Saving Plans for College Avoid Student Loans

This week as the discussions began about Bush-McCain $700B bailout plan for Wall Street banks, several commentators have been highlighting that a credit squeeze would mean that it would become difficult to borrow money and get student loans for college tuition.

If you have very young children and want to ensure that their college education is paid for without difficulty, here are a few tips that will help you accomplish your goal:

1. Plan your pregnancy so that you are mentally and financially prepared to cope with the responsibility of having a child.

2. Start to save for your child's education from the day he/she is born. Both parents and grandparents can set aside $25-$50/month in a trust fund to mature when the child celebrates its 18th birthday or is accepted to college.

3. Research various savings plans, annuities or scholarship funds, such as a 529 plan.

4. Follow your child's progress as he/she starts school and get tutors or support to keep him confident and motivated.

5. Extra-curricular activities are important to help kids stay focus and challenged because they have to balance school with the other activities thus developing skills for life's many challenges.

6. There are certain tax benefits as the plan participant.

7. Each state now has at least one 529 plan available but it's each state's decision to offer plans and the structure so it's important to research the features and benefits in depth before investing.

George Bush Eight is Enough in Forty Days

For McCain it's politics as usual. The political maverick has ceased the opportunity to cut bait and run because he's been fishing all day and can't seem to catch anything. So Bush throws him a free pass - the worse political man-made economic crisis since the great depression. Where's the evidence to support this catastrophe? Give us all the files, all the details no exception, no bull - please don't spear us from ourselves?

McCain goes further - let's postpone the debate. In other words, postpone the people's business of getting any sense of who's most qualified to handle many crises at once. Now, he's saying that if a deal is not reached by Friday on Bush's $700B bailout of Wall Street, he's not going to the debate. More Bush tactics by McCain, it's my way or the highway. Is this the change that McCain talks about?

We have only 40-days left of George Bush's term in office so there is plenty of time to work out clear, decisive options for the Wall Street crisis. This is Bush's last ditch attempt to save his friends, give them money to run to Switzerland or some such place to avoid FBI prosecution. Remember, Martha Stewart she went to jail for less - where's the justice?

We, the people, will have the power in 40-days. Don't let them diminish your power by frightening you into doing what Bush tells you. Use the power of your vote wisely. This is the one time that you get to decide to end the killing of your innocent children in unnecessary wars. Tell Bush that you postpone action on his crisis until you vote for the person that can fix it.

Let the financial markets deal with the crisis. Warren Buffet just invested $9B in Goldman Sachs and others like him will buy the profitable entities on Wall Street and the unprofitable ones will go bankrupt - that's what happens in Capitalism.

Tell your Congressman that if he supports this $700B bailout for Wall Street, you will not vote for them. Let them know also that they are people dispossessed by hurricane, Gustav and it will take months, if not years to get them the help they need to re-build their lives but somehow Wall Street has to get help in 7-days. Let them know that you can see clearly who's important to the Republicans and it's not ordinary people.

Political Man-Made Economic Crisis

Do you believe that economic crises can be man-made for political as well as economic gains?

Once again, we are acting because George W. Bush has put a gun to our heads. One year ago all this whole mortgage meltdown started after George W. Bush had demanded in 2004 that he wanted to see every American owning a home.

There was a CNN documentary that highlighted how his cronies rushed to target low-income, poor people that they knew could not carry a mortgage. They misled them into taking adjustable-rate mortgages knowing that when the mortgages reset at huge interest rates, the homeowners would be defaulting and they would benefit when these houses were foreclosed.

Then these technicians went a step further. They got AIG Insurance to insure these failed mortgages but didn't predict that the rate of foreclosures would be so rapid. These mortgages were bundled and sold as securities to investors around the world via stock market activities.

This all happened without any regulation or very little teeth in the system to stem the flow of this illegal activity. That is why I agree that we should not panic or act out of fear. George W. Bush has been able to push his agenda by fear each time.

9/11 is one of those times when he used our vulnerability and our fear to push his hidden agenda of war with Iraq. America wake up and if George Bush tells you to run, walk and if he tells you to walk, run like hell.