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Friday, February 27, 2009

Bankruptcy-Personal View

As the world finds itself in a financial crisis,I cannot help but reflect on what this will have on the personal level.I have gone through some financial crisis myself to the point of filing for personal bankruptcy protection.The crisis started with a job loss at the time and that led to my inability of make payments on some of the credit cards that I own at the time.Looking back at the filing,I got some pretty bad advice at the time of the filing and I could have avoided going through all the headaches that it caused me later in life if I had a little bit more experience in life.The period was about the early nineties.It had to be 1991/1992 period that I did the actual filing,the effects though lasted for periods that are more than a decade.
The actual bankruptcy filing is not a pleasant experience at all.You have to go to a court house and stand before a judge for your debts to be forgiven.I had to be looking around to make sure that there was nobody in the court house that recognised me.You get to pay a court cost of about $150 dollars at the time and then there is a lot of paperwork that is prepared for you and you then head home.The effects though would start coming and they would last for a long time.The first one is that it becomes very difficult for you to rent an apartment.When I did my personal filing,I was living at Sligo avenue,Silver Spring,Md.I tried to get apartment in White Oak but my application was declined.when I checked into the reason,I found out that it was because of the bankruptcy filing.Somebody had to help me get the apartment at White Oak.For a long period of time,each time that I had tried to move from one apartment to another I was always a problem.The answer would always be that you application was declined because of a bankruptcy that shows up on your record.Later on I would find out that employers also take a look at your credit record before they hire your.I had applied to work for a bank while at Radio Shack and I did not get the job.I later found out that the reason for my not getting the job is because of the bankruptcy filing.Credit cards you could still get despite your bankruptcy filing but you would not be getting a high credit limit any more.For example prior to my BK filing I had an American Express card which comes with unlimited spending limit so long as you pay off the balance at the end of the month.I had other credit cards with balance limits that reached the $5000 mark.After the BK filing the few credit cards that I got had credit limits of around $1000 and most of them came with a yearly annual fee of about $50 together with some very high interest rates.The interest rates is an area where you would notice a big difference.Your poor credit rating now puts you in a bracket where credit card companies would be charging very stiff interest rates for you to obtain their card.There are a number of options that I could have gone with instead of filing for personal BK.One would have been to personal call the credit card companies and try to work out a lower monthly payment schedule with them.The credit card companies would prefer this as oppose to a bankruptcy filing in which they do not get any money at all.
Second,I could have just abandon the debts without going into court to file for bankruptcy.Later on when my personal finances did get better,I could then have called up the credit card companies and they would have worked out a payment schedule for me.This option lowers your credit rating but it does not have as negative an effect as a bankruptcy filing.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

क्लासिक ८०स Movies

Beverly hills cop,John Ashton,Eddie Murphy.This is the original and I loved the movie very much.


Beverly hill cop 11,1987 release,the boys are back where they do not belong.There are some really great scenes and action in this movie. The playboy mansion only one of the many. I love this more than the original though both of them are great movies


Trading Places,Denholm Elliot,Eddie Murphy.A reversal of fortune type movie with a lot of comedy in it.


Coming to America.This movie you would love if you an immigrant to the US and you happened to be one of those that have to work their way to the top from the very bottom.One of my favorite Eddie Murphy movies.

48 hours Nick Nolte

The big chill. Tom Berenger.very fun movie.sound track is great in the movie and the action just keeps getting better as the movie rolls along.

Bull Durham,Kevin Costner and Susan Sarandon 1988 release.Great baseball and romantic movie.love it.


Do the right thing,directed by spike lee1989 release.Danny Aiello


Fields of Dreams,Kevin Costner,James El Jones.1989 release.if you build it they would come.another great movie in the 1980s with a baseball touch to it.

Wall street with Michael Douglas,Charlie Sheen 1987 release.Greed is good is the line that I remember very well in this 80s classic movie. Martin Sheen who is Charlie Sheen,s father is in the movie also.

Hoosiers with Gene Hackman,Dennis Hopper,Barbara Hershey 1986 release.Watched this one in the theaters and really love it. You would too. Action based on basketball in the state of Indiana,that is high school basketball.


Platoon,Tom Berenger,willem Dafoe,Johnny Deep.Charlie Sheen movie about the vietnam war.1986 release.This is a very moving movie directed by Steven Spellberg about the vietnam war. A lot of moving scenes in the movie about the not so popular war.


Top Gun 1986 release with Tom Cruise,Kelly Mcgillis,directed by Michael Scott.available on amazon.com.Great sound effects in this movie. one of my most watched in this 1980s category.


,When Harry met Sally,Billy Crystal.a romantic fun movie.

Terminator,Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Back to the Future Michael J Fox.a little bit of science fiction and futuristic movie.love it

,Fatal Attraction Glen Close,Michael Douglas.This one would scare you if you are thinking of having an affair when your wife is away.a lot of suspense in the movie. love is very much.watched it a lot of times also.

Crocodile Dundee,Paul Hogan.movie with an Australian touch to it

Commando Arnold Schwarzenegger action packed thriller, one of my favorite movies.For some reason this is the Arnold movie that I like to watch to most. Full of action without being a very violent movie.

Color Purple.This movie was very controversial.Got nominated for a lot of academic awards but come out empty.Directed by Steven Spellberg,the movie has Opray winfrey in it,Danny Glover also before they became household names.

थे माउंट कैमेरून रस ऑफ़ होप १४थ Edition

I left home around 5.15am in the morning and arrived at the Molyko Omnisport Stadium about 6.30am. The national anthem was played at 6.45am and the race started as scheduled at 7.00am. The athletes total around 800 divided into the category of adults,junior and veterans. The mountain is about 4090metres high,the highest peak in West Africa and it is quite a challenging climb. I have attempted the climb twice at a leisure pace and made it up to hut two.So you can imagine how tough it is to got up and down in competitive running.I went to a cyber cafe just close to the stadium to to do some work and it was from there that the first person arrived just about 4.24 minutes in total time. The second and third persons came shortly after.So the race for the top spot was very competitive with the top three runners making it in under the 4.35 minute mark. The runners appear in very good condition and they look like they could go on for some time.For the ladies,the winner came in at 5.23 minutes,the second around 5.39 and the third at about 5.41. So the winner of the ladies race won it by a clear margin compared to the men.

कानों डिजीटल Camera

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Fighting for survival

On the first week of October 2003 I quit my job at AT&T wireless due to too much harassment. Enough was enough, I was going to just leave the place and at the time I did not care about the consequences. I had come to work early in the morning and I was just getting a very tough time with the customers. I walked into the Managers office and told him that I was gone. He must have been anticipating this for he did not put up an argument. He said okay, I fill out all of the necessary paperwork and headed out of the door. At the time I had no idea what I was going to be doing afterward to make a living. Prior to quitting, I had applied for jobs at different places but nothing worked out. I got into my max and headed home. I was going to do all the reflections afterwards. I had about $5000 of cash in the bank plus about $17,000 in 401k that I had been saving since my days at Circuit City. I figured that by the time I run out of all this money I would have found something to do. At the time I had to deal with the following monthly expenses;$1085 for the rent,$520 for car payment,$130 for car insurance,$150 for credit card bills,$85 for electricity and light,$20 for internet subscription,$65 for cable plus money that had to be allocated for gas. All the expenses came to about $2,000 monthly. I had been working since 1986,about the time that I got into the US and this was the first time that I found myself without a job. I have also being living independently for about 5 years now and I had forgotten how to go live in somebody’s couch. I continued to stay in Laurel, Maryland and spend most of the early months keeping track of world events. Winter was around the corner and I had planned to just spend most of the time being indoors.

A lot of things began to go wrong at this time. First of all I lost my driver license and there was no way for me to get a replacement. I went to the Department of motor vehicles a lot of times but could not figure out a way to get a replacement. So up to the time that I left for home I was driving without a license. How is that possible? You learn to keep to the speed limit, obey all the traffics lights and signs and just drive safely. I did that for close to two years and was lucky not to have been stop at all. Until the time that I abandon my apartment, I had a total of just one other job that I did for about a monthly. I worked in a furniture company in laurel called Marlo Furniture and got paid about $1,000 for the month of work. I had kept a copy of both my missing driver license and social security card. I used that to get the job. I did not stay there for long though. I believed that I was just burned out. Going to work is something that I have been doing for quite for time now but all of a sudden it had become such a burden.I had earlier talked to a former co-worker at AT&T Wireless and he had asked whether I ever filed for unemployment benefits?I told him no and said that I should look into it.I did call the unemployment office and was given information on a website that I could get everything done on.I followed the instructions,did all the paperwork and in two weeks time I got the first check of $600.I received two more checks of $600 before my former employer intervened and said they were not liable to be paying me unemployment benefits.Unemployment benefits runs for 26 weeks before stopping.The case with AT&T wireless went to arbitration in which they had a mouth piece and I did not have one.I lost the arbitration and forget about the whole unemployment deal.

October 2004 had past and I did not pay my rent for the month.I was beginning to get worried about my property and I decided to rent a storage area to keep some of my things.The storage space was going to cost me $85 a month.At the time my plans were that I would make the payments and hope that things get better to enable me get my property.November came and this time there was a notice from the Landlord lord saying the Sheriffs will be in to throw me out in case I did not settle my account by the end of November.I knew I was not going to settle my account, so I starting making plans to get the things that I could carry around in my car.I would be leaving the apartment before dawn on the 1 of December 2004.I got some things into my car and was gone on the morning of December 2004.I would end up traveling all the way to Florida in my quest for a different place to live.Nothing did work out at all and I would end up heading to Atlanta,Georgia where my elder brother,a medical doctor lived.In Atlanta,I spend a total of six uneventful month before deciding to head home to Cameroon.Traveling arrangements were made and I arrived Cameroon sometime in June of the year 2005.

Monday, February 2, 2009

The Economic Crisis





This one started in the United States in the form of bad mortgages and spread
gradually to the rest of the World. The banks that are usually on the side of caution moved aggressively in the game and got burn big time. You look at some of the numbers and they are just staggering. The Dow has tested the just below 8000 mark. In the late 90s the Dow was at 12000.The NASDAQ is now just around the 1500 mark. In the era of the dot-com boom is was at 5000.The US economic shrank 3.8 percent for the fourth quarter of 2008,though for the year is grew slightly. The US government and other countries around the world are throwing the concept of pure capitalism down the drain and going for bail out packages to rescue the situation. There was the 700billion dollar package to bail out Wall Street and the 787billion dollar package for the whole economy which was a hard sell to the Republicans in both house of Congress.The bill did pass though with few republicans voting for it. Throughout the developed world there has been similar packages to help out thought not in the scale of that of the US. Some of the countries that have been hit hardest include the nation of Iceland that now has a female Prime Minister at the helm. She is also of a different kind of sexual orientation and she is opened about it.This situation has been compared to that of the late 1920s and early 1930s,the great depression in case you missed it in your history lessons.Other countries that were suppose to pick up the slack with a US slowdown are beginning to feel the pinch also.Recently about 26million migrant workers in china lost their jobs.There is something that took place with the price of oil that completely changed the manner in which this crisis was going to play out when it started in late 2007.The price of old was rising and peaked around the 147 dollars a barrel mark.High oil price was a big boost for oil producing countries such as OPEC countries,Russia,Brazil,China which have very large oil reserves.Oil prices went down in a hurry though and the above countries did not get as much benefit from the oil prices as I though they would.This is why the crisis I believe has hit a global scale now.The rest of the world now has to watch closely what is taking place in the US because just like in the part I believe that is the country that is going to either take the rest of the world under or pull us out of the current economic crisis.Latest figures show that the US economy shrank by about 6.2 percent during the fourth quarter of the year 2008.General Motors has been in trouble for some time now and the government is taking a different approach after giving it a lot of bailout money.There is take of a bankruptcy filing which will be major news if it actually happens.That fact that the government is letting GM go this direction is prove that they have figure out that not all the companies could be bailout.
Chrysler was the first of the major automobile companies to declare bankruptcy with the barking to the federal government.GM might not be too far behind.Ford seems to be weathering the storm pretty well.So far they have been the lone company out of the big three automakers not to have taken government money.
General Motors is expected to file for chapter eleven bankruptcy on Monday the first of June 2009 at a time when their stock price is down to less than a dollar a share.At its peak the stock price was at 93 a share back in the year 2000.The plan is for them to reemerge as a much leaner and more efficient company.