Credit Card Fee Limits

ABC News reports that a new law regarding credit card fee limits will be passing soon (Monday if all goes well). The law limits how quickly/easily credit card companies can raise their rates. It won't let the government cap the rates, but it will force companies to make it clearer to their users what there rates/limits will be.

ABC states that, "Credit card consumers will soon see expanded protections, fewer fees and more clarity thanks to a so-called Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights that is working its way through Congress. The Senate passed its version of legislation by a 90-5 vote this afternoon and the House has already approved its own version."

Again, easiest way to keep the companies from taking advantage of us? Stop using them. Seriously.

Credit Card Companies Going To Make Us Pay

According to a New York Times article, "Now Congress is moving to limit the penalties on riskier borrowers, who have become a prime source of billions of dollars in fee revenue for the industry. And to make up for lost income, the card companies are going after those people with sterling credit."

Easy answer to that? Stop using credit cards. Seriously.

Identity Theft?

By MR, Age 14

The word identity is used in many different ways, but when you apply it to a person, its most essential definition is: "the distinguishing character or personality of an individual." A distinctive personality is what every teenager strives to find. "Coming into their own" or "discovering who they really are" have become common ways to define the search for an identity that a young person undergoes. Everyone is unique with indivdual ambitions, weaknesses, hopes and plans. Each of these things plays into how our ultimate identity is shaped.

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A Family's Fight Against Chemo. Who Decides?

A family in Minnesota is fighting for the right to allow their son to choose to NOT receive chemo as a treatment for his cancer. So far they are losing. The courts have ordered them to get new x-rays to determine if the cancer has grown/spread, and will issue a court order for him to begin treatment if it has. They will go so far as to put this child into the foster care system in order to do so. The boy has said that if they force him to get the treatment, that he will kick and fight. Doctors from several children's hospitals have testified during this case. They all talk of therapies that help the kids get through treatments. But all are unsure if they could or would 'force' a kid to receive the treatment.

There are a lot of issues surrounding this story, not all is as it seems.

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Small Church Gives It All Away

This is just amazing...

"The Filling Station is a unique name for a small church that is doing things in a big way.

Like all small churches, the 30-member congregation in Westlake, California, dreamed of future growth and slowly collected $75,000 in a special building fund. But in an instant, they gave it all away. Every penny went to help rebuild a church in Sudan that had been destroyed during the nation’s brutal civil war.

“The Lord put it on our hearts that we really didn’t need a building,” said Steve Ridinger, pastor of The Filling Station. “We’re beginning to think globally in terms of God’s kingdom, asking ourselves, is there really a need for us to be doing this or that here in our own back yard, or is there a greater need somewhere else?”

The answer to that question arrived in their mailbox."

Go read the story, "Small Church, Big Heart." And see how one little church made big changes for a group of people who have lost so much.