With all of the doomsday news about THE ECONOMY as if it were an entity unto itself, it should be pointed out that THE ECONOMY is actually made up of millions of smaller “economies” called businesses, companies, corporations, and sole proprietorships. The indicator of how well each of these smaller entities handles their money management responsibilities is what makes up the general condition of THE ECONOMY.

I saw the economic crisis coming years ago, and I’ve been warning my readers and my business owner clients about this dangerous financial condition for the past several years. The current economic condition is never the fault of THE ECONOMY. The money management practices of businesses, the government and American households create the economic condition.

Let’s take AIG (American International Group, Inc.) for example, since they just received a bailout loan of $85 billion from the Federal Government. This is a multi-national company selling insurance, investments and retirement accounts. That means their income comes out of the pockets of individuals and other companies, and they have a fiduciary responsibility to pay their clients’ insurance claims and invest their investor clients’ money in things that are supposed to make the client money.

This company, with trillions of dollars in assets, is not just experiencing financial instability, they are beyond broke. They had to have a huge bailout loan to have a prayer of surviving for one more day. And what did their press release say? They said, “Policyholders of AIG companies around the world can rest assured that AIG’s commitments will continue to be honored.” What I feel must be said is that they committed TREASON [Treason: Betrayal After Trust] against their policyholders and drove their company to the brink of bankruptcy and could not honor their commitments to their policy holders, so ‘We The People’ have to bail them out and now We The People own this company which is collateral against the loan.

Is this debacle the fault of regulatory mistakes? To a degree it possibly is. Is it due to the current “economic scene”? No way! This is a company that is so large that it has massive effects on creating the economic scene. You don’t drive a trillion dollar company into bankruptcy overnight or over a few months. And I’m not singling out AIG here. Look at what is happening to the banking, mortgage, real estate and investment companies.

There is no confusion in my mind about how this happened. The treason starts with small violations of sound financial policies and continues to evolve into gross financial irregularities, all in the name of posting a profit and making the stockholders happy. The senior executives of any publicly owned company consider it their first duty to please the stockholders every quarter, year after year, even if it is at the expense of their clients. The senior executives in power at any given time do not want to be the ones bearing the bad news to the stockholders and, in doing so, put their personal reputation and their million dollar salaries on the line. So little violations begin, and then bigger and bigger ones, until complete betrayal of not only the policy holders but, the shareholders as well, becomes reality.

And make no mistake, the consumers and clients of those companies are also committing treason against themselves. According to the newest data from the Federal Reserve, as of December last year revolving consumer credit card debt stood at 943 billion dollars. Revolving debt is set to reach one trillion dollars later this year. That’s *trillion* with a “tr”. Earlier in 2008, a Vice President of a U.S. bank stated that over 24 Billion dollars was paid out in interest, late fees and over-limit fees last year on credit cards. That means Americans are committing financial irregularities and treasonous acts against their own households’ economic well-being. But the credit companies are equally to blame for granting that much credit to consumers who can’t pay the bill.

The early warning signs of this economic crisis were evident 3 years ago. It’s been in the news for that long as well. Were the corporate executives and the American consumers just not paying attention? Did they hear the warning signs and ignore them? Well, the financial condition of THE ECONOMY that each of us as individuals create with our financial actions is going down for the count. So what are YOU going to do to take responsibility for your own financial condition?

Okay, so you are in debt and your creditors are screaming. How do you handle it and get debt relief without having a nervous breakdown? The best practice is to use a simple debt relief solution tool called Dateline Paying.Dateline paying is a simple method of paying oldest bills first, based on the due date. The dateline tells you how far back in time your past due bills go. And yes, credit card debt should be treated just like any other past due bill. There are a few simple steps to this strategy that anyone can do.

1 – Make a list of all your past due bills and credit card debt. Use a report from your accounting program or a spreadsheet of some kind so you can sort them by due date. Be sure and put in a bill for more than the minimum payment for each credit card or line of credit.Make the credit card bill for the amount you want to try to pay over the few weeks before the payment is actually due. For example, if your minimum payment is running at $400, put a bill in for $600.2 – At the end of each business week, carve off 15% of the income to use to pay past due bills and debt.Use the remaining 85% to pay current operating expenses to keep the doors open, the lights on and the telephone ringing to get in more income. Be sure and use some of the 85% for promoting your products and services to keep customers buying, and set a bit aside as a cushion to handle emergencies.3 – Use the 15% to pay the debt by dateline – oldest bills first.Always use a portion of it to pay suppliers and part to pay credit card debt.

4 – Pay a bit against credit card debt each week using on-line paying.

Why? Because you stop the daily interest compounding on the amount that you paid. This can save you a lot of money in unnecessary interest charges over time. It also keeps you from being late on your payments and avoiding the late payment charges. In addition, it eliminates the scrambling to come up with a big chunk of cash to pay the credit debt on the week the statement says the payment is due.

5 – Pay past due bills from suppliers – oldest bill first.

The only exception is a supplier who refuses to ship more product that you need in order to produce more income, or one who is threatening legal action. Those are dangerous situations that must be handled immediately.

6 – Work out how to raise your income so that you have an increasing amount of money to use to work this debt relief solution strategy.

Systematically working at paying both ends of the dateline, 15% to past due bills and 85% to current operating expenses, gradually moves the dateline forward to present time until you are current on your bills and out of debt.

You can easily see this dateline paying strategy working for you if you make a graph of the total debt you owe and plot the figure each week so you can see the amount of debt coming down. Not only does it help you confront the debt you created, it validates the actions you are taking to get that situation handled.

Sandra Simmons, President of Money Management Solutions has years of experience helping business owners and individuals manage their money to achieve financial freedom. For more information, claim your FREE Debt Reduction Solutions Guide

© 2008 Sandra S. Simmons. All Rights Reserved.

More than likely you are already getting excited about the big money check you are probably going to get from the government. You may even be mentally shopping for some gizmo or gadget you have had you eye on. That can be a fatal money management mistake.

Now, I’m not trying to be a party pooper, but to be honest, I don’t really like this government plan to try to stimulate the economy and pull us away from a possible recession by having you hurry out and spend the money at some store. President Bush said, “Letting Americans keep more of their own money should increase consumer spending, and lift our economy at a time when people otherwise might spend less.” Did you actually get that statement? He said allowing us to keep more of our money. That’s the money we worked hard to earn that the governmnet confiscated in taxes. The President needs to read The Fair Tax Book by Neal Boortz.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that in December 2007, Americans had $944 BILLION in total revolving debt, most of it on credit cards. Spending with plastic has sneaked into every corner of American life. Consumers used to put only discretionary expenses on credit cards. Now, many are so strapped for cash that they use revolving credit cards to pay for necessities like groceries and gas just to survive. That is economic slavery.

The government’s idea may sound like it will work, but I don’t think it is the best idea. I believe a better idea is to use that rebate to reduce your debt. If you have less debt, you will eventually have more money to spend on things like groceries and gas. We are talking about basic survival for many families. No economy can flourish when the public is buried under a mountain of unbearable debt.

Do you already have a plan for what you are going to do with your rebate? I’m encouraging the idea of using your stimulus tax rebate towards financial freedom! Here is  my best advice.

Do NOT mentally go shopping and spend the money before it arrives in your mailbox. Instead, figure out how you can use the money to improve your financial condition.

Use the money to pay off debt. There is no good reason to go out and spend the money on stuff when you cannot pay for the stuff that is already sitting on your credit cards as debt. When you are DEBT FREE, you can start saving to buy that gizmo you have had your eye on.

If you have no debt, then invest the money so it will make more money for you. It doesn’t take but a few years before that $600 or $1,200 dollars can double or triple in value at an 8 – 12% return.

Okay, okay. If you just HAVE TO spend some of the money on a splurge item, limit the amount you use by going out for a nice dinner or buying that book or music CD you’ve been wanting. Then use the rest to pay off debt or put into an investment. The faster you get out of debt, the more often you can do fun things with your income instead of spending sleepless nights worrying about how you are going to pay off those credit cards and get out of debt.

Sandra Simmons, President of Money Management Solutions, Inc. specializes in helping people manage their money to achieve money management goals, so be sure to claim your FREE Debt Reduction Solutions Guide