthcare

Living ONE DAY AT A TIME; Enjoying one moment at a time;

Accepting hardship as the pathway to peace.

Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it.

Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will;That I may be reasonably happy in this life, and supremely happy with Him forever in the next.

Amen

Reinhold Neibuhr-1926

For even more click on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_Prayer

Faith Faith, Serenity Prayer