' No matter how clearly details about status "are conveyed, people as egocentric social information processors tend to process, comprehend, and evaluate such news by relating the details to themselves" (Mussweiler 2004, p. 832).
Social comparison theory, the idea that human beings feel satisfied or dissatisfied with their lots in life based upon peer-group comparisons, states that accessibility tends to increase the perceived similarity of 'self' and 'other' (Mussweiler 2004, p. 832). In other words, few college students are likely to look at famous stars and try to emulate celebrity lifestyles. However, in a seemingly equal setting like college, where everyone is taking similar classes, is staying in dorms rather than in houses that demarcate parental financial status, and where social life is very fluid, everyone feels 'the same.' And if someone who is 'the same' as you is wearing Abercrombie & Fitch and has the latest technological accessory from Apple,…...
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References
Mussweiler, T., Ruter, K., & Epstude, K. (2004). The ups and downs of social comparison:
Mechanisms of assimilation and contrast. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87(6), 832-844.
Silver-Greenberg, Jessica. (2007). Majoring in credit-card debt: Aggressive on-campus marketing by lenders is coming under fire. BusinessWeek. Retrieved April 22, 2010.
In summary, I feel that I have learned to use a credit card in a way that benefits me more than the merchant or the bank.
For other consumers increasing reliance on electronic payments may be a problem, especially for the newer and lesser understood debit cards. There appears to be certain classes of consumers that view a plastic card differently from actual cash or that purchase more because it's easier to do so. The rising credit card debt problem in the United States is already a frequently covered issue and debit cards may be the next item of discussion. Debit cards may make the consumer debt problem worse by extending electronic payment access to customers who don't qualify for credit cards. Unlike credit cards, debit cards require the cash to be available in an account, but it doesn't mean that this cash wasn't earmarked for other necessities. And, it…...
Belonging to Alliant Credit Union Mean to Me?
I am on track to graduate from a Nuclear Medicine program in September of 2015. his is an important step for me because the nuclear medicine program holds out great hope for more efficient strategies for diagnosing and treating disease -- and healing people who are suffering.
After graduation I will pursue a career at Kaiser Permanente. I will pay off my credit card debt and begin a savings and retirement program at Alliant Credit Union, to assure my own financial security but also to ensure that my parents have the resources to be comfortable and happy in their retirement years.
Going back to 2009, when I bought my first automobile -- which is a huge step for a young person in terms of the need for independence, for transportation and the need to learn how to manage one's finances -- I have been…...
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That is the way I plan my life and my career -- with constant research and stewardship, investing in my own knowledge bank -- and Alliant Credit Union has been on my side all along, which I greatly appreciate as I move forward in my career..
Moreover, I have never thought of the Alliant Credit Union as a bank at all; banks can be sterile, unfriendly places where a person doesn't really feel at home. But the staff at Alliant Credit Union has always been helpful and gracious to me throughout the years I have been a member.
Since I opened my first accounts on August 8, 2006 (checking, savings, and a credit card) the helpful, informed employees at the credit union recognize and acknowledge me when I come in, which makes me feel like a family member instead of simply a customer.
My student loan payments of $609.07 are scheduled to begin May 1, 2009. I do not have the resources to make these payments and Chapter 7 Bankruptcy does not affect student loans.
Since I have been stretched beyond my financial capacity, I am now consistently behind in my mortgage payments and am not in a situation to rectify this problem. I am paid on the 15th and 30th of each month and because I am so overextended, I can only make my payment on the 30th of each month. Due to my now chronically late payments, I am now subject to $136.44 in late fees every month, which I can ill afford. I am facing eminent foreclosure if I am unable to change the terms of my mortgage.
I believe my circumstances make me an excellent candidate for the Hope for Homeowners Act. The Affordabilty vs. Value portion of this program…...
As has been said before, the UK no longer makes anything, builds anything or sells anything tangible. The decline in industrial production has resulted in an overall decline in employment of industrial workers, who have not been aided by a failing system to transition to other work.
Some would say that the changes occurring in the UK, at this time with the increased importance of service industry work and intelligence rather than physical labor employment is a natural byproduct of globalization and an evolutionary product of the next phase as a "developed" nation.
They evidence this by observing that all developed nations are leaning in this direction. Yet, the transition has not and will not be easy, whether it is normal or not, a point which remains to be proven.
Kocherlakota)
ith the education system in the UK in serious need of reform to reflect the changing needs of…...
college campus across the country, students are greeted with the familiar sight of individuals seated at folding tables, with the purpose of marketing credit cards to them. These salespeople are most frequently seen during the beginning of the college semester and are usually young and attractive and smiling, barely older than the students themselves. Quite often, if a student fills out an application for the credit card, he or she may receive a small toy or a gigantic in exchange for his or her pains. hat could be more harmless? hat's wrong with having a credit card on hand, 'just in case?'
However, this familiar sight is one of the many reasons that college students are becoming more and more deeply ensnared in debt. These smiling individuals prey upon students when they are at their most vulnerable. Most of these students have just had to pay hundreds of dollars for…...
worry bout audience Analysis ord Count: 1000-1250 words (This word count refers ONLY essay . It include audience analysis orks Cited page. If essay falls short minimum word count, I automatically deduct riting Informative Essay (Corresponding chapter The Little Seagull Handbook: -7) General Information An informative essay organized primary functions: report a unfamiliar topic; analyze meaning, pattern connections; explain works; explore questions answers.
Informative essay: The impact of the economic crisis upon young people
Although the consensus amongst economists is that the United States has extricated itself from the worst of the recession of 2008, the impact of the economic crisis is still palpable amongst many demographics within the United States. Recent college graduates are amongst the hardest-hit. Given the sluggish labor market, many new college graduates are struggling for work, while the previous generation was able to find jobs with much greater ease. These workers are burdened by high levels…...
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Works Cited
Goudreau, Nicole. "The 10 worst college majors." Forbes. 11 Oct 2012. 25 Jan 2013.
The article that was written by Conley (2011) discusses the impact that collateralized debt obligations (CDO's) would have upon the subprime loans. These were created in 1987, by the Wall Street firm Drexel urnham. In this product, the investment bankers would take a number of different articles and combine them together as one investment. The various assets that were used included: junk bonds, mortgages and other high yielding investments from the debt. The idea with these different products is that the investment bank could offer customers a stated return on their investment. The way it worked is the brokerage firm would distribute each investor, the stated amount of returns that they would make off of the tranche (the CDO investment). This was derived using a complex mathematical formula that would divide the total amount of interest that was received, from the various high yielding products that were inside the CDO.…...
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Bibliography
Case Study, 2011, Investopedia. Available from: [14 February 2011]
Citi Merger a Mistake, 2008, Huffington Post. Available from: [14 February 2011].
Deregulation Redux, 2011, FCIC. Available from: {14 February 2011].
Derivatives, 2011, Financial Dictionary. Available from: [12 February 2011].
The Order of the Knights Templar (Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon) was founded in 1118 to protect Christians on pilgrimage to Jerusalem (Blacktorne, 2011). The Order was sanctioned by King Baldwin II of Jerusalem and he quartered the nine original knights in the old stables at the Temple of Solomon. All members had to give over all of their wealth and goods to the Order and take vows of poverty, chastity, piety, and obedience just like other monks (Langue, 2011). A majority of the members joined for life, although a select few were also allowed to join for specific duration.
The Templars' were considered the first international banking organizations. Although this wasn't there specific title they charge a fee (interest) for issuing letters of deposits (checks). Some also view them as a multinational corporation; however the banking reference seems to hold more credibility. There financial…...
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6- BCCI "Bank of Credit and Commerce International
The Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) was a major international bank founded in 1972 by Agha Hasan Abedi, a Pakistani financier. The Bank was registered in Luxembourg. It operated in 78 countries, had over 400 branches, and had assets in excess of twenty billion making it the seventh largest private bank in the world by assets (Kanas, 2005). In the late 1980's BCCI became the target of a two-year undercover operation conducted by the U.S. Customs Service. This operation concluded with a fake wedding that was attended by BCCI officers and drug dealers from around the world who had established a personal friendship and working relationship with undercover Special Agent Robert Mazur (Lohr, 1991).
After a six-month trial in Tampa, some of the key bank officers were convicted and received lengthy prison sentences. BCCI came under the scrutiny of regulatory bodies and intelligence agencies in the 1980s due to its perceived avoidance of falling under one regulatory banking authority. It was actually set up to be not under any regulatory bodies' control at all. Thus the international bank could help people who wanted to hide money from taxation or even launder money. The true extents of the ties with other banking institutions were never fully uncovered. The prosecutors claimed that they busted the largest money laundering system ever yet many reports at the time feel like they barely scratched the surface (Baquet, 1991).
But Morgenson suggests even more troublingly, that the fundamental assumption of affordability behind the new program is flawed: "in devising what it considers an affordable mortgage payment, the program doesn't account for all of a borrower's debts -- the first mortgage, second lien, credit card debt and automobile payments. Instead, it calculates affordability using only the borrower's first mortgage payment, insurance and property taxes" (Morgenson 2009).
The program may even hurt those borrowers with second liens: "These banks -- the very same companies the Treasury is urging to modify loans that they service -- have zero interest in writing down second liens they hold because it would mean further damage to their balance sheets. Say a troubled borrower has a first mortgage owned by a pension fund in a securitization trust and a second lien held by the bank that services the loans. The servicer is happy to modify the…...
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Works Cited
Morgenson, Gretchen. "Why Treasury needs a Plan B. For mortgages"
The New York Times. December 5, 2009. December 6, 2009.
Psychology of Consumer Behavior
Over the last several years, the issue of compulsive buying has been increasingly brought to the forefront. This is because a number of individuals are making decisions that are not considered to be financially prudent. Instead, they are based the person feeling good about their purchase in the short-term. This is giving them a sense of emotional satisfaction. However, in the longer periods of time, is when these kinds of decisions can lead to varying financial consequences. As a result, marketers are more likely to target specific segments that are considered to be impulsive.
Two specific groups that were often perused include women and younger adults. This is because a number of studies were indicating, how these two segments are more than likely to engage in compulsive shopping. The main reason why is because women and young adults were often the focus of their surveys. This made the…...
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References
Men, Women have Similar Rates. (2006). Stanford School of Medicine. Retrieved from:
Education on managing or eliminating debt early in one's professional life should also be combined with realistic education on the state of the economy and the impact which this has levied on personal opportunities for financial comfort. To this point, individuals are not finding the jobs for which their education has qualified them, are not achieving a pay commensurate to what they anticipate are their living requirements and are unable to afford many of the fundamental instruments to healthy and intelligent living. Indeed, one source denotes that "in 2007, the Census Bureau estimated that there were nearly 8 million uninsured young adults (ages 18-24), making them the largest segment of the uninsured population. That problem is likely to be compounded with the rise in unemployment and lack of new jobs resulting from the current economic recession." (E-Health Insurance, 1)
Because such matters should be considered a significant priority, the budgetary focus…...
He also recommends investing in a oth IA, rather than a traditional 401K, because the oth accounts are safer and usually pay back higher dividends. He says, "Generally 401k and 403b accounts underperform IA accounts because they offer less options and flexibility for investments and impose higher fees" (Green 101). He talks about how the stock market is not such a good investment anymore since it fell in 2008, and he offers ways to make the stock market more effective. These are all good ways to get finances back on track once you have saved some money, and they make you feel more effective in managing your own financial future.
A big portion of the last part of the book is devoted to the stock market and how to make it work for you. This is probably the most confusing part of the book. It is written as simply as possible,…...
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References
Green, Charles. The Money Game: Play to Win, Put the Odds in Your Favor. 2009.
Catherine's Hospital and it is the desire of the human resource department to help you in any way possible. This is not a situation that is a happy one for anyone involved.
I have investigated what can be done, and unfortunately, there is not a lot that we can do to get the insurance company to pay the bill. The operation took place in an out-of-network hospital, and the HMO plan which you chose when joining our company does not cover out-of-network procedures. The plan does offer two alternatives, unfortunately you chose neither one.
There are, however, a number of different options that are available to you at this point. One of the options is to explain to the hospital what happened, and see if there is a possibility of setting up some type of payment plan. We have worked with this hospital's financial department and they are very cooperative with…...
A. The entity receives payment in exchange for providing a consumer report
B. The entity regularly assembles or evaluates information about consumers
C.The entity furnishes consumer reports
D.The entity uses means of interstate commerce for the purpose of preparing or furnishing consumer reports
Suppose a consumer reporting agency (falsely) reports that a consumer has defaulted on a credit card debt, which of the following is true?
A. The consumer can sue the CRA for defamation
B. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau can take enforcement action against the CRA for violating the reasonable procedures requirement
C.The consumer must dispute the inaccurate information in order to have any right to sue.
D. Only the consumer can take action against the CRA.
Suppose that a bank (falsely and negligently) tells a CRA that a consumer has defaulted on a credit card debt, which of the following is true?
A. The consumer can sue the bank for defamation
B. The consumer can sue the bank…...
There are several steps individuals can take to achieve financial independence in today's economy:
1. Create a budget and stick to it: This is the foundation of any financial plan. By tracking your income and expenses, you can identify areas where you can cut back and save more money.
2. Save and invest wisely: Make saving a priority by automatically transferring money into a savings or investment account each month. Consider investing in assets that provide long-term growth potential, such as stocks, bonds, or real estate.
3. Pay off high-interest debt: Focus on paying off high-interest debt, such as credit card debt, as....
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