The Blame Game: Not Working Out So Well For Obama and Dems…

INSTANT CLASSIC: Rush Reads Six Pages of Headlines of Obama Blaming Others

Video:  INSTANT CLASSIC: Rush Reads Six Pages of Headlines of Obama Blaming Others

Poll:  Who is to blame for the U.S. credit downgrade?

Choices:

S&P, Republican,Tea Party, Obama and Democrats, All of Washington

Results Below (At time of posting):

Obama and Democrats 62.14%

All of Washington 33.97%

Tea Party 2.52%

Republicans 0.95%

S&P 0.41%

RETURN TO POLL

Quote of the Day:  Considering we have heard the exact same words over and over the past couple of days, it would seem that the liberal left sent out a memo, “Blame the tea party for the S & P credit rating downgrade and use the words tea party downgrade.  You would think that they’d realize that the people aren’t that stupid?!?” …Dana Parino   Yes, you’d think

When uber-lefties John Kerry, David Axelrod and Howard Dean all use the exact same words while trying to vilify the tea party… you know something is up.  Then through union boss Trumpka into the mix saying the same thing… you know there was a plan.

Mark Steyn, Bill O’Reilly, Karl Rove and a handful of others today agreed that Obama missed his opportunity in this crisis by again being silent and absent for 96-hours on the effect of the S & P downgrade.

Mark Steyn, author of the new book After America, said, “Obama is pathetic blaming the butcher and the baker… who are the tea party for his mistakes and ineptness.” Although it is finally becoming more and more plain to people paying attention that it is not ineptness, but rather part of the grand plan to “fundamentally transform America into a second rate country” and they are almost there, as most Americans are just waking up and the media who are awake are afraid to stopped from saying it.  Much of which is due to the MSM’s protection of Obama and their affect on us and our thinking is covered in  Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind

The reason the left hates the tea party and politicians like Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Rand Paul etc is because the Progressive left never factored them in and they are complicating their plans.  And the reason so many people feel the same way, when these are the people who are standing up for them is because of the demonization by the media and the Progressive Left.  Wake up America… Let’s not be the Sheeple the expected us to be.  Don’t let the liberal media think for you.  Do your homework!  And by the look of the poll above, people are!

There is another perspective:

Rick Santelli: Fired Up – If It Wasn’t for the tea Party W’ed be Rated Triple B!!

Rick Santelli — the man whose speech on stimulus and bailouts in February 2009 is credited with helping launch the Tea Party — was fired up in this morning about the lack of leadership in the White House and all the political wrangling around what is really a simple problem- the government spends too much money.

During the CNBC segment, Santelli ripped into the “blame Bush, blame the sun” culture currently on display in the White House. He said it’s clear “we all know deep inside no country is the same it was five years ago,” and as for stocks going down, “we’re already Ralph Cramden on thin ice, now an infant’s jumped onto our shoulders.”

More than anything else, Santelli was livid about the political accusations that the Tea Party is to blame for the U.S. credit downgrade. Quite to the Contrary, Santelli said, “If it wasn’t for the Tea Party, we’d have been rated triple B.”

The Santelli portion starts around 3:10 into the clip below, courtesy of CNBC:

The tea party is everyday people… you, me, the small business owner, the fiscal conservative, the patriot worried about this country, those concerned about the destruction of our Constitution, the butcher, the baker the candlestick maker… Independents, Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians or all races, creeds, religions and colors.  They focus on two issues fiscal responsibility and and preserving and following the Constitution; no social issues as part of the united fight. So why are they terrorists? anti-American?  Or scary?  They are exactly the opposite and the Progressive left is afraid of them because they are exposing their “grand plan” amd waking a lot of people up!

h/t to Fox News and the Blaze~

Credit bureau move creates 'secret' scores

Credit bureau Experian's recent move means lenders can see FICO scores that you can't. That's just wrong, and the law needs to catch up with today's credit scoring practices.

Experian wants to keep you in the dark.

There's really no other way to characterize the credit bureau's decision to stop selling FICO credit scores to individuals as of Feb. 14. Experian pulled out of its agreement with myFICO.com, which had been the only place where consumers could buy their FICO scores from all three bureaus.

Experian will continue to sell FICOs to lenders. That's big business, because the FICO is the leading credit scoring formula and the one used by most lenders.

But to consumers, Experian is pretending the FICO is no big deal.

"There is no one credit score that all financial institutions use to make decisions, and there is also no one credit score that consumers must use to help them understand and manage their credit," Experian spokeswoman Susan Hensen wrote me in an e-mail. "There are many reputable credit scores on the market that consumers can use to evaluate their creditworthiness before making financial decisions."

• Experian has been reciting this line for years. When consumers buy credit scores directly from Experian, they're sold what the bureau calls "educational" scores, Experian's PLUS or the VantageScore, a formula cooked up with the other two major bureaus that's gone over like a lead balloon with lenders.

So many consumers have been fooled by this gambit, thinking they're getting FICOs when they're not, that some consumer advocates refer to these other credit scores as "FAKO scores."

Why a FICO matters most

Experian's position is that a credit score is a credit score. But these non-FICOs have consequences:

• Mortgage brokers and other lending professionals have long complained -- even before the VantageScore was introduced -- that the bureaus' educational scores are often 30 to 100 points higher than consumers' FICO scores.

• The VantageScore's scale is so different from FICO's -- 501 to 990, compared with FICO's 300 to 850 -- that the same number means vastly different things. A 760 would be an excellent FICO score, for example, but a mediocre rating on VantageScore.

• The result is that would-be borrowers who bought something other than a FICO may think they're in a position to get a great rate, when they might not have a high enough score to get any loan.

Mortgages are also a prime example of why you need to see all three of your FICO scores, not just the two that are still available at myFICO.com.

That's because mortgage lenders typically pull all three of your FICO scores and use the middle one to determine your interest rate. If your FICO scores are 740 from Experian, 680 from TransUnion and 715 from Equifax, for example, most lenders will use the 715 score to set your rate.

If one of those scores is missing, you have no way of knowing what your middle score is or what rate you deserve. You're walking blind into one of the most important financial transactions of your life.

That's just scary.

No right to face your accuser?

In this particular case, consumers are the grass being trampled in a fight among the elephants: one of the credit bureaus and Fair Isaac, the company that created the FICO formula.

Experian Executive Vice President Peg Smith said the bureau didn't set out to cut consumers off from their FICO scores and in fact wanted to expand access to the scores by selling FICOs from Experian.com, something its agreement with Fair Isaac hadn't allowed.

But the terms of the new contract Fair Isaac proposed were "so unreasonable," Smith said, that Experian ended negotiations and decided to rethink its relationship with the scoring formula provider.

• Video: What Experian's pullout means

"This was never intended to disenfranchise consumers," Smith said. "They've been caught in the middle."

But what led to Experian's move isn't as important is that it happened.

And I say: Enough already. It's time that we stopped allowing our personal data to be seen solely as a profit center for big, faceless corporations. Your access to the information that's critical to your financial life shouldn't be left to the whims of credit bureaus or lenders or anyone else.

If anyone uses a score to evaluate you -- any score -- you should have the right to see that score and challenge the data that go into creating it.

Because FICOs aren't the only scores being used these days. Increasingly, lenders use all manner of proprietary formulas to judge you, as I wrote in "8 secret scores that lenders keep." Two of these secret scores are particularly important these days:

Bankruptcy scores purport to predict the likelihood that you'll throw in the towel on your debt. That's different from a credit score, which predicts the risk of default -- essentially, of missing one payment. As bankruptcies once again mount-- U.S. consumer bankruptcy filings rose 34.4% in January, after topping 1 million last year -- you can bet that every credit card issuer you have is applying its version of a bankruptcy score to your account.

If you don't score well, you can expect the consequences to be more drastic than if the issuer was concerned you'd merely default. You might face a much higher interest rate or even a frozen account as your issuers try to limit their losses.

But you have no right to see this number, know the calculations that went into it or challenge any errors in the data used.

Transactions scores, meanwhile, are applied every time you use your plastic. They're designed to predict the likelihood a transaction might be fraudulent, but they can also be applied to your spending patterns to hunt for signs you might be a growing risk. If you go from shopping at Saks and dining at Per Se to charging groceries at Wal-Mart and taking cash advances, you could be singled out for punitive action.

American Express apparently used transaction scores when it recently told customers it was cutting their credit limits in part because of where they shopped.

But once again, you have no right to see your transaction scores, even when they're used to take adverse action against you.

It's your score, and it's time to claim it

Clearly, federal law needs to catch up with lender practices.

Federal law has long guaranteed your right to see your credit reports. Companies that use your reports against you -- to deny your application for credit, insurance or employment, for example, or to take any other adverse action against you -- are supposed to explicitly tell you that's what has happened. They're also supposed to tell you which bureaus provided the reports and give you contact information so you can review your files and dispute any errors.

In 2003, you were also given the right to buy your credit scores from the bureaus. But the law doesn't specify you have to be given the same scores lenders use.

It's time to fix that and extend consumer protections to the other scores that are being used to evaluate you.

Simply put: If a score is used against you for any reason, you should have a right to see that score, know how it was calculated and protest any errors in the data used to calculate it.

If you agree, tell your lawmakers. This link will help you find your House representative, and you can find your senators here. Send them a link to this column, and let them know the days of consumers being kept in the dark about their scores must end.

By: Liz Pulliam Weston, MSN Money, Author of  Your Credit Score: How to Fix, Improve, and Protect the 3-Digit Number that Shapes Your Financial Future, 2nd Edition

Liz's latest Book:  Easy Money: How to Simplify Your Finances and Get What You Want out of Life" (Liz Pulliam Weston)

Columns by Weston, the Web's most-read personal-finance writer and winner of a Clarion Award for online journalism, appear every Monday and Thursday, exclusively on MSN Money. She also answers reader questions on the Your Money message board

Source:  Daily Though Pad