All posts by Nick Taylor

Anniversary of Godspeed John Glenn

 

by Nick Taylor

All America held its breath on February 20 1962.  Astronaut John Glenn had climbed into the tiny capsule atop an Atlas rocket and, as fellow astronaut Scott Carpenter said, “God speed, John Glenn,” rode a column of flame into space.  He finished one orbit and the country celebrated.  No American had orbited the earth before and now we were one trip around the globe closer to narrowing the Soviet lead in the Cold War space race.

Glenn, in the Mercury capsule he’d named Friendship 7, entered a second time. Most of the country heard the live broadcast of exchanges between Glenn, now manning the controls after an automatic system failed, and Mission Control.  If people weren’t watching at home, they gathered outside department store windows and stared at the televisions displayed.  They were all tuned to the space flight.  

Worry entered the voices talking from Mission Control.  Glenn had seen flaming pieces of something flying past his porthole.  Was it the heat shield that would keep spacecraft and astronaut from burning to a cinder when they re-entered the earth’s atmosphere?  Mission Control worried that the heat shield might be breaking up.  They told Glenn not to jettison a retro rocket pack that he would fire to slow down capsule down before re-entry.  Its remnants might hold the heat shield on.

He orbited a third time, fired the retro rockets and descended into the friction of the atmosphere.  Suddenly, Glenn’s voice on the coverage fell silent.  We watchers and listeners could hear Mission Control, but not the brave astronaut.  We’d been warned to expect the silence as Glenn flew through a communication blackout zone caused by ionization of the air around the capsule.  But imagination filled the silence with harsh static and images of a burning spacecraft.  Then his voice returned: “My condition is good but that was a real fireball.”  John Glenn and Friendship 7 had survived.  They splashed down safely.

Glenn had seen three dawns and three sunsets on February 20, 1962.  He was thirty-one years old that day.  I was fifteen.  My privilege, years later, was to work with him on his autobiography, “John Glenn: A Memoir.”  He was the same accessible, straightforward, friendly and genuinely caring person who become a national hero when America desperately needed one.

He went on to win three terms in the U.S. Senate from Ohio.  But he kept his space suit in his closet, and made history again as the oldest man in space aboard Space Shuttle Discovery as a payload specialist performing medical experiments on the aging process.  That was in 1998, when he was seventy-seven.

John Glenn will be ninety-five years old this summer, and he’ll always be a hero.  I wish there were more like him.

 

 

 

Online Tickets For Trains In Spain

      Nick Taylor and Barbara Nevins Taylor

We made assumptions when we booked online tickets for trains in Spain, and that’s always the bugaboo.  It turned out we limited our flexibility and narrowed our options to change the tickets for an earlier train. That’s why we recommend you read the fine print and take extra care when you buy train tickets for travel abroad.

Before we left New York, we plotted our trip and decided to take the Renfe high-speed AVE train from Madrid to Córdoba and then from Córdoba to Seville. We learned that you get a better deal on the tickets if you buy them in advance.

Nick did a Google search and chose Rail Europe because it came up high in the search and it sounded like an official site for a rail line.

We paid about $173 apiece for the first leg of the trip and we sped to Córdoba without a hitch. We boarded the AVE in Madrid’s spacious Atchoca Station where the signage spells everything out.  We discovered, to our delight, that Renfe takes the anxiety out of boarding because signage on the platform floor tells you where each coach door will open and the stewards stand waiting to help. On board, we stowed our luggage and tucked into designated seats, and then took advantage of the magazines, newspapers, drinks and snacks offered by the stewards. It all came with the price of the tickets.

The AVE barreled on at about 193 miles an hour through olive groves and the plains of La Mancha and we smiled all the way. Two cavas, 250 miles and a little less than two hours later, we gathered our three bags and hopped off in Córdoba. The problem arose the next afternoon when we tried to catch an earlier train to Seville.

The ticket agent at the Córdoba station said, “You cannot change the tickets.” She directed us to the Renfe office deeper in the station. The man behind the ticket window wearing Renfe’s signature light green shirt and darker green tie shook his head. “No. You can’t change these tickets. You bought  them through a travel agent.” We looked at each other in disbelief.

Nick said, “I paid trip insurance so that I could change the tickets.” The ticket agent shook his head sorrowfully. We found a manager and continued to press. “No,” he repeated. “Did you buy the tickets from a travel agent?” I asked Nick. “I don’t think so,” he said. But when we did a search we discovered that Rail Europe is a travel agency of sorts located in White Plains, New York.

The website says the French and Swiss national railroads own majority shares in the privately held company, which represents 35 European railroads. If we wanted to change tickets through them, we’d have to call or email. We tried to call and had no luck since it was 7 a.m. in White Plains.

Nick emailed and received a response three days later that suggested we call. Turns out that although we paid for trip insurance, we needed to give three days notice if we wanted to change anything through Rail Europe.

Had we purchased the tickets directly through Renfe, according to its site, we could have exchanged unrestricted tickets the same day. So we should have paid more attention at the time we bought tickets.

Instead, we spent three hours in the Córdoba train station, and moved on. We enjoyed our trip and chalk the time in the train station up to a learning experience.

We definitely plan to look at the fine print and details for our next trip and hope you do too! Continue →Great Hotel in Madrid Watch: A video postcard from Granada

Finding a Great Hotel In Madrid

 

 

 

by Nick Taylor

Barbara and I wanted to start our two-week trip to Spain at a hotel that would help us acclimate, where we felt less like tourists — even though we were — and more like guests at somebody’s house. Luckily we found a place that fit.

The Hotel Orfila in Madrid just north of the Paseo del Prado and the museum district provided exactly what we needed.

We traveled to Spain in June to explore its legendary south, Andalusia and its famous cities Córdoba, Seville, Málaga and Granada, where centuries of Moorish rule left a legacy of beauty and priceless architecture.

We flew into Madrid two days before we headed south.

Barbara booked the Orfila through American Express even though it looked, on maps of Madrid, a little remote from the places in the city we wanted to explore.  We planned to visit the Prado and the Reina Sofia Museum where Picasso’s “Guernica” now has its home. But we like to walk and realized that we could cover the distances easily

The hotel’s Relais & Chateau affiliation indicated a standard of quality and because we booked a month in advance, Barbara’s nonrefundable early payment earned a 25 percent discount that brought the nightly rate below 200 euros.

 

Courtesy Hotel Orfila
Courtesy Hotel Orfila

We knew the Orfila was the right choice almost from the minute we arrived.  The Spanish describe it as a townhouse.  The 19th Century limestone building sits on a one-block street of the same name and we found the elegant, richly-appointed lobby filled with comfortable chairs, a huge arrangement of fresh flowers and a table stacked with the latest European newspapers and magazines.

A concierge – conserje in Spanish – wearing a formal coat with tails greeted us as we walked in.

The desk staff and hallmen all spoke English and made us feel welcome and comfortable.  Once we’d stashed our bags in the large “double superior” room – one of only twenty rooms plus twelve suites — we returned downstairs to take the hotel up on its offer of a glass of cava for arriving guests.

Courtesy Hotel Orfila
Courtesy Hotel Orfila

The small open terrace behind the dining room was the perfect spot for this refresher. Then we took the jet-lag nap in a big comfortable bed.

Hotel Orfila

A few hours later, we began to explore a little bit of Madrid.  The Orfila occupies a neighborhood alternately called Alonso Martinez for a nearby plaza and Metro station, and Judicia because the Palace of Justice, Madrid’s main court building, and other government ministries as well as embassies and consulates are nearby.

The police stationed around the government buildings made the area feel safe. The houses are solid and large and the streets are calm, tree-lined and feel a little bit like Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

We walked down to the Plaza de Colon and followed the east side of the Paseo de Recoletos past the Archeological Museum to the Ayuntamiento, Madrid’s city hall. We also checked out Calle Serrano, a parallel street, filled with brand name shops, Madrid’s answer to Madison Avenue.

We returned to our room for a second little nap and prepared for dinner Madrid style at 10 p.m.  The Orfila’s neighborhood has plenty of good restaurants and we chose Ten con Ten, a few blocks and an easy walk away. More on that in another post.

The next morning, José Martín Sánchez, the front office manager, reserved tickets for the Prado so we wouldn’t get stuck in a long line.

Our only complaint at this point was that the hotel’s buffet breakfast, as lovely as it was, felt overpriced at 40 euros. There were less expensive choices, but we decided to look for alternatives nearby and found two we liked.

At El Abate Pitanzas, down the street and around a corner, you can have a fast and inexpensive breakfast with the government bureaucrats and office workers headed for their jobs.

Photo by ConsumerMojo
Photo by ConsumerMojo

A couple of blocks away at Crusto, bakers in an open kitchen turn out fresh bread and pastries.

Photo by ConsumerMojo
Photo by ConsumerMojo

Locals stop for baked goods and pause over coffee with tosta de tomato and other breakfast treats.

Nick At Crustos

After we checked out of the Orfila, we headed south on the AVE express train bound for Córdoba and then Seville, where we picked up a car to tour Andalusia with friends who met us there.

We had a fine two-week trip and had no complaints about our other hotels, most in the heart of tourist districts.  But after after joining the crowds in Seville, Málaga and Granada, we remembered the refuge that the Hotel Orfila offered from the noise and hyperactivity.

We  booked it again for our final two days in Madrid before returning home. Verónica Garcia Castelo, the general manager, Jóse Martín Sánchez and the night manager Pablo Chamusa greeted us like old friends on our return.

Those two days confirmed our first impression – sometimes you pay more to get a bargain.

Continue →Online Tickets For Trains In Spain

Watch a video postcard from Granada

How To Pay Less For Auto Insurance

 

 

by Nick Taylor

I’ve watched the Geico gecko pitching car insurance for so long now that I’m sick of the snarky little Aussie lizard. But my policy renewal is coming up this month and I decided to finally do some shopping and find out how to pay less for auto insurance.

Barbara and I have been with State Farm for over thirty years. We’ve had no accidents, filed one claim when somebody scraped the paint on our parked car, and I got a speeding ticket twenty-five years and three cars ago.

Barbara drives the car more than I do, and insists she’s a better driver. I say “Hah!” to that, but whichever of us takes the driving prize, between us we average fewer than 10,000 miles a year.

So I would have thought, between our driving and claims records, that we’d have seen a gradual reduction in premiums.

Not so. Instead, the bills we get every six months have fluctuated, but slowly increased. Since 2009, they’ve been as low as $800, as high as $900, and the most recent is for $875.

ConsumerMojo last December posted an advisory that longtime clients of the same insurer should question the bills they’re getting.

That’s because the insurers know we don’t like to shop around. And they use factors other than an insured’s driving record to set premiums. These factors, according to the Consumer Federation of America (CFA), are called “marketplace considerations” or “price optimization,” but they amount to the same thing.

It means that insurers look at their individual clients’ behavior – shopping behavior, not driving behavior — to set rates that can be as high as 800 percent too high.

“It’s really profit optimization,” J. Robert Hunter, a former Texas insurance commissioner, told ConsumerMojo. He works with the CFA now and says companies determine the price point when customers will leave, and set rates just below that point in order to keep them.

Hunter said, “CFA believes price optimization will always result in unfairly discriminatory pricing that is illegal everywhere.”

State Farm’s Arlene J. Lester told ConsumerMojo, “We do not base our premiums on studies that show how much a customer is willing to pay . . .”  She added, “We do provide discounts for customers who have been crash-free for varying periods of time.”

Mileage driven is another factor companies use – or should use – in setting rates. People who drive less, typically older and lower- income drivers, have fewer accidents and claims.

They cost their insurers less and should get a break for that. But the companies don’t all do it. In fact, the CFA reported on May 21 that only State Farm “consistently rewards drivers for lower mileage.”

 

Courtesy Wikimedia
Courtesy Wikimedia

And that’s the first thing Nina Chen at the Meilee Fu Agency, my State Farm agent, asked when I told her I was shopping around: “How much do you drive?” I checked our odometer and reported that we’ve averaged under 7,500 miles a year since 2009.

She told me that was enough for a price break of around $300 a year.  And in fact our latest bill, factoring in the lower mileage, dropped $146.83 to $728.48 for six months.

So if you’ve decided it’s time to start asking questions about your car insurance premium, that’s a good place to start. Once you’ve done that, ConsumerMojo also suggests that you ask your insurance company if they use price optimization or marketplace considerations, or data about your individual shopping practices, in setting your premiums.

 

Why Do We Have Such Lousy Internet Access?

 

 

by Nick Taylor

We New Yorkers like to say New York is the greatest city in the world. But if that’s true, why do we have such lousy Internet access?

Numerous surveys over the last year or so put us near the bottom of the list in terms of speed and near the top in the price we pay. Too little speed, too much money.

I use Verizon’s DSL service at home. It sucks. I’d use FiOS, but Verizon hasn’t brought it to my one-block Greenwich Village street of homes and low-rise apartment buildings. They’re installing the fiber-optic system where the money is. So I don’t have the broadband capacity to stream movies or TV series.

Netflix

I still get DVDs, yesterday’s technology, in the red-and-white envelopes from Netflix by way of snail mail, two centuries-ago technology.

My other option is Time-Warner Cable. It’s faster than DSL, but not that fast. My downstairs neighbor has it, and he says yes, his movies stream but occasionally pause in mid-stream. I’d switch, but I hate Time-Warner Cable; it doesn’t even do a good job of providing cable television.

In the meantime, New York lags far behind most Asian and European cities. The New York Times Clair Cain Miller reported last October that it takes seven seconds to download a high definition movie in Seoul, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Bucharest, and Paris, for as little as $30 a month. Downloading the same movie in New York, she wrote, takes almost a minute-and-a-half and access to even that speed costs $300 a month. Her figures came from a report published by the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute.

The reason, as Miller and others have reported, is that Verizon and Time-Warner treat New York as a shared monopoly. They charge accordingly, and feel no pressure to improve service since there’s no other competition.

The City of New York could enter the picture. American cities with the fastest networks installed them themselves. Or, as in the case of Kansas City, Google did it. The networks are fiber-optic, which are exponentially faster than those on existing phone or cable lines. In New York, of course, a critical mass of existing infrastructure – old buildings, little open space, and a subterranean network of gas, water, and sewer lines complicated by subway tunnels – the task becomes more daunting.

But the city could still, I believe, exert some pressure on Verizon to extend its FiOS lines to every city neighborhood, not just the ones that produce the greatest profit. Internet access has become a public utility, like water, gas, phone and electric service. And like any public utility, it should be available to all members of the public.

Why I Had to Find My Prescription In Asia

by Nick Taylor

American patients can’t always go to their local pharmacy to get the drugs they need. Some of us end up searching the world over for effective drugs we can’t buy locally because of endless clinical trials and the glacial bureaucracy of the Federal Drug Administration.

This caution aims  to make sure the drugs that reach the market are safe, but the process needs streamlining. Because it’s not, I had to find my prescription in Asia. Awhile back I wrote of my frustration over being in a glaucoma eye drop drug trial when Aerie Pharmaceutical, the company that made the drug, changed its formula in the middle of the trial despite promising results.

A new trial started that I couldn’t join because the new formula added timelol, a beta blocker I can’t tolerate, to the rho-kinase inhibitor. I wouldn’t necessarily get the drop with added timelol, but it was a blind study so there was no way to tell. Roc Drop To go back: doctors prescribe rho-kinase inhibitors to combat hypertension and cardiovascular disease. In an eye drop, they reduce intra-ocular hypertension just as they do high blood pressure. It’s elevated pressure on the optic nerve that signifies glaucoma, and if untreated eventually causes blindness. I wrote at the time that my ophthalmologist, Dr. Robert Ritch, had given me a six-month supply of the old ROCK drop, as they call it.

Taking it had brought my intra-ocular pressure down a good 10 points, from the 20s into the teens. It had been as high as 38. The eye doctor who made the initial diagnosis said, “That is not compatible with vision.”

In the trial, I took the ROCK drop only in my right eye, once a day at night. But because rho-kinase inhibitors affect cell function – they’re thought to attack the cause of elevated pressure and not just the pressure itself – my left eye saw a pressure reduction, too.

More importantly over time, Dr. Ritch and his colleagues at Glaucoma Associates in New York, where I’m a patient, believe the ROCK drop may permanently relax the mesh at the back of the eye and allow better drainage.  It’s the blockage of this mesh that traps fluid and raises the pressure in my type of glaucoma. That is pseudo-exfoliation syndrome; the blockage occurs because a substance akin to dandruff is sloughed off when the pupils dilate and contract. It’s the leading cause of open-angle glaucoma, which affects as many as 70 million people around the world.

As my supply of the original ROCK drop dwindled, I wondered how I would preserve the good results I’d experienced. My treatment team at Glaucoma Associates told me about the Mimaki Family Pharmacy, a Japanese drug supplier operating out of Singapore that sells a ROCK drop.

It turns out that what is an experimental drug in the United States is, like many others, routinely dispensed elsewhere. I quickly found the Mimaki Family Pharmacy on the Internet. The company offered Glanatec, a ROCK drop made by Kowa Pharmaceuticals in Japan, in single 5 milliliter bottles for $67.6 or five of them for $338.25. The larger order included free shipping, so that’s what I did. The drops arrived neatly packaged from Japan about a week later.

The Glanatec drop has a lower percentage of active ingredient than the Aerie Pharmaceutical trial drops, .4 percent versus .5 or .7 percent. I was on the .7 percent version, so the strength is cut almost in half. That means I’ll increase the dose from once to twice a day. I’ll get my next pressure check in May, and will post the results.

Glaucoma Trial Drug Axed

 

by Nick Taylor

Sometimes I wonder what’s worse, my glaucoma or the drugs I have to take to treat it.  That’s why it was so frustrating when the company that makes the clinical trial eye drop I’ve been taking, which lowers my eye pressure with no side effects, decided to change it.  

 

And the trial wasn’t even over. aerie pharmaThe drug, made by Aerie Pharmaceutical, doesn’t have a name.  

 

Around the Manhattan Eye and Ear Infirmary where my rock star  ophthalmologist, Dr. Robert Ritch, practices, it’s known as the ROCK drop, short for rho-kinase Inhibitor AR 12286.  Rho-kinase isoforms, or ROCKs, affect cell function.   They play a role in high blood pressure and heart disease, and doctors sometimes prescribe rho-kinase inhibitors to treat these problems.  

In an eye drop, they reduce pressure on the optic nerve just as they do hypertension.  At the same time, they improve eye drainage.  The buildup of fluid from a lack of drainage is what causes my form of glaucoma. I was one of just ten people in my trial.  I took the drop in one eye once a day.  It worked really well.  My pressure took a 10-point drop from the 20s into the teens within an hour of taking it.  The other trial participants had similar results.  More exciting, the drop in one eye reduced the pressure in both. But the big question was whether the ROCK drop had permanent effects.  Would its action on cell function forever relax the mesh at the back of the eye that allows it to drain?  Even if the effect was short of permanent but long-lasting, that would be a major breakthrough! This was why I was so excited about the trial.  

Pseudo-exfoliation syndrome is the leading cause of open-angle glaucoma, which affects millions around the world.  Most eye drops attack the symptom by reducing the pressure, but not the underlying cause.  Laser surgery can blast open the mesh at the back of the eye, but it clogs up again and the eye can’t take too many laser treatments. Many people take drops for years and maintain healthy eyes.  But when my drops had beta blockers, I was a side effect waiting to happen.  

My eyes itched uncontrollably, watered and got so red I looked like I’d just come from a Grateful Dead concert.  Worst of all, they made me so depressed I couldn’t work and could barely hold a conversation.

So I was eager to know what the trial would learn.  But it never reached that point.  I couldn’t understand it, and neither could Dr. Ritch and his colleagues. They slipped me a supply of the discontinued drop, which will keep me in the healthy pressure range with daily applications. I don’t know what will happen after that.  

Maybe Dr. Ritch will put me back on an earlier out-of-the-box experiment involving marijuana.  He gave me a Marinol prescription.  Marinol is artificial THC, and twice a day I’d puncture a capsule with a pin and squeeze out the gel and rub it on my forehead above my eyes.  That brought my pressure down, too.   It made me a little goofy, but my wife says that’s not unusual.  And it’s better than being depressed.  

HOW TO WORK OUT AFTER 50readmore

Time for Affordable Dental Insurance

by Nick Taylor

I’ve had some dental issues recently, and it’s made me wonder why it’s so hard to find decent and affordable dental insurance.

 Not long ago, I moved from my wife’s union insurance plan to a Medicare supplement plan.  It’s more expensive, but it includes no dental coverage whatsoever.  The union plan at least included an annual checkup — preventive care but nothing if something actually went wrong.

It seems at first glance that most dental plans only cover routine maintenance.  And it’s true that regular dental checkups, like regular physical exams, are the best way to catch problems before they get more serious.

Insurers should want to cover preventive care to save the costs of drastic treatment, but when it comes to dental care most coverage gives you squat.

And it’s a fact that when you reach Medicare eligibility, things are more likely to go wrong with your teeth and gums just like the rest of your aging body.  Those silver fillings you got when you were a kid are wearing out, and that’s just the start of it.  

In the movie “Peggy Sue Got Married,” in a moment of reflection Peggy Sue asks her father what he would change about his life.  “Well,” he said, “I might have taken a little better care of my teeth.” That’s where we all are at this stage.

The people who are barking about Medicare costs will say it would be too expensive to cover dental procedures like extractions, implants and crowns.  They’ll argue that dental health is not the same as cancer, heart disease or diabetes.  They’ll say that a good smile is an option, not a necessity.

All that may be true, but good teeth and a good smile are also part of healthy, vital lives as time goes on, and there should be some affordable insurance that makes this possible.

 

watchmoreFiguring Out Medicare Choices

TSA Pre-Check Cuts Airport Security Lines

by Nick Taylor

The first time I was singled out for a TSA Pre-check I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.  It was a complete surprise. 

At LaGuardia Airport for a flight to San Francisco, I was directed out of the regular security line to one side, where an agent told me to keep my shoes on and my computer in its case as I went through the screening.  

I had no idea how the Transportation Security Administration had figured out I was a non-terrorist good guy, but I was glad they had.

Since then the reasons have gotten less mysterious, but it’s still a relief to be able to speed through with your shoes on and use one or two plastic tubs instead of half a dozen.

It turned out that in my case, my American Airlines AAdvantage frequent flyer membership had qualified me for the pre-check program.  

Frequent flyers with Alaska, Delta, Southwest, United, US Airways, and Virgin America are also eligible.  You have to opt in the the program — I didn’t know I had — but once you do the airline identifies you as a TSA Pre-check participant when it submits passenger reservation information to TSA’s Secure Flight system.  

TSA PRECHK

The information appears on your boarding pass, which signals the airport security folks to send you to the pre-check line.

This only works when you’re flying on the airline whose program you belong to.  Barbara and I learned this recently when we flew on American to San Juan and breezed through as pre-checked travelers, but were stuck in the long line the next morning for our continuing flight on Seaborne to the British Virgin Islands.

Photo by ConsumerMojo.com
Photo by ConsumerMojo.com

But if you travel on multiple airlines, you can nevertheless become part of the TSA’s Pre-check program.  It costs a little money and a little time, and you have to be fingerprinted, but the payoff may be worth it.  Here’s how it works:

TSA Pre✓™ Application Program

  1. Complete an online application.
  2. Schedule an appointment at a TSA Pre✓™ Application Center.
  3. Visit the TSA Pre✓™ application center, pay the $85 fee, provide valid government I.D. and fingerprints.
  4. A Known Traveler Number will be sent to you via U.S. Mail or can be obtained online.

Once successfully enrolled, provide your Known Traveler Number in the ’Known Traveler Number’ field when making airline reservations. Additionally, members can update their airline member profile to have the number automatically sent to TSA when booking reservations. The Known Traveler Number will be submitted along with Secure Flight passenger data to TSA. Remember to enter full name, date of birth and Known Traveler Number exactly as you provided during the TSA Pre✓™ application process.

The $85 fee covers a five-year membership.  There are also other ways to ease your way through airport security lines and U.S. border checks, but they’re more costly and complicated.  The Department of Homeland Security offers three U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Trusted Traveler programs that Americans and Canadians and some others can sign up for.  View a comparison chart of the DHS Trusted Traveler programs.

The TSA Pre-check program, however, probably makes the most sense for most airline travelers.

Refunds Due in Auto Loan Discrimination

If you thought some auto dealers were discriminating against you, you weren’t paranoid. Some rogue car dealers took advantage.

Now Black, Hispanic and other minorities will receive $80 million in refunds for auto loans that cost them more than white consumers.  

That announcement comes from Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Richard Cordray following a settlement with Ally Financial Inc. and Ally Bank. With an added $18 million in penalties, it is the largest settlement order ever in an auto loan discrimination case.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) joined the CFPB in reaching the settlement with Ally, one of the largest indirect auto lenders in the United States.  It is based on loans issued to more than 235,000 African-American, Hispanic, and Asian and Pacific Islanders who bought cars between April 2011 and December 2013.

Auto loans follow only mortgages and student loans as a source of household debt in the United States.  The Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) prohibits discrimination against borrowers based on characteristics including race or national origin.

Ally’s business model sets a risk-based “buy rate” for auto loans, but allows dealers to charge more.  The markup goes mostly to dealers, and acts as an incentive for them to charge higher rates regardless of a buyer’s creditworthiness.  Ally’s failure to monitor compliance with the ECOA in its loan portfolio brought on the CFPB and DOJ charges.

Part of the settlement requires Ally to monitor future dealer markups to assure that they don’t discriminate.  If they do, Ally must continue to pay harmed consumers.  Otherwise, Ally must eliminate dealer markups altogether.

In the meantime, the CFPB and DOJ will look at loan data to identify victims, and pass their contact information along to a settlement administrator, paid by Ally, who will issue refunds from the $80 million compensation pool.  The two agencies are coordinating on fair lending enforcement under an agreement signed in December 2012.

If you think you’ve been discriminated against when you borrowed money to buy a car, get in touch with the CFP at http://www.consumerfinance.gov/complaint/

New Jersey Dreamers Get Tuition Wish

Dreamers finally get their wish in New Jersey.  The New Jersey Dream Act was just signed by Governor Chris Christie.  It allows students without legal status, who were brought to this country by their parents when they were young, to qualify in most cases for in-state tuition rates at New Jersey colleges and universities.

How it works

The bill gives immigrants who graduated from a New Jersey high school after at least three years of attendance so-called “tuition equality” with other state residents.  The Dreamers can’t get state financial aid under the compromise bill, but it’s still a step forward.

The Dream Act took effect with Christie’s signing.  That means that the in-state rates will apply for the upcoming spring semester.  Christie described the bill as a way to allow New Jersey to recoup the millions of dollars it has already invested in the Dreamers with pre-kindergarten through high school education.  This allows them, he said, “an affordable way to be able to continue their education.”

New Jersey is now one of eighteen states that gives in-state tuition to students without legal status.  Only three of those states — California, New Mexico and Texas — allow those students access to financial aid.

The state’s Dream Act supporters said they would continue to fight to give undocumented students the same access to state financial aid as citizens. They cited the “skyrocketing cost of a college education.” Christie said he didn’t want New Jersey to become a magnet state attracting undocumented students with its generosity but said, “I care about taking care of New Jersey kids whether they’re citizens or undocumented.”

 

Boomers Stretch And Roll To Keep The Competitive Edge

by Nick Taylor

What a happy surprise when I spied some foam rollers and a Bosu ball in the clubhouse of the place where I play tennis. We had time before the match and I got down and rolled my i-t, or iliotibial, bands and then I turned the Bosu ball upside down and did a series of squats.

My legs felt stronger and steadier than they often do on a Saturday morning at 8:45 a.m. and I was ready to play.

Nick Tennis 3

Normally my group and I rush on to our courts with minimal stretching and start to play after ten minutes of cursory warm-ups. We’re competitive players, and once or twice a season someone strains a muscle, or twists an ankle or a knee.

That’s why I was glad to find this new area at Gotham Stadium Tennis, in the Bronx, New York, where we can all roll and stretch before we run on to the court.

Play without at least a good stretch is a prescription for injury in players of any age, and we baby boomers need better prep to keep our games up to speed.  

If you’ve spent any time in a fitness club you’ve probably heard about foam rolling.  Or you’ve seen men and women on the floor usually on Styrofoam rollers about twice as thick as rolling pins and maybe three feet long.  Simply put, rolling is a way of using your body weight to give yourself a muscle-loosening massage. 

But it’s surprising how many people don’t know about it.

Josh Feldman and Dogs

Crunch Gym fitness manager Josh Feldman introduced me to rolling before a workout. He showed me how to target the i-t bands — the groups of muscles along the outer thighs between your hip and knee –  because they are probably the most important to maintaining unimpaired mobility.

You work out the knots and loosen and lengthen the muscles. This in turn reduces stress on the knees because it lets the muscles do their work without throwing the burden onto the joint.

The calf muscles are also important when it comes to keeping your game shape.  Rolling them to keep the muscles flexible reduces stress the ankles would otherwise absorb.

Other muscle areas also benefit.  

The first few times you roll, it hurts like hell. You feel the knots in your muscles as you press down. They talk to you and if you press hard and long enough, you feel them ease.  You notice the effects right away.  While it’s painful, it gets easier. 

Once you get started, you’ll find yourself working up from the least dense of the rollers – the ones at my gym are white – through the blue and on to the densest, the ones with the least give, which are black. There are also orange rollers with ridges so that you can bear down even more intensely on specific muscles.  And if you have a really high pain threshold you can just use a PVC pipe.

I work with the black roller and that’s the one I found at Gotham Stadium Tennis Center. I roll before I work out and now before I play tennis. I run better and – fingers crossed – have avoided the tweaked hamstrings and other little nagging injuries that keep me from playing my best.

Nick at Play

I don’t have any stake in the business side of this, but as a Baby Boomer athlete I do have a stake in making sure that I can continue to play and can encourage other older players to stay healthy so we can always get a game together.  

 

readmoreWhy Boomers Plus Continue to Play Sports

Email Promises Riches

 

by Nick Taylor

Now I can save the world!  Or so the phony email says. It arrived in my inbox overnight: “I have decided to will my estate to you for the work of humanity, for more info contact Attorney Newton Blackwell on email…” Who doesn’t want to do the work of humanity? The scammer.

And this is clearly a scam. The sender, using a hijacked address, wanted me to respond to another email address where someone would ask me for my personal financial information so that I could collect the money.

Email phishing scam

Email scammers know that if they cast a wide enough net, some people will respond and be persuaded to share their banking and other vital information in hopes of receiving money.

This is just another reminder that you should never give personal or financial information via email or the Internet to anyone who says they’re going to make you rich, for whatever reason.

Report to investigators

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC ) investigates and tries to track scammers. You can report your experience with an email to spam@uce.gov The Anti-Phishing Working Group, a group of ISPs, security vendors, financial institutions and law enforcement agencies also tries to combat phishing and it’s a good idea to contact them: reportphishing@antiphishing.org.

Then delete the email. Tell us about your experience with phishing scams. Like us on Facebook and Follow us on Twitter