Little Gems
Tom Hartz is in this issue of the Geneva Shore Report.
The letter to the editor he wrote to the Lake Geneva Regional News last week came out under huge bold headlines as: GSR BIGOTRY AND LIES, is reproduced in this issue of the GSR. It is important to have and reflect upon criticism, especially when it comes with tons of vituperation and deep emotion. Tom is mad as hell and throwing his wife into the ring, as well. Tom isn’t really mad about what he wrote he was mad about. No, he’s mad as hell because he’s avaricious and his attempt to belly up to the city feed trough and get nine hundred thousand bucks ($900,000) for doing nothing with the dead old Lake Geneva Theater failed and he blames the GSR for that, and he’s right, the GSR had a lot to do with that. To top it off, some guy from out of town wades in and creams off the big bucks like it was nothing. Tom calls the GSR, and specifically its managing editor, a bully and a coward. This from a man who’s never served his country, much less seen combat and been wounded. This from a man who owns the sleek, over-funded, loud restaurant named, of all things, Simple. This from a man who was a Lake Geneva Alderperson, sits on the Police and Fire Commission and now on the Planning Commission. He and his wife also alleged that the GSR would never print their letter to the editor without modifying it. Well, it’s in this issue unmodified. The GSR does make mistakes, but it does not lie. A lie presupposes deliberation and intent. The GSR has no intent, other than trying to better Geneva Lake and all that surrounds it. Innuendo? Plenty of that. But about Tom Hartz? Who is this guy, anyway? If you go into Simple and look around, he’s the skinniest guy in there, when he’s there, which isn’t a whole lot anymore. He’s the guy who, among a population of thousands, probably should be bellied up to that proverbial public feed trough more than anyone else.
Who is Tom Hartz? A likeable guy…unless you come between him and any money laying around.
Credit Monopoly
How the three credit agencies of America, Experian, Equifax and Transunion, have conspired with big business to make you pay much more for everything.
The Fair Credit Reporting Act of 1976 made it so that nobody could check your credit report without your written permission. It’s like that Act never passed, for the credit agencies and financial companies of the modern era. Somehow, with the advent of this ridiculously convoluted FICO scoring, just having your credit checked, with or without your permission, drives your score down and therefore you have to pay more for credit. Somehow, anything that happens negative (like being two days late on a credit card bill payment) is instantly put up on your forever credit record but paying down balances takes years to record.
Why?
Because of monopoly. The three credit agencies came together to own all credit data a few years ago and then they immediately threw in with the companies giving out credit in order to drive interest rates up. The average credit card today charges more than twenty percent per year interest. This is in a period where no bank in the nation will give customers more than two percent on the money in CDs or in financial interest bearing accounts. Is it all rigged. You better believe it. And good luck getting errors and outright lies off your report. That can take years.
