Correction
In my “Happy birthday, Frank Lloyd
Wright!” story that appeared last week, I should have said Lois Dunbar has long
portrayed Susan Lawrence Dana.
Pete Sherman
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A fair shake on the Fair Share Value
Dear Pete Sherman,
I was reading your article in the Thursday, June 5-11, 2003, edition of the
Illinois Times titled “Easy Credit, Hard Times.” I would have to say that most
of the article is very good and very informative for all. However, I’m quite
upset about a few lines that were written that need to be corrected.
The following are the lines I speak of: Hepperly works for thecreditors, who pay him a small commission for getting peopleout of debt. And also: They’ve cut his commissionnearly in half. These lines were on page 13 of the article.
CDC and its employees are not on commission whatsoever and never have been. These lines hurt the credibility of our business and me personally. Debt Management Plans serve the dual role of helping the client’s repay the debts owed and helping the creditors collect the money owed them.
As stated in our interview, CDC gets back from the creditors what is called
a Fair Share Value. The Fair Share, not commission, has been roughly cut in
half over the last seven years. The Fair Share Value comes from voluntary contributions
from creditors who participate in Debt Management Plans. Since creditors have
a financial interest in getting paid, most are willing to make a contribution
to help fund CDC. These contributions are calculated as a percentage of deposits
the client makes through their DMP. However, the accounts with the client creditors
will always be credited with 100 percent of the amount the client pays those
creditors through CDC and CDC will work with all of the creditors regardless
of whether they contribute to our agency.
Sincerely,
Scott A. Hepperly
Branch Manager
CDC Consumer Debt Counseling, Inc.
Â
“Stop Clinton”
To the editor,
In recent debate over Illinois’ “renewable energy portfolio standard” legislation–a
law that would require utilities to buy 5 percent of their electricity from
renewable sources by 2010 and 15 percent by 2020–nuclear utility giant Exelon
Corporation’s chairman, John Rowe, reportedly questioned whether consumers would
be willing to pay higher costs for renewable energy.
“Wind power is the only renewable [source] that’s anywhere near competitive. . . . And nobody knows how much of that the public will stand for,” Rowe recently stated.
Yet Exelon and other nuclear utilities have fiercely supported federal energy legislation recently passed by the Senate that would lavish taxpayer-funded welfare on nuclear power by:
• Using taxpayer money to construct new nuclear reactors–like the one Exelon wants to build at Clinton. Taxpayer loans would cover up to 50 percent of construction costs for 8 to 10 reactors. The Congressional Budget Office says the risk of default on taxpayer loans is well above 50 percent. Nearly $30 Billion could be spent under this Bush-sponsored Nuclear Power 2010 program.
• Indefinitely extending the nuclear industry’s taxpayer subsidized insurance policy, the Price-Anderson Act, which protects nuclear utilities from full potential costs of catastrophic nuclear accidents.
• Authorizing $1 billion to build a new hydrogen production reactor in Idaho for Bush’s Hydrogen Initiative, even though quicker, cheaper, and less environmentally harmful ways exist to generate hydrogen.
• Funding the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative which would start “reprocessing” old reactor fuel, worsening the international nuclear proliferation picture.
This subsidy sucking at the public trough by the 50-year old, trillion-dollar nuclear industry met no opposition from any of Illinois’ alleged Republican fiscal conservatives.
One simple question for John Rowe and the other nuclear vampires–how much of this is the public supposed to stand for?
Stop Clinton. Pass the Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard.
Sincerely,
David A. Kraft
Director, Nuclear Energy Information Service
Evanston
This article appears in Jun 12-18, 2003.
