Loan Officer in South Carolina in Embezzlement Case
Schemes like this are one of the reason the housing market collapsed. This woman was embezzling money by playing around with the mortgages and home equity credt lines of friends and family who used her bank. She thus had motive to pass out loans to people regardless of their ability to pay and the borrowers, who were friends of hers, had leverage to black mail her into giving them even more credit since it’s unlikely they wouldn’t have known what she was up to.
United States Attorney Bill Nettles announced that Kimberly O. McAbee of Woodruff, S.C., has been sentenced in federal court in Greenville, S.C., for embezzling bank funds, a violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 656. Senior United States District Judge G. Ross Anderson Jr. sentenced McAbee to 24 months’ imprisonment. Evidence presented at the change of plea hearing established that from 1988 until December 2009, McAbee worked at Arthur State Bank in Woodruff, S.C.
Starting in about November 2006 and continuing into December 2009, McAbee embezzled approximately $520,000 through the manipulation of home equity lines of credit (HELOCs) and mortgage loans held by family members and friends at Arthur State Bank. In an effort to hide her activities, McAbee accessed the bank’s expense and Freddie Mac accounts to move funds around to conceal the theft.
Anyone want to guess how many of those mortgages are sub-prime?
South Carolina Politicians Want to Tax Your Water!
To make up for profligate spending on projects that only morons thought they could afford. What’s worse is the communists involved think slapping a 2.5% tax on water, electricity, groceries and prescription drugs doesn’t go far enough!
If you look at the list above you may notice something. All the things they’re looking at taxing are things you can’t stop using. This is apparently a nod to the Laffer Curve, which all we “wingnuts” know is the proven historical fact that if as you raise taxes the revenue from taxation declines because you remove the incentive to make more money. Cigarette and alcohol taxes also don’t work long term because when you tax consumption people have a tendency to not consume.
Are you guys going to give up your prescriptions though? This is an attack on the poor who can’t go without these things but are going to be adversely affected by these taxes. Not the the politicians care, they just want their voting buying programs funded:
Changes are past due in a state where teaching positions this year were cut and roads weren’t paved, but portable toilets, sweet grass baskets and Learjets got a tax break.
“I would encourage legislators to read it first,” said Kenneth Cosgrove, a member of the TRAC commission who works in marketing and operations for Piedmont Petroleum Corp. and will serve as president next year of the South Carolina Association of Convenience Stores.
“This is not a tax increase,” Cosgrove said. “We are not here to raise taxes or fix the problems the recession has caused in terms of state revenue. The tax code in South Carolina is broken. I would encourage lawmakers to let the process work.”
The final recommendations aren’t expected until November.
But what is apt to be included in those recommendations are already making some legislators uncomfortable.
If approved, South Carolinians would pay a 2.5 percent sales tax on water, electricity, groceries and prescription drugs, all of which are currently exempt from sales tax.
Some currently exempt items would be taxed to the tune of 4.96 percent, including Internet music downloads, wrapping paper, newspapers, hearing aids, prosthetic devices and extended warranties. The tax on things like clothes and furniture, presently set at 6 percent, would be lowered to 4.96 percent as well.
There is also a recommendation to gradually raise, and then eliminate, the sales tax cap on motor vehicles. In South Carolina, someone buying a 2010 Hyundai for $10,000 pays the same as someone else purchasing a $355,000 Lamborghini. The cap would be raised to $600 in 2011; $1,000 in 2012; $1,200 in 2013 and eliminated entirely in 2014.
Of course the lefty April Silvaggio who wrote up this piece swoons over “fixing” our broken tax system but ignores the cost raising taxes will have on the state. Take her car example, she implies that people buying high end cars are not paying their fair share. But the reality of raising taxes on luxury items is that people will simply stop buying them or will buy them in states where the taxes are cheaper.
Newspapers, music downloads and warranties will also see drops in amounts purchased. Newspapers,especially, cannot afford to lose any more customers in this economic environment but the taxes will do just that.
And they want to tax your water. No where have I seen them talk about cutting spending, or the kinds of initiatives we need to lure more business into the state. Just taxing things you can’t go without. And once they put taxes on water and your grandmother’s heart pills they’ll increase the taxes whenever they start coming up short, which will eventually lead to an outflow of residents and their capital to states like Florida.
Water. They’re going to tax your water. What’s next? Air?
Grand Jury: Evidence Indicates Alvin Greene is a Filthy Pervert!
I’m paraphrasing but it is what it is as people with nothing to say constantly babble. Quite a blow for the Democrats, who had victory over Jim DeMint right in their grasp:
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Longshot U.S. Senate candidate Alvin Greene has been indicted on a felony charge of showing pornography to a South Carolina college student.
Court records show a grand jury in Richland County handed down the indictment Friday for disseminating, procuring or promoting obscenity. The Democratic nominee was also indicted on a misdemeanor charge of communicating obscene materials to a person without consent.
Greene was arrested in November after authorities say he approached a student in a University of South Carolina computer lab, showed her obscene photos online, then talked about going to her dorm room.
Every time I read the reports of what has happened I can’t help but be impressed with the cojones on this weirdo. Greene has what we would kindly call the “Innsmouth look” and knows people think of him as borderline retarded. But still he saw a hot little number on a campus computer lab he had no business in, surprised her with some pictures of no doubt degrading sex then said “Let’s go to your room, baby” as if that would work. To be fair most creepy perverts are bold and stupid, so even judged by these standards Greene is pretty sub-par.
He has had no comment and has not yet entered a plea.
Surprise! South Carolina Unemployment “Decrease” Was Not a Good Thing
Not that the hacks at rags like The Greenville News would let you in on the big secret. The unemployment rate went down because a number of people were dropped from the rolls so they were no long counted … even though they’re still unemployed. But worse is that as the private sector has shed jobs as government expanded:
A shrinking labor force and increased government hiring are making the job numbers look better than they really are, according to a new policy brief from the South Carolina Policy Council.
Despite a decline in the state unemployment rate from May to June (11.1 percent to 10.7 percent)—something typically viewed as a good thing—there were fewer people actually employed in June than in May. As of June 2010, there were 1,919,404 persons employed in South Carolina, compared to 1,920,479 as of May.
Workers who have dropped off the unemployment rolls are not included in unemployment figures. The pool of potential workers (i.e., those looking for work) shrank once again from May to June 2010—from 2,159,200 to 2,149,600—a contraction of 9,600 persons.
[...]
Since the beginning of the recession in December 2007, private sector employment in South Carolina has declined by 124,100 jobs, or 7.71 percent. By comparison, public sector employment has increased by 19,600 jobs, or 5.75 percent.
Why is that bad? Well for all you people educated by the communists who run the schools I’ll explain. Every government job is paid for by several taxpayers. With the salary plus benefits they receive it would be too expensive for multiple public service workers to be paid for by one taxpayer obviously. With that in mind you want an economy where the private sector is much larger than the public sector so that we have more people paying into the government than being paid by the government.
But we’re heading in the opposite direction, a California economy where the state is paying out more than it takes in. Once that happens it will be impossible to dig out of the hole. Don’t let the Tea Party optimism fool you, the states that are in bad fiscal shape will not be saved by the right sweeping into power, it’s too late. The only thing states can do is try to keep from getting as bad as places like California.
To do that we need to grow private sector employment and profits and shrink the liabilities the state has. The press here should be telling you the truth about the situation but they’re not. Why?
Fountain Inn Sets Up Civilian Review Board to Handle Non-Existent Police Abuse Problem
More taxpayer money well spent:
Residents with police complaints in Fountain Inn now have a place to air their side of the story.
Fountain Inn has set up a Police Review Committee made up of seven city residents who will review formal complaints against officers as well as cases where police officers use force.
Fountain Inn Police Chief Keith Morton welcomed the new committee saying it would help the Police Department be transparent.
“We’ve never had anything to hide at the Fountain Inn Police Department,” Morton said. “This is just an opportunity to let citizens from our community see what we do.”
Fountain Inn agreed to start a review panel after mediation between the city and members of its black community following the July 2007 hanging death of a black man in the city jail. Greenville County Solicitor Bob Ariail ruled the death of Richard “Jabo” Johnson, 25, Fountain Inn, a suicide, but citizen outcry led to involvement by the U.S. Department of Justice.
The new committee has great responsibilities, Mayor Gary Long said.
“We hope we don’t have to use it very often but when we do, at least we have one now that we have an appeal to go to,” Long said.
It took three years to establish the committee, partly because it took time for the two sides to agree on a list of criteria to be involved on the committee. Members must be a city resident, registered voter with a driver’s license, and must either have completed the Police Department’s Citizens Police Academy or pledge to complete it within one year, Morton said.
So…Fountain Inn was bullied into creating a bureaucracy hostile to law enforcement after a guy hung himself and the people who wanted the board actually fought the city on requirements that make sense, like understanding the law and police procedures. As of now the people who will handle civilian complaints against police have merely “pledged” they will take a course at the academy, but will begin their duties before doing so.
What could go wrong?
Here’s a question people should be asking. How much does this cost? Do these board members get paid? How will they conduct investigations? What’s their budget?
Cost should be first and foremost in residents minds. While the 2009 financial report Fountain Inn has available on their official site paints a rosy picture of economic stability (using some creative accounting) table A-2 (pg 7) shows that there is a declining trend in wealth generating private business activity and an increase in governmental expenditures. Specifically, you’ll see that while governmental charges for services, government grants and property taxes have all increased by at least $500,000, private business activity (the fees the city collects from businesses) has decreased by more than $2,000,000. This would indicate to me that the city is raising taxes on businesses which are being forced to pick up the slack for businesses that have been hurt by the recession or have closed down completely. If that’s the case the loss in revenue will be worse for this year’s financial report.
Table A-2 also shows a decrease in government expenditure on city services with a simultaneous increase in charges on those services for private business. This doesn’t seem like a sustainable economic policy.
Table A-4 (pg 9) is more startling, showing that the city has racked up a little under $10,000,000 in long term debt which is a little more than 32% higher than the year before. At that rate, this year the outstanding debt will be over $13,000,000 but the city revenues may still be decreasing by almost 10%.
So again, does Fountain Inn have the resources to throw at what is at best a vanity project for political activists and at worse a money grab by opportunists which addresses a problem that may not even exist? I don’t think so, do you?