MMS Newsletter 005 Regarding Jim's Travels

Is There An Ethical Basis For Seeking Personal Debt Reduction?
Staff at Selfarise.com

A heavy weight of debt stops the forward excursions of life. The effects are visible, destructive, and hard to hide. The human mind and spirit was not designed to carry an overbearing weight of debt. It appears out of nowhere sometimes, suddenly exceeding our ability to deal with it.

If debt becomes overwhelming and we recognize there's little hope of digging out, the mind soon comes up with the angel fantasy. There's supposed to be an unexpected outside force - an saving angel who will appear to help us get out from under the crushing weight. But will that friendly outside force get here before the repossession truck hauls away the stereo and couch? A miracle right now would be very nice - like a helicopter air-lift - a force with power to lift debt's weight. Life is supposed to move forward, but the mortgage company wants all back-payments brought up to date. "Please, somebody out there, help me."

Well, there is an air-lift ready and waiting, so don't wave it away. A few companies specialize in cutting loans and debts by 50 to 70%. We are not talking here about mere consolidation of debts. This article is about expert services where they actually re-negotiate and cut your debt in half - or better. Their ads appear on radio and TV but many people wave them off. They don't understand how this could be legal, right, or possible. If all is going well, there's no reason to even think about it.

This article addresses the basic question - why debt relief is so often overlooked when people could actually walk away from half their debts and rebuild their dismal credit ratings.

Some of these services are free. The debt-reduction companies want the challenge. They want to call our banks or lenders and negotiate big debt reductions for us. One of the free ones, for example, is in the US at (888) 429-1575 ext A6131 or at http://ReduceDebts.biz .

I wondered how these people get paid? How can experts and strategists at these agencies provide free services for us? The answer is that when they negotiate to reduce our debts, the banks or lenders pay the service agencies - willingly and cheerfully - for reasons that you will see. There's no up-front fee.

A $40,000 debt can sometimes be reduced to $16,000 or less for us debtors and a new payment plan can be set up that favors us and our budgets. We even have a say in how a new low payment schedule is set up in the end. These debt-reduction specialists won't bill you later.

You might think everyone would just stop paying credit card payments if they knew about these services - but that's not a problem at all. While our income lasts, most people pay their monthly payments reliably because they agreed to do it. Driven by ethics, most people "pay their bills."

The question is "What stops you or me from calling to seek help when we carry more debt-load than we can manage? We need help but we won't call for outside assistance. WHY?" The people who venture to make the call - they end up smiling again. After a brief dialog, experienced attorneys go to work negotiating to have debts cut down to a manageable amount - at no charge. But still, most people hesitate or never make the call.

Can you think of what it is that stops people like us from calling or filling out a little form that could reduce our debts 60% or more? Why don't we jump and make the call to get the process started before another late payment is etched into our embarrassing credit reports forever?

Debt reductions vary case by case, but the results are beneficial, typically ranging from 35% to 60% or greater debt reductions. I can't find a web site complaining that these service agencies are scammers, or shady, or scary, or time consuming, or trouble-making. I can't find anyone complaining. In fact, there are plenty of pleased customers. You may end up with 2/3 lower monthly payments than you have now.

WE HESITATE BECAUSE we think it's immoral to ask for debts to be reduced. We look down on other people who think they're entitled to "bailouts" paid for by someone else. So, for lack of information about how it works, we graze along oblivious, choosing to continue the hopelessness of heavy personal debt. Sometimes we realize that our debts may never be repaid in this lifetime - but we dismiss reduction options - "It would be a futile waste of time," we think, "and it would be wrong anyway."

If you were about to call the debt-reduction phone number, you might secretly rehearse the conversation ahead of time. See if this is what you'd anticipate:

You call the number and hear a stranger begin with questions, asking about how you got into such a financial mess. You might imagine the conversation going downhill with questions you don't want to answer - maybe lasting 30 minutes, going on and on. As the interviewer gradually losses patience with you they will probably lose their cool and blurt out -

"What ever made you think someone was going to help with your debts? Think you're someone special? Did you imagine banks were going to say 'Ok, let's just forgive those debts?' You think some bank president is going to say 'SURE, let's just reduce these debts way down for this special nice person who can't make payments on time. We'll just forget the contract they signed and the payments they never made - let's just erase it from the bank books.' How could you possibly have thought that?"

In other words, "Who do you think you are?"

But who is saying these words? It's our own silly-psyche inventing thoughts that have no basis. We invent our own incriminating guilt - all unwarranted for lack of knowledge. But then, we actually START BELIEVING that dialogue. We hear ourselves rehearsing it over and over so it must be true. Self-fulfilling prophecies - IS IT CLEAR WHAT'S HAPPENING HERE?

The person at the debt reduction center who interviews us about our debt details, they NEVER think those thoughts. The lawyers who want to go to work for us - they know how the financial world is structured and your guilt-morality dramas are not an issue. The bankers with whom they negotiate - there's no morality talk there because attorneys know what to say and they know how it all operates - which has nothing to do with our mistaken self-punishing morality chatter.

Most of us are uninformed about how credit and loan systems are wired together so we assume the worst. WE CHOOSE TO IGNORE offers of help (the air lift) even when family around us are damaged by our late payments and mounting debts. So we drift onward ignoring these outside saviors that stand ready to lift the weight of debt.

There are ethical factors that far out-weigh the thoughts that hold us back. They will be exposed here. There is an ethical basis for investigating what these companies can do. The facts will raise us above childish indoctrination. There are reasons for going speedily to seek debt-reduction services once you realize that it's the right thing to do. There are times when we should and must seek outside assistance, an intervening negotiator, an air-lift, a specialist. THERE ARE FIVE LOGICAL REASONS THAT GIVE YOU AN ETHICAL BASIS FOR ACCEPTING HELP.

BASIS 1. Lending institutions are not harmed when they agree to reduce our debts or liabilities. They are helped.

OK. You bought some stuff on credit - maybe a gym membership. Plus you bought gas using gas credit cards, and you're behind on house rent or mortgage payment.

Now hard times set in. Maybe your second job vanished, and people who owed you money failed to pay. Now banks are writing scary letters and bill collectors call with veiled threats. Re-possession trucks might show up next month. They may haul away the nine-month old refrigerator. Maybe the sofa too.

This won't be easy, but I will try to show you that the lending institutions have their problems, too!

Bank administrators look very very bad (like really really bad) if monthly reports from the bank go upstairs to their Federal Reserve Regional Bank showing red-lined delinquent loans. To their superiors the bank administrators look like incompetent bad managers. Their follies show up in bright red on paper and on computer screens. Upstairs, it looks like the bank made a lot of bad judgments when loaning us money. Whereas we look bad for missing payments, THE BANK LOOKS BAD FOR HAVING MADE THE LOAN. If there was some way to salvage any bad loan, they would probably want to do it.

Since the bank or other lenders are tolerating delinquent monthly payments from us, and since other people are also behind on their payments, the lending institutions are in a threatening situation. THEIR BANK COULD BE CLOSED DOWN - as is happening. MANY ARE! EVERY MONTH!

CNN News published on July 31, 2009 that five US banks failed that week. Some had 50 branches - all now closed. The closing CNN quote was "Many banks failed because too many local residents . . . took out loans but were unable to pay them back." Five in one week. Click Here for this CNN news.

The following week - four more failed. These links may become obsolete but you can see the full list of failed banks anytime at http://fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/banklist.html

To avoid the threat of bankruptcy, banks and lenders would rather reduce our debts and receive smaller token payments based on reduced loan amounts - rather than display our red lines on their bank-health reports month after month.

So if you thought it would be unfair to the (poor little) bank or lender to discuss a plan for reducing your debts, get over it. Ask an expert to negotiate for you. The lender would rather keep you as a paying customer - even if they have to cut your outstanding debts in half. Maybe the lender can stay in business another month or two - otherwise they face SHUT DOWN. Wouldn't it be IMMORAL for us to reject outside help when experts (at no cost) want to help us survive the weight of punishing debts?

There is nothing unethical about welcoming outside help in reducing your debts. It is helpful all around.

BASIS 2. The bank making the loan was fully repaid a few weeks after they made the loan to us - even before we made our first payment.

The fine print that accompanied your loan doesn't explain this. The lender made out like a bandit when they approved your loan. If the loan was for $10,000, upon approval the lender turned around to the Federal Reserve bank above them and turned in paperwork requesting $100,000 to be advanced into their local coffers based on the loan they made to us. Why?

This is how new money enters the culture. They loan $10,000 to us but they get $90,000 extra loaded onto the bank's books within a few weeks. With this money they are expected to lend more freely to small businesses, approve more mortgages, and (have you heard?) they are supposed to reward big million dollar bonuses to their bank executives for being so intelligent and savvy. Some of that extra cash is also used to make the bank look pretty, mow the lawn, maintain new bank computers, buy latest software, pay network fees, pay salaries to staff, polish the ATM machine, and replenish toasters and gifts to attract new bank customers. My local bank has free ice-cream and popcorn every Friday.

They held our feet to the fire while they "considered" whether we were worthy of a loan. But behind the scene they were giggling while waiting to be very well rewarded for letting us have our little loans. They got 900% additional cash above the amount they loaned to us. What a deal. If this is the first you've heard of this, take a break while you adjust to it. It's ok to feel exploited and humiliated by the secret games that play out in the world of loans and monthly payments. THE BANK ALREADY GOT PAID, while threatening you for missing a few late payments.

In the bank's view of the world, it's not good for them to be holding reclaimed houses (mortgage defaults), reclaimed cars, reclaimed sofas, nor to have homeless people on their list of customers. Banks don't like that so they listen cooperatively when negotiators call to talk about reducing our debts and our unpaid payments.

The lender would rather get some small monthly payment from us to salvage the loan rather than to force us out of our house or into situations where the loan becomes totally red ink on their books. You do hear stories about cycles when banks are rude to debtors, showing no forgiveness, and offering no alternative plans for help. That occurs when banks join together briefly to make political points, or to scare people into making payments. That's why we can't call our lenders ourselves to negotiate debt reductions - we don't know how and they would wave our contract in our faces.

Attorneys at the reduction service centers, however, know exactly how to achieve debt reductions for us. SO WE SHOULD WELCOME OUTSIDE HELP. It is not only immoral, but dumb to refuse skilled negotiators who can help - at no cost to us.

HAVE YOU THOUGHT OF THIS? At the bank if a $10,000 loan looks like it will never be repaid, the bank is in a position of being FORCED to give back $90,000 dollars to the fairy godmother who already printed $100,000 fresh bills (actually they advanced credit) giving it to the bank ON CONDITION that our loans were real and in process of repayment. Talk about PAIN in the bank's back office!

So when debt reduction specialists call a bank or lender to negotiate debt reduction for us, there are no fights, arguments, or law suits. No, the bank usually talks cooperatively with the negotiators to bring you back into a life that moves forward with happier excursions - a much lower payment plan that you are more likely to afford and might be grateful to accept.

There is nothing unethical in seeking help in reducing our debts.

BASIS 3. Your damaged credit rating can be improved and more quickly rebuilt.

You can look at your credit reports if you want to - no charge but it may be painful. Use the Internet to search for "free credit report" and pull in a copy of your official reports. If you ever missed a payment on your past loans, those failures will glare at you on the reports. They may date back to your teen-age years when you got your first cell phone and thought your parents were going to pay for 45 minute calls you made to Internet friends in other countries.

Unless I can awaken you with these words, you are going to either seek debt-reduction by calling the debt-reduction specialists, OR, those credit reports are going to get worse and worse as each month passes.

Even if income improves and you begin a catch-up process, those ugly reports won't change - maybe for years - unless you call (877) 265-0245 extension A6130, for example. Cleaning up your ugly credit reports are part of the debt-reduction process. Various options will be discussed with you.

Since credit reports show an actual history of delinquencies, the only hope for making our ratings better is to let debt-reduction specialists complete a cycle of negotiating with all your lending institutions.

As new and lower payment schedules are put in place, negotiating attorneys will notify national credit-rating companies. Actions of one type or another will begin the clean-up process, leading to a cleaner slate as we move forward with lower, manageable payments.

Improvement in credit reports is one of the ethical reasons for moving ahead with debt-reduction - sooner rather than later. We owe it to ourselves to take advantage of perhaps the only method of over-riding some of the sad history that will otherwise be on display for the rest of our lives like an obsolete report card that makes us look incompetent and unreliable even when we are taking these reduction actions.

If your high school report card had a grade of "F" somewhere it will always be there but very few people will use that to form opinions about you as a mature adult. However, credit ratings are visible forever to those who might hire us in the future and others who might have a need to know. It is ethical to seek outside help because it would mark the turnaround date on our reports.

BASIS 4. Mind-conditioning propaganda tricked us to think that debt reduction is at least immoral and probably illegal.

We're conditioned to think "Maybe it's a way to scam me. If I fill out the Internet form, they will put me onto a government list. I'll lose my privacy. They will probably bill me later for add-on services. Only low-life people would beg for help. It's just one more false hope to imagine that my financial situation can be improved when I know how hopeless it really is." Did you ever think those thoughts? This is the essence of mind control. Relentless conditioning by the media.

The advertising of lending institutions instill these ideas purposefully - that nothing can be done. We're reminded over and over that we're up against a ton of debt. We aren't supposed to think we can get out of credit card payments or other debts. Ten pages of fine print make that clear - in writing - legally signed all around - or so it seems.

Debtors must be kept believing that they are fully enslaved. We signed binding papers involving possible loss of assets and property. Future earnings MUST go toward monthly payments and there's no way out, we think.

We are told repeatedly to believe this, so OK, we do. "If I have to become homeless, if I have to starve, if I have to put children out for adoption, if I have to go to debtor's prison, I will do it. It's my own doing. I deserve penalties whatever they may be. I was bad. I lost my job. I'm behind 5 months on payments. Government and lenders expect me to make payments and there's no reason for any of them to forgive me when I fail to make payments. Nothing can be done because otherwise nobody would pay their bills. Everyone would be skipping out. Credit card bills would be tossed if there was any truth to it. Hope springs eternal, but I won't be fooled by it."

Do you see the corporate mind-control strategy at play here? Thoughtful people have to break through the induced hypnotic trance, but many indebted people think thoughts based on childish truisms. Debt reduction strategists get calls all day from the people who BROKE THROUGH THE FOG - people who recognize the falsehoods thrust upon us gullible souls.

Experts sit by the phone while we read this but they only swing into action for the people who break the indoctrinated trance.

Whatever blocks our positive motion to reduced debts, they are mind-conditioning premises that are patently false. If we are sinking in despair about debts, should we continue to hesitate for reasons of subliminal indoctrination?

Many good things happen to people when they make the call for help. We are too entranced by ghostly apparitions on a thousand TV channels stating the messages that now control our minds and hold us back. But propaganda can be overcome - usually by truth!

Truth written here may help overcome our slave-master's agenda. We can't be kept in slavery if we realize that no harm will be done if we ask for help with our debts. Propaganda melts away in the light of truth.

Try to visualize the faces of thousands of happy people whose homes were saved, marriages salvaged, futures secured - all because a skillful expert designed a plan for normalized low monthly payments and it lifted us out of the slavery of hopeless debt.

BASIS 5. (Add insult to injury) We are paying INTEREST to the bank on top of the 900% income they already got from the Federal Reserve.

There's not much need to expand on this exploitive practice. You may have heard that some religious organizations consider "usury" to be unethical and shameful. However, to us gullible borrowers, we imagine that for making the loan to us, the lender deserves to get some reward by demanding more money back than they loaned. A $10,000 loan may cost you $25,000 over three years when all interest costs are added (compound interest.) This is not simple interest we're paying. Some credit cards charge huge interest (whenever they can) - 14% or 22%, plus penalties, plus the prime rate, plus fees.

But wasn't your loan already repaid with 900% interest to the bank by (Fanny May) or other clearing houses? That was BASIS 2 above. If you have a sense of being exploited, it is understandable.

Of course, back then we needed the money so badly at loan time that we would probably accept whatever interest rates were on the loan agreement. We did sign it. Then the bank got reimbursed with 900% gain to spare. And where did the Federal Reserve get that money to dish out to the bank? They printed it. Then later the FED will ask the US treasury to repay that money, getting it from us the tax payers. That 900% gain that the bank got - eventually we will pay that in taxes - on top of the current debt load. And with trillions of US treasury debts there's some question if citizens can every pay enough taxes to save the country or the government. Silently we and our families become indentured slaves - on into the future, generation after generation if the current system of "debt-money" continues.

But we are here and how. We are defaulting on our little loans today. We're unable to make payments, so let's get our heads on straight - our monthly interest payments are like pennies in the larger picture of what the bank has already received. You are awakening to realize you are in a trap that was set up for you with laws and policies to enslave you beyond all logical reason. No lender actually deserves 900% reimbursement for making a loan PLUS the legal ability to charge exorbitant monthly interest that you are contracted to pay - and those payments are pure profit on top of the 900% gain the lender got.

Current laws and policies enable lenders to do clever enslavement, but if experienced attorneys make calls on your behalf, they know how the credit and loan market is wired together and they can often achieve a 40% or 60% reduction in your debt. Sometimes more. They also work out a low payment plan that your budget will more likely meet.

2,688 US banks are on a list of "Weakest Banks At Risk For Closing." They are at this address: [ Here ] . Their bank ratings are D+ or below based on assets and liabilities. 2,688 banks - that's a big number. The list shows their names and addresses. There are 2,688 failing banks that hope you can keep making token payments even if the scope of your debt has to be cut in half.

Otherwise there will soon be a bank holiday that makes them all close for a while, many perhaps never to reopen. Lenders and banks that are about to fail need our payments to make up for other mistakes they have made. MISTAKES?: yes. They are not financial wizards or they would not have bought worthless derivatives with their spare cash. And why did they gamble with off-the-books debentures whose losses were sure to haunt them?

The five factors above provide a logical basis regarding why it is ethical for you to seek debt reduction.

A reduction of your debt is good for the general economy, good for lenders, and good for debtors, especially in these difficult times experienced by millions of people.

Summary:
Reject false morality phobias. Conditioned as we are, this is an example of how "half-truths-repeated-often" can freeze the mind into self-defeating laziness and trance-like thoughtless behavior. Disinformation and falsehoods are laid on us daily in fine print contracts, warning letters, and calls from bill collectors. Do you feel the shame and guilt they want you to experience? They hope so.

We have undressed our ill-founded hesitation about seeking debt reduction. Viewed in the light, our hesitations are baseless -a flawed phobia, an understandable error, but propped up by limited information and half truths. Then we keep it alive ourselves with fear and guilt. Will we ever break free? Yes.

Talk yourself into moral actions based on truth. Make the call because "It's the right thing to do." Ask an expert to assess the possibility of negotiating a 25% reduction, a 40% reduction, or a 60% or greater reduction of your legal debts.

When you call, ask them how much it costs (nothing). Ask if it can potentially improve your credit ratings over time. Ask if it will get you in trouble. Ask if it's harmful to your lender. Think about the positive outcome for all the people around you if your debts are legally reduced by 40% or 60%.

In the US call (888) 429-1575 ext A6130 or visit http://ReduceDebts.biz . Debt-reduction strategists await these calls.

A heavy weight of debt stops the forward excursions of life.