New Jimi Hendrix album coming March 2013!
On March 5th, a collection of 12 previously unreleased recordings by Jimi Hendrix will see the light. People, Hell and Angels follows Hendrix in 1968 and 1969 as he works on material apart from the Jimi Hendrix Experience and suggests new, experimental directions.
Read MoreCredit Scores: How the mortgage meltdown permanently impacts many blacks’ finances
A recent Washington Post article examined how the meltdown in the mortgage market has led to a sharp decline in credit scores for blacks. The Post article emphasized how poor credit makes it much tougher to secure loans and gain access to credit, especially for African-Americans. The significant loss of black wealth through foreclosures following the disproportionate number of costly sub-prime mortgages granted to blacks might place many African-Americans in a permanent bad credit underclass.
“At issue are the largely invisible but profoundly influential three-digit credit scores that help determine who can buy a car, finance a college education or own a home,” the Post said. But talking about credit scores exclusively in the context of credit and loans is incomplete and misses the mark. In reality, the financial fallout from having bad credit touches a person’s life in many more ways – not the least of which relate to jobs, housing and insurance. Critical areas of social functioning impacted include:
- Being able to rent an apartment in a decent neighborhood
- Being able to purchase inexpensive homeowner’s or renter’s insurance
- Being able to qualify for reasonably-priced car insurance
- Being able to get a job if you’re unemployed
- Being able to secure a promotion if you’re already working
Believe it or not, all of these things may be out of reach – or certainly far more difficult and costly – if you have a poor credit rating. And herein lies the problem for many blacks, and others, too. Now that so many African-Americans have lost their wealth through losing their homes, many more may also face the fallout that the resultant poor credit scores will bring. And that aftermath may unfold indefinitely.
The problem is that Americans, by and large, tend to only pay attention to their credit ratings when it’s time to apply for a loan or credit. In fact, a survey from the National Foundation for Credit Counseling revealed that seven out of 10 Americans don’t check their credit reports each year. Ditto for people checking their credit scores.
Sure, we may pull our credit reports when it’s time to buy a home or refinance a mortgage. Or we may check our credit scores before seeking another credit card or filling out a student loan application. But what about the times when there’s no banker scrutinizing your financial history?
“If you walked up to 100 people and asked: ‘Do you know your credit score?’ I’ll bet less than a quarter of them do,” says Bill Hardekopf, chief executive of LowCards.com. “Unfortunately, the credit score doesn’t get the attention it really deserves even though it has so many far-reaching ramifications.”
Does bad credit = no job?
US poverty on track to rise to highest since 1960s
WASHINGTON (AP) – The ranks of America’s poor are on track to climb to levels unseen in nearly half a century, erasing gains from the war on poverty in the 1960s amid a weak economy and fraying government safety net.
Census figures for 2011 will be released this fall in the critical weeks ahead of the November elections.
The Associated Press surveyed more than a dozen economists, think tanks and academics, both nonpartisan and those with known liberal or conservative leanings, and found a broad consensus: The official poverty rate will rise from 15.1 percent in 2010, climbing as high as 15.7 percent. Several predicted a more modest gain, but even a 0.1 percentage point increase would put poverty at the highest level since 1965.
Poverty is spreading at record levels across many groups, from underemployed workers and suburban families to the poorest poor. More discouraged workers are giving up on the job market, leaving them vulnerable as unemployment aid begins to run out. Suburbs are seeing increases in poverty, including in such political battlegrounds as Colorado, Florida and Nevada, where voters are coping with a new norm of living hand to mouth.
“I grew up going to Hawaii every summer. Now I’m here, applying for assistance because it’s hard to make ends meet. It’s very hard to adjust,” said Laura Fritz, 27, of Wheat Ridge, Colo., describing her slide from rich to poor as she filled out aid forms at a county center. Since 2000, large swaths of Jefferson County just outside Denver have seen poverty nearly double.
Fritz says she grew up wealthy in the Denver suburb of Highlands Ranch, but fortunes turned after her parents lost a significant amount of money in the housing bust. Stuck in a half-million dollar house, her parents began living off food stamps and Fritz’s college money evaporated. She tried joining the Army but was injured during basic training.
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Ab-Soul & SchoolBoy Q at The Cabooze Mpls,MN 6.14.12
Not sure who Ab-Soul is? Don’t be ashamed, Ab-Soul is fairly new to the scene, but Soul is slowly but surely making a mark on the game. Hailing from the Left-Coast reaping TDE with fellow artist SchoolBoy Q and Kendrick Lamar, form quite the Big 3. If you would like to hear more music from Ab-Soul checkout his latest release “Control Systems”
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The quarterly magazine distributed by 4Seen Publications is a creative lifestyle resource serving all communities. 4Seen provides publicity for National recording artists and businesses, as well as community-specific news and editorial content.
