Are you certain those two collections are on your TransUnion credit report (the one Discover pulls for that monthly score update)? I'd be truly shocked if you broke 800 on a real FICO score with two collections present. I've never seen anything close to that - not with two collections.

Because we don't like paying 70% income taxes and waiting for months on end for treatment. We like having the treatment centers that people from single-payer countries fly/drive in to pay to use when they can't wait any longer.

If I wanted to sit on a waiting list until I died from lack of care, I'd have joined the Army. *ZING!*

Bullshit, to an extent. First, FICO only sees your balance as it's reported. When your card company reports it to the credit reporting agencies depends on the card, but it'll typically be shortly after the statement date. You can use 100% of the card's credit, then pay it off a dozen times over the course of the month but if the issuer reports $0 to the CRAs, the FICO score pulled will reflect that.

You also want to be careful about where you leave balances. Now this is one of the areas where different FICO formulas will give different results. The overall message is this: having a zero balance reported on all cards is fine. You'll have pretty much full points on the revolving credit portion of your FICO score by doing this. It's possible to squeeze a small number (typically single digits) out of your score by keeping about 9% utilization on your revolving accounts. Where it gets messy is that different scoring models treat where that balance sits in different ways, but I honestly wouldn't worry about that; just pay them off and make sure they're at $0 when the issuers report them. You can find more about this sort of thing at the MyFICO forums at http://ficoforums.myfico.com/

Keep in mind that if your son is looking for a vehicle loan, that's going to be an auto-enhanced FICO score, which you can't get your hands on until he actually applies. That won't change much from what you can pull on your own if he hasn't had car loans before. As a general rule, if he's had car loans and paid on time as agreed, his auto-enhanced FICO score will be somewhat higher than his regular FICO score. If he's had car loans and didn't pay as agreed, it can be a bit lower (possibly quite a bit lower).

Word of advice on vehicle loans: shop around and be smart about it. Did you know that if the dealership shops you around to different banks and finds one that'll finance you at 5%, they can tell you 10% and keep the difference? Know your score before you walk in the door so they can't try pulling a fast one on you. Also, don't walk in the door without financing already available. Why? Because you then have all the power and you can shop like a cash buyer. Since you have a relationship with a credit union, it's likely you've been thinking about just going through them for it. They probably even have pretty good rates (credit unions are often quite good). When you apply for some types of credit, like a credit card, the issuer will do a "hard pull" on your credit to check your score and credit history and that inquiry will cost you a few points. However, some credit types like mortgages and vehicle loans have a grace period allowing you to shop around for the price of a single inquiry. So when he's ready to buy, have him make sure his report is accurate and clean as possible (no 30 day lates or other delinquencies on any of the three reports - and yes, check all 3), then shop around with the credit union, other banks you may have a relationship with, anyone who's advertising good rates, etc.

Many places will run through a quick approval process over the phone and if approved, they'll mail you a check good for x number of days (usually anywhere from a couple weeks to a month or two) for up to y amount of money. The loan doesn't actually happen until you fill out the check and hand it to someone, so start with finding the best deal before you go to any dealership, then get that check in hand. Obviously shop around for the car as well, but once you've got it narrowed down to a few dealerships, walk in and let them know right away you have that check in hand. Negotiate like you've got a suitcase full of cash in hand because that's essentially what you have. Try and find the dealer invoice price before going in there and start there (they'll have rebates and such above and beyond that, so don't let them fool you into thinking that's what they'll actually pay for the car). Further, if you're getting something that isn't a super hot seller, let them know you know they're paying every single day to floorplan that car and make it clear you'll walk if they won't meet your price. I've literally been asked to leave a car dealership before for low-balling them only to get a call back later that day agreeing to the price or getting extremely close to it.

Once you're set on price, you get to play a fun game. See, you've got that check in your hand which is at a certain interest rate (let's say 5%). Now the dealer wants you to use his financing because he can make more money on there that way, especially since you just pounded him on the price. So what you tell him is if he can beat your financing (and give yourself a little room, tell him it's at 4.5% and that's what he has to beat), you'll let him finance it. If he can't do it, you sign your check (he will). Where you want to be careful is manufacturer financing where they tease you with 0% or 1%, something to that effect. You almost always have to give up rebates and other incentives to get those rates, so when they tell you they can do your financing at 0.9%, ask specifically what you're losing to get that rate. When they tell you it's the $2,000 cash back offer they'd figured into the original price (and this is where they're real assholes and honestly should be prosecuted for fraud because they wouldn't have offered that tidbit of info - just put the new figure on the financing forms and waited to see if you noticed it), you're going to need to do some math to figure out the best move. I recommend using a vehicle loan interest calculator (PSECU has a good one here: https://www.psecu.com/vehicles...).

Doing all this, I've literally walked into a dealership with no money in hand (just a draft check from a credit union), bought a car at ~30% off MSRP, and walked out with 100% financing (as in I didn't hand them a penny or write any check or let them touch a credit card - just signed my name) at well under 2% with full rebates and incentives intact. At that rate, over the course of the five year loan, when adjusting for inflation, the bank paid me about $300 for the privilege of financing my vehicle and I paid less in inflation-adjusted dollars than someone who saved up all the money to go in and pay cash. I hate negotiating (and I'm terrible at it), so I simply hand them a piece of paper with their dealer invoice price, taxes, tags, rebates, destination charges, etc already calculated and a final number of what I'm willing to pay and tell them to please just let me know if they can meet that number. If they won't, there are plenty of other dealerships and somebody always plays ball.

In 1991, the USSR's per capita income was $9,130. Germany's was $14,600. The UK's was $15,000. In the US it was $21,800. The rate of inflation was 14% in the USSR. It was 9.3% in the UK and 5.4% in the US. GNP was dropping by around 4% in the USSR at that time.

With the economy collapsing, strikes were common and people turned to the grey market and black market for even basic necessities. Bartering became common as did thievery and bribery. Paint whatever picture of paradise you like leading up to it, but understand that they ran out of other peoples' money and the whole thing ended in tears.

Not that I disagree in principle, but it seems as though home ownership is only now available in many areas to those who are either making truly ridiculous amounts of money or those who are making very good money and are willing to live house-poor. I don't know any home owners making truly ridiculous amounts of money, but I do know plenty of people who make good money, own their own homes (with a mortgage), and have almost no room in their budgets for things like going to the movies or going out to eat, let alone actually do real vacations or weekend trips. I'm talking about people with household incomes in the top 15% of the country who didn't run around buying ridiculous homes; just nice normal ones.

I guess I just don't understand how you have huge areas where you don't see anything selling at under $650,000. Hundreds of houses in neighborhood after neighborhood all across the region that sell easily at prices that maybe 3-4% of households could possibly afford. In my area, $350k+ is considered a normal price for an okay home in an okay neighborhood. Nothing fancy, not even especially nice, just okay. That excludes around 83% of households from being able to affordably buy one, yet there they go, all day long selling like hotcakes. Who the hell is buying these things?

And bread was free too, just had a small line to stand in: http://www.geardiary.com/wp-co...

The idea isn't bad. The implementation is okay, though it can be gamed to some degree. The biggest issue most people actually have with it comes down to a serious lack of financial education. It isn't the easiest or most intuitive system; it's the one that's worked well for a long time thanks to a lot of trial and error.

Now that's just untrue. If it were true, you'd have a chicken and egg problem with debt. The reality is that certain types of credit/debt (e.g. student loans) don't care whether you have other credit/debts or not. Some types of credit/debt (e.g. credit cards) are rate-sensitive to whether you've demonstrated - through your behavior with previous credit/debts - the likelihood that you'll stick to the terms of the new credit vehicle. Some types of credit/debt (e.g. a mortgage) are much more difficult to get at all without a demonstrated ability to manage credit/debt responsibly. That's due to the fact that different types of credit have different risk profiles. A credit card company can set a ceiling on how much the issuer can lose if you're a high or unknown risk. When it comes to a mortgage, you're talking about tying yourself to the borrower for a very long time with an asset that could tank in value anywhere during that time. Since student loans survive everything up to and including the end of the world, they're easy to get.

The first part is another myth. The amount of money you have in the bank means absolutely zero to a FICO score. It means something to a mortgage company, but that's it. FICO scores are completely unaffected by money in the bank. The second is somewhat true, depending on circumstances. Cracking 800 is going to be very tough without some sort of installment loan (vehicle or mortgage). That said, you can hit top-tier rate scores (740+, even 760+) without either of those. You can have credit cards you pay off every single month and hit the scores you need to secure the best available rates. No debt required. It's just tougher.

Wait, what? People with the highest FICO scores typically have little to no debt, aside from perhaps a mortgage, maybe a car loan. It's rare that they'll have any serious credit card debt or other revolving accounts with any substantial balances. In fact, having substantial balances on your revolving credit accounts hurts your score. The point isn't to keep anyone in debt, it's to provide a score that tells potential lenders how likely it is that an individual they've never met before will stick to the terms of their agreement if they're granted credit.

If your credit score is "laughably low", it isn't because you don't have enough debt. In reality, what drives your score is 5 simple things. The largest component is payment history. Don't pay back debts? Bad history, bad score. A perfect score here is no delinquencies or bankruptcies. Any accounts listed should be "paid as agreed" or something to that effect. If you have no debts, pay your utilities and medical bills (things that report delinquencies to the credit reporting companies), and pay that car loan on time, you should have a perfect score here. The second is the balance of all your revolving accounts. No balances on credit cards? Low balances relative to total available credit? Perfect or near perfect score. That's 65% of the total score right there. More info here: http://www.myfico.com/credited... (bank balance isn't listed because it doesn't apply).

Well, except that car. Someone apparently ponied up the cash to pay for that for you. Not saying that's bad, but I think you can drop the pretentious hipster anti-credit attitude seeing as you admit it's actually a necessity for big ticket items.

Self-assessment is the method used by the vast majority of small businesses, and they're often not even required to do even minimal work to get started. The acquiring bank will just set them up an account and start the ball rolling after Farmer Bob buys a cheap swipe terminal off eBay for the weekend Farmer's market and signs a couple papers. For those organizations that aren't self-assessing, they get to deal with the fact that QSAs often can't even agree on what some requirements mean in principle, let alone when applied to their specific circumstances. Show three different QSAs the same architecture and documentation, get three different reports. That ROC? That's good for toilet paper by the time the QSA pulls out of the parking lot. Don't believe me? Have a data breach and watch Visa roll in with auditors who won't leave until they find a reason to fail your compliance. That's just how the game is played.

All that said, people just declaring that they are PCI DSS compliant is actually exactly what happens. You tell the acquiring bank that you're PCI compliant (either via SAQ or QSA/ROC). If you've met certain levels of activity, the acquiring bank may pass along some paperwork regarding your audits to certain payment brands who require it. They then effectively state that your paperwork appears to be in order and begin processing your credit card transactions. At no point do they declare you PCI DSS compliant and they will most certainly toss your ass to the wolves the second there's a whiff of trouble. And even if they did say you were compliant at filing time, any QSA will tell you that any minor change, lapse, or mistake can completely alter the state of your compliance. From the PCI SSC website: "There are three steps for adhering to the PCI DSS – which is not a single event, but a continuous, ongoing process."

In other words, yesterday you might have been compliant, and tomorrow you might be compliant, but today (always of course the day of the breach), you're non-compliant.

This depends entirely on the organization and their acquiring bank's requirements (ultimately the acquiring bank is the only one who matters, but most reasonably organizations develop their own process to ensure they're covered as much as possible). For many small businesses, they're often times just buying a cheap terminal and swiping away. The acquiring bank isn't pressing them for details of their security measures and they're often completely clueless about any requirements they're supposed to be meeting. They aren't bringing in a QSA. Even if they were, bring in three QSAs to any decently sized organization and get three different opinions about your scope and your compliance measures. Half the fun of PCI assessments is determining what the requirements mean, how they apply in your specific instance, and where scope ends. But the point is, there's no issuing authority to say that you're PCI compliant. There's no governing body certifying anyone. The only thing that's actually there are the contractual relationships between the merchant and the acquiring bank and the contractual relationships between the acquiring bank and the payment brands.

It's not a pointless semantic game because it's the unspoken risk for anyone accepting credit cards. Since there is no official PCI certification and since there is no agreement between QSAs on what the requirements mean in principle (let alone in practice in a specific organization's situation), the PCI SSC gets to stick the claim up on their website that no breach has ever occurred in a PCI-compliant vendor. Best of all, each individual payment brand actually gets to decide what requirements have to be met in which situation by which type of vendor doing what type of business at what scale and via which medium. The ambiguity and the leverage the payment brands hold allows them to arbitrarily decide who is and who isn't compliant at any given moment.

So you keep on doing your documentation and your testing processes (and you should, it's good practice), but if you think for a second your customers are somehow protected from Visa, Mastercard, etc in the event of a breach, you'd best think again. It's a shell game designed to ensure that whenever things go south, the payment brands are never the ones left holding the bag.

You aren't accredited to be following PCI because nobody is. There is no certificate. There is no special seal of approval. You provided security information to your acquiring bank(s) and you were allowed to process credit card transactions. There's no such thing as certification or accreditation for PCI.

Who says they're holding the PAN in plaintext? They can decrypt it to send it to the Feds as needed without keeping it in plaintext in their systems. The Feds have no agreement with an acquiring bank, so they don't have to worry about how they store it. Nobody can do anything to them. Any agreement the airlines have with their acquiring banks undoubtedly includes plenty of cover for Federal data reporting requirements (likely a blanket "if the Feds come calling, we're just going to give them everything"). So long as the acquiring banks have signed off on it, they're in the clear. And since all these guys would like to continue doing business in the largest economy in the world, nobody's going to say no.

It's Texas, they broke ground three weeks ago.

FAA? Never heard of 'em.

I was hoping one of those might strike a cord, but consider if the Federal government stated you had to directly fund the murder of children up to say 5 years of age. Since many religious people believe that the life of a child begins at conception, that's what people like the founders of Hobby Lobby believe they are being told to do: directly fund the murder of children, not with the collection of taxes that go to a general fund, but rather by paying the private business that pays the private business that murders children. I would assume you would have significant objections to being forced to pay someone to murder children, but would you do it anyway simply to comply with the law? Or would you seek to be excluded from that requirement?

What an interesting perspective. Pray tell, once the baby is born, but still attached via the umbilical cord, is it still a parasite you can destroy at will? I don't actually care one way or another about abortion, but I do care about consistency. From a medical standpoint, there are some specific events such as fertilization, implantation, birth, etc which could be used as a basis for drawing the line between a non-human thing (which one might describe - as you did - as a "parasite") and a human being. Thus far, the only group that seems to define that line at a medically objective point are the religious crowd (who use fertilization as their starting point). Again, consistency.

Because the people who founded this country came here seeking relief from religious oppression. Thus, when they created their own government (the one we have today), they ensured that the highest law of the land specifically restrained the government from doing to future generations what the Crown had done to them. If you don't think religious beliefs deserve special consideration, feel free to propose an amendment to the US Constitution stating so.

That would be a more challenging case to prove. The benefit of belonging to a popular religious group is that the tenants are widely known. As such, one must only then demonstrate that one actually belongs to that group (and even so, only minimally; stating as much without evidence to the contrary would typically be enough) to gain protection from government policy, law, or action which would violate that group's religious beliefs. In the Hobby Lobby case, there were 4 specific methods of birth control out of 20 which the owners maintained violated their core beliefs. In essence, they viewed those 4 specific methods as murder, but raised no objection to the other 16. The SCOTUS found those beliefs to be sincere and reasonable, and found that there was no interest at stake compelling enough to override the protections afforded to the owners of Hobby Lobby by the US Constitution. This was found in no small part due to the multitude of other options available for those seeking to attain the goals of the underlying legislation.

It's actually a pretty mundane case and shouldn't get people this riled up, but it does because the ACA and the President are attached to it. If this case involved any other law but the President's signature legislation, nobody but SCOTUS buffs would have heard a word about it.

I tend to wonder if you'd feel the same way if you owned a business and the Federal government passed a law stating you had to pay for female genital mutilation procedures for young girls and "straight camps" for gays.

Not advocating a side, just seeking consistency. Out of 20 different birth control methods, the SCOTUS ruling continues to require HL and others like them to provide coverage for 16. There were 4 specific methods which the owners found to be abhorrent to their religious convictions. In essence, they consider those 4 specific methods to be murder. The other 16 are covered without objection and if the employees just have to use those four specific methods, there's nothing in the SCOTUS ruling stating that they can't; they'll just have to bankroll them on their own.

This doesn't strike me as a case where the concept of birth control or 'reproductive health' as a whole are under attack. Rather, this seems to be a legitimate situation wherein reasonable religious conviction clashed with law passed by Congress. The impact is quite limited and thus, the SCOTUS correctly provided reasonable latitude to the religious beliefs over the law.

People on the right are blowing this case way out of proportion because they see it as a victory against the ACA. People on the left are blowing this case way out of proportion because they either don't understand what actually happened or they're convinced it's a victory against the ACA. The reality is that it isn't any such thing; rather it's a fairly mundane case which wouldn't make it to page 4 below the fold if it weren't tied to the ACA and the President. In other words, relax, it's really no big deal.