Transfer your balance from high rate card to low rate credit card, which means, if you have credit cards with APR 10%, 18% and 30%, transfer the balance from the 30% APR to one with 10%. This significantly reduces the debt you owe.

You can avail the debt consolidation loan to pay off the card debt. However it is extremely important to abstain from any unnecessary expenditure. No remedy would fix your credit card debt unless you plan a budget for yourself and prioritize your needs. Cut down expenses wherever possible and try to pay off the debt first, any delay would keep increasing your credit card debt.

At times the creditors might not be convinced enough with your reasons and commitment to pay and then you might need the help of a professional. If your credit card debt is over $10000 it is worth referring an expert. Debt settlement companies have professionals who are adept at debt handling. Their knowledge and expertise in debt can be utilized to eliminate the debt up to 50-70 percent. This helps you pay off the debt in 2-3 years flat instead of stretching it for 30 years or so.

Finding legitimate debt settlement companies is not that difficult but consumers must know where to look. It would be wise to utilize a debt relief network that will qualify the companies for you and ensure that they are legitimate and have proven themselves

Some of the areas of negotiation would be to lower the interest rate on the credit card, waive off the late fees, over due payment and other financial charges. They stretch out the period of payment to 2-3 years and recommend paying at least 3% of the debt every month consistently. Debt consolidation can also be a part of the program. You can merge debt from multiple credit cards into single payment or transfer the high interest rate debt into lower interest rate.

There is also an option to take debt consolidation loan to start off paying the credit card debt. All this put together would help reduce the debt by 50-70 percent; this leaves you with the remaining 30-40 percent to be paid over a time period of 2-3 years. This scheme might be accompanied with a bad credit score, but it never the less has milder impact that filing bankruptcy. Bankruptcy spoils your credit history for at least 10 years, denying you of further loan or debt from government or private financial organizations. Keep all avenues opened to settle debt, do not resort to bankruptcy.

Finding legitimate debt settlement companies is not that difficult but consumers must know where to look. It would be wise to utilize a debt relief network that will qualify the companies for you and ensure that they are legitimate and have proven themselves.

Take Social Security, Medicare and other benefits. Add in interest payments on a national debt that now exceeds $12.3 trillion. It all will gobble up 80 percent of all federal revenues by 2020, government economists project.

That doesn't leave room for much else. What's left is the entire rest of the government, including military and homeland security spending, which has been protected and nurtured by the White House and Congress, regardless of the party in power.

The U.S. debt crisis also raises the question of how long the world's leading power can remain its largest borrower.

Moody's Investors Service recently warned that Washington's credit rating could be in jeopardy if the nation's finances didn't improve.

Despite election-year political pressure from voters for lawmakers to restrain spending, some recent votes suggests that Congress, left to its own devices, probably isn't up to the task of trimming deficits.

Both the Obama administration and Democratic leaders have put job creation ahead of deficit reduction for now.

The Senate faces an important vote after it returns on Feb. 22 from its President's Day recess on a bill intended to stimulate job growth. The legislation offers a $13 billion payroll tax credit for companies that hire unemployed workers, including an additional $1,000 tax credit for workers retained for a full year.

Proposed belt-tightening steps by President Barack Obama, including a freeze on some nondefense, nonentitlement spending, would make only a small dent in the mountain of debt.

The budget he submitted to Congress this month proposes record spending of $3.8 trillion for 2011. Taxes in next year's budget will support only $2.5 trillion of that spending, leaving $1.3 trillion to be borrowed.

The president's budget is a best-case outlook, from the administration's vantage point.

It doesn't take into account future liabilities from the growth of entitlement benefits and is based on projected economic growth that depends on a solid recovery. It assumes Congress will pass all of Obama's initiatives, including spending cuts and tax increases previously rejected by Congress.

Congress already has rejected a bipartisan deficit commission that could have forced Congress to take painful steps on tax increases and entitlements.

The commission would have been modeled on one that makes military base-closing decisions, forcing Congress to take up or down votes. The Senate turned aside the legislation last month after some original Republican supporters jumped ship once Obama endorsed the plan.

Proponents say this type of commission is the only way to make painful debt decisions. Obama says he'll create a bipartisan commission by presidential order instead.

"In the end, solving our fiscal challenge -- so many years in the making -- will take both parties coming together, putting politics aside, and making some hard choices about what we need to spend, and what we don't," Obama said in his weekly Saturday radio and internet address.

Still, his commission wouldn't have the power to force a congressional vote.

Obama's call for fiscal austerity came at the same time he signed legislation lifting the cap on government debt from $12.4 trillion -- which is close to being breached -- to $14.3 trillion to permit more borrowing.

The same law puts in place new budget rules praised by deficit hawks that would require future spending increases or tax cuts to be paid for with higher taxes or other spending cuts. "After a decade of profligacy, the American people are tired of politicians who talk the talk but don't walk the walk when it comes to fiscal responsibility," Obama said.

It's not clear when the debt's day of reckoning will arrive. But the overall national debt over the next few years will rise to 100 percent of the gross domestic product -- a level viewed as alarming by the International Monetary Fund and international economists.

The Social Security system, the biggest social spending program, has begun paying out more in benefits than it collects in payroll taxes. For the past quarter-century, Social Security had produced a surplus that helped finance the rest of the government.

Medicare, the health care program that now covers 45 million elderly and disabled people, is in worse shape. It's been paying out more than it takes in since 2008 and its trust fund is projected to run out of money in 2017.

Carmen Reinhart, an economics professor at the University of Maryland and a former IMF official, suggested the nation's fast-growing indebtedness may not have a visible impact at this point on ordinary Americans. But some day it will pounce.

"One thing we can say with a fair amount of certainty," she said. "We never know when the wolf will be at our door. The wolf is very fickle and markets can turn very quickly. And a high debt level makes us very vulnerable to shifts in sentiment that we cannot predict."

"There is a shared sense of urgency in Corporate America to capitalize on the surging U.S. Hispanic market that is transforming our economic and social landscape," said Latinum Principal David Wellisch, founder and former GM of AOL Latino. "Latinum enables corporations to do as a group what no one company can do alone in terms of collecting and analyzing data, collaborating with peers, and developing strategic partnerships. We represent a powerful new vehicle for companies that want to accelerate their learning curve, and get this market opportunity right."

Latinum delivers new-to-world insights, data and solutions across a wide range of critical challenges that matter most to its peer group of executives. By combining cross-company perspectives with customized support for each member, Latinum assists executives and their teams in developing deeper insights into the market, more effective strategies for the segment, and the solutions required to successfully design and execute core marketing initiatives. The network will be powered by a first-of-its-kind digital platform launching later this month which will facilitate active online collaboration among participating executives and provide access to a rich set of data and insights.

"With ethnic segments leading lifestyle trends, we recognize the importance of this market both as trendsetters in many cases, and as a target audience for our brand," said McDonald's U.S. Hispanic Marketing Director, Cristina Vilella, a charter member of the Latinum Network. "Our participation in Latinum gives us access to the best thinking from other market leaders as they too accelerate their penetration of the U.S. Hispanic market segment and to new, cutting edge analysis and data to take full advantage of this market opportunity."

Latinum pinpoints behavior and trends that help clients unlock the full potential of the U.S. Hispanic market in a highly cost-effective manner.

"The Hispanic-American segment is responsible for almost a third of the population growth since 2005 and its spending is increasing at a rate more than twice that of the general market," said Latinum Principal Michael Klein, formerly a top executive of the Corporate Executive Board, the world's largest business network provider. "Our clients recognize the huge growth potential of this market, but in this economic climate they're looking for more cost-effective ways to go after the opportunity. Our shared-cost approach to solving problems enables us to produce high-quality answers and insights at a fraction of the cost of alternatives."

To ensure its members get the most from their investments in the Hispanic market, Latinum is directly addressing a number of the most vexing challenges that have impeded companies' consistent success in targeting the segment. These include strategies to address and work around critical data gaps, best ways to use new channels to acquire customers, and the direct effect of acculturation on incremental ROI. For example, by uncovering how specific cultural factors impact actual consumer spending patterns, Latinum has identified a set of emerging market opportunities that for some companies have more than doubled their target market.

By leveraging the efficiencies associated with the network model, Latinum also provides members with a wide menu of services, customized for their needs. It holds formal meetings and informal web casts and teleconferences, and produces a steady stream of content which it makes fully available to members. Beyond original analysis and data, Latinum offers its members a range of additional services through the Latinum Marketplace, where members can partner on joint marketing initiatives, collaborate on industry-wide issues, and access negotiated discounts on vendor services.

Latinum Network is a wholly-owned business of EcoNet Ventures LLC.

The indicators are designed to project economic activity in the next three to six months. The August results support many analysts' projections that the economy started growing again in the current July-September quarter and will continue to gain in the fourth quarter.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke last week said the recession was "very likely over."

The recession's end "is no longer a source of heated discussion ... but whether or not the economy can keep grinding forward (and at what speed) is still a big question mark," Jennifer Lee, an economist at BMO Capital Markets, wrote in a note to clients Monday.

Jobs - Some analysts worry that any current economic growth will falter as unemployment rises from the August rate of 9.7 percent to above 10 percent. But the leading indicators provided a rosier outlook for next year, said Bank of America Merrill Lynch analyst Ethan Harris.

"This is good news, no question about it," he said. "The data's more of an argument against the so-called double dip. They're all looking like next year's going to be a solid growth year."

A measure of supplier deliveries, rising stock prices, an increase in consumer expectations, a jump in building permits and the "interest rate spread" boosted the index in August.

That spread is the difference between yields on 10-year Treasurys and the federal funds rate, which the Fed is keeping at a record low near zero. The funds rate is the interest banks charge each other for loans. A big difference between it and the 10-year Treasury is viewed as positive because investors are willing to lend for longer periods.

On Wall Street, stocks moved mostly lower despite the Conference Board's mostly positive report and news of Dell Inc.'s plans to buy information technology company Perot Systems Corp. for about $3.9 billion. The Dow Jones industrial average lost about 25 points in midday trading. 'Broader indices were mixed.

The leading indicators index jumped 4.4 percent -- an 8.9 percent annual rate -- in the six months through August. That's the fastest six-month growth rate since March 2004. The increase in the six months through July was 3.3 percent.

An accompanying index meant to measure the current state of the business cycle was flat in August. The July reading was revised up to a 0.1 percent gain from zero, making it the first increase in nine months.

That index has bottomed in the same month as the U.S. economy for six out of the past seven recessions, Wells Fargo Securities economist Sam Bullard wrote in a research note.

The two indices suggest "that the recession is bottoming out," said Conference Board economist Ken Goldstein.

"These numbers are consistent with the view that after a very severe downturn, a recovery is very near," he said. "But the intensity and pattern of that recovery is more uncertain."

The U.S. economy shrank at a 1 percent pace in the second quarter, and analysts predict it is growing at an annual rate of between 3 and 4 percent in the July-September period. That's a marked improvement from the large declines in the fourth quarter of last year and first three months of this year which combined for the worst performance in a half-century. Real Estate

American Express Company www.americanexpress.com is a leading global payments, network and travel company founded in 1850

Nearly all lenders are seeing more customers stop making their monthly payments as the economy falters and unemployment rises.

Discover said its earnings available to common shareholders surged to $559.4 million, or $1.07 per share, during the three months ended Aug. 31. That's up from $180.1 million, or 37 cents per share, a year earlier.

The company's results were bolstered by a $472 million payment received as part of a $2.75 billion settlement of an antitrust lawsuit with Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc., raising Discover's profit by $287 million after taxes. The lawsuit claimed MasterCard and Visa harmed Discover's business by preventing their member banks from issuing credit cards for Discover's network.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters, on average, forecast a loss of 11 cents per share for the quarter. Analyst estimates often do not include one-time items. Discover expected a profit of 52 cents per share, excluding items.

Discover shares rose 58 cents, or 3.8 percent, to $15.90 in late morning trading.

During the quarter, Discover's provision for loan losses increased 4.4 percent to $380.1 million from $364.8 million a year ago. The company's charge-off rate, the percentage of debt it does not expect to be repaid, climbed to 8.39 percent from 7.79 percent in the second quarter.

Discover's managed 30-day delinquency rate rose to 5.10 percent from 5.08 percent in the prior quarter, but jumped from 3.85 percent a year earlier.

The higher percentage is reflected in the current "challenging environment," CEO David Nelms told analysts on a conference call.

"Although loan losses in the third quarter came in a bit better than we expected, we believe that we have still not quite reached peak loan losses," Nelms said, adding that Discover expects its charge-off rate to be in the range of 8.5 percent to 9 percent for the fourth quarter.

Earlier this year, Discover became a bank holding company and received $1.2 billion from the federal government under the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

The company joins hundreds of financial-services companies -- including rival American Express Co. -- that have gotten government capital during the financial crisis. In June, American Express said it repaid the $3.39 billion it received last fall.

Discover has yet to pay back the government.

"We do have a process that we will go through with our board and our regulators and that we have not yet reached a decision that the time is right," Nelms said. "But I'm certainly feeling increasingly positive."

During the most recent quarter, Discover card sales volume fell to $23 billion, down 7 percent from last year.

Income from Discover's third-party payments business -- which processes ATM and debit transactions -- fell to $27.1 million from $28.5 million a year earlier. Last year, Discover acquired Diners Club International from Citigroup Inc.

In August, Discover said its customers will soon be free of fees for charging over their credit limits.

The move comes before credit card regulations set to take effect in February limit the way credit card issuers may charge such fees. Under the legislation signed by President Obama in May, consumers must agree to pay a fee before they can charge more than their credit limit, and card issuers must tell their customers how much those fees would be.

And just as the shock of Sept. 11 prompted long-overdue (and still not cemented) reforms in intelligence and defense, the jobs crisis will force us to examine a climate that has been deteriorating for years. The total number of nonfarm jobs in the U.S. economy is about the same now - roughly 131 million - as it was in 1999. And the Federal Reserve is predicting moderate growth at best. That means more than a decade without real employment expansion.

We're a long way from Hoovervilles, of course. But it's not hard to imagine, if we're not careful, a country sprouting listless Obamavilles: idled workers minivanning aimlessly through overleveraged cul-de-sacs with no way to pay their mortgages, no health care, little hope of meaningful work and only the hot comfort of angry politics.

American Express Small Business

That's a 5% decrease in the total number of jobs, a drop that hasn't occurred since the end of World War II.

The number of long-term unemployed, people who have been out of work for more than 27 weeks, was the highest since the BLS began recording the number in 1948. Jobless figures released Sept. 4 showed a 9.7% unemployment rate, pushing the U.S. - unthinkably - ahead of Europe, with 9.5%.

What Summers proceeded to offer was, in fact, an unusually candid insight. And though couched in jargon, it was an insider's confession of why our present economic moment is fraught with both danger and opportunity. There appears to be, Summers told the suddenly very attentive crowd, a strange bit of physics working itself out in our economy. The problem is related to a hiccup in an economic rule called Okun's law. First mooted by economist Arthur Okun in 1962, the law (it's really more of a rule of thumb) says that when the economy grows, it produces jobs at a predictable rate, and when it shrinks, it sheds them at a similarly regular pace. It's a labor version of how the accelerator on your car works: add gas, go faster; less gas, go slower.

What made Summers' frank comment important is that it suggests this just-add-gas relationship may now be malfunctioning. The American economy has been shedding jobs much, much faster than Okun's law predicts. According to that rough rule, we should be at about 8.5% unemployment today, not slipping toward 10%. Something new and possibly strange seems to be happening in this recession. Something unpredicted by the experts. "I don't think," Summers told the Peterson Institute crowd - deviating again from his text - "that anyone fully understands this phenomenon." And that raises some worrying questions. Will creating jobs be that much slower too? Will double-digit unemployment persist even after we emerge from this recession? Has the idea of full employment rather suddenly become antiquated? Is there something fundamentally broken in the heart of our economy? And if so, how can we fix it?

Here's what bothers him about Lampert's management of the once fabled retailer:

* Lack of investment in stores. "The stores are terrible; they don’t look any better than they did five years ago. In fact, they look worse." Matthews notes Wal-Mart spends tens of billions a year on stores, while Sears is spending about $200 million. That's no way to compete.

* No retail expert at the helm. For more than 18 months, Sears has had an "interim" CEO, Matthews notes. Until they hire someone more permanent with retail know-how they're doomed, he says. "I kept waiting for five years: when is he going to hire the guy? Never happened."

The problem is the economy. The unemployment rate continues to rise, despite a new Federal Reserve survey that suggested the recession is over.

More than 138,000 households received a default notice in August. Another 144,113 received a notice scheduling the house for public auction.

"The August report demonstrates that there is still an ample supply of properties filling the foreclosure pipeline," said James Saccacio, CEO of Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac.

Despite an 8 percent monthly decline in foreclosure activity in August, Nevada had the nation's highest foreclosure rate for the 32nd-straight month. Nearly 18,000 Nevada properties received a foreclosure filing, down 8 percent from July but an increase of more than half from August last year.

Florida, California, Arizona, Michigan, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, Georgia and Illinois completed the top 10 states for foreclosure filings.

Among cities with at least 200,000 people, Las Vegas had the highest foreclosure rate, followed by the California cities of Stockton, Merced, Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, Vallejo-Fairfield and Modesto.

Looking ahead, businesses in most Fed regions said they were "cautiously positive" about the economic outlook.

The assessments of businesses on the front lines of the economy was brighter than those they provided for the Fed report in late July. At that time, most regions said the recession was easing its grip and some of them reported signs that activity was leveling off.

In Wednesday's survey, the Dallas region indicated that economic activity had "firmed." The Fed regions of Boston, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Richmond and San Francisco mentioned "signs of improvement." The Atlanta, Chicago, Kansas City, Minneapolis and New York regions described activity as "stable or showing signs of stabilization."

Analysts predict the economy is growing in the current July-September quarter at anywhere between 3 and 4 percent.

Most of that growth should come from more spending from businesses, which had slashed investments -- often by double-digits -- during the recession.

Consumer spending, however, is expected to turn up only because of the binge-buying of automobiles generated by the short-lived Cash for Clunkers program. Buyers were given cash rebates to trade in less efficient gas guzzlers.

The Fed's survey found that the majority of regions did report that the government's clunkers program "boosted traffic and sales." But aside from brisk businesses at auto dealerships, other merchants struggled. Consumer spending remained "soft" in most Fed regions.

Manufacturers in most regions, meanwhile, reported "modest" improvements. The San Francisco region said orders rose for semiconductors and other information technology products. Richmond, Atlanta, Chicago and Minneapolis reported increases or planned increases in automobile production. Several regions noted more production for pharmaceutical products.

Although the ailing residential real-estate market is still weak, it also flashed signs of improvements. The Fed regions of Chicago, Richmond, Boston and San Francisco observed an "uptick in sales." Most regions said buyer demand remained stronger at the low end of the housing market, although Philadelphia did note an "upturn in sales at the high end of the market."

The Boston, Cleveland, Dallas, Kansas City, Richmond and New York regions credited the first-time home buyer tax incentive with spurring sales. Most regions reported downward pressure on home prices, although Dallas and New York said that prices were "firming."

The commercial real-estate market, however, continued to drag. Demand for space remained weak and construction fell again in all regions.

On the jobs front, employment conditions "remained weak" in all the Fed regions.

The nation's unemployment rate climbed to a 26-year high of 9.7 percent in August. It is expected to top 10 percent this year.

Many economists predict that rising unemployment will keep consumers cautious. For the budding recovery to be durable, businesses will have to step up spending and investment, analysts say.

The Fed's survey found that staffing firms in Atlanta, Dallas, Richmond, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Boston, New York and Chicago did report a "slight pickup" in demand for temporary workers. That's an encouraging sign because employers will usually boost use of temp workers before they hire new employees.

Still, several regions noted businesses and local governments were imposing wage freezes or cutting compensation in some cases. With the labor market weak, employers aren't expected to be generous with wages, a force that will keep inflation low, the Fed report said. Expectations for a lethargic recovery also likely will prevent companies from jacking up prices, keeping inflation subdued, the report suggested.

His parents had a summer home on Balboa Island, where he spent summers as a boy. He remembers paddleboarding in Newport Harbor and the legendary Larry the Lifeguard, who was a long-distance paddleboarder and fixture of Balboa Island for decades.

Torrey’s parents also own the land where Martha’s Bookstore sits today.

His mother, Margaret Torrey, still lives on Balboa Island.

“It’s a very special place to live,” she said. “Everyone is so friendly. We love it.”

Margaret Torrey remembers putting her son to work to clean up the property during the summer months on Marine Avenue where Martha’s now sits. The family, who has owned the spot since 1963, would rent part of the building out to UC Irvine students in the fall and vacationers in the summer.

Mike Torrey’s new book, “Stone Offerings: Machu Picchu’s Terraces of Enlightenment,” includes more than 100 photographs of Machu Picchu taken at both the summer and winter solstices.

For the book, Torrey made two trips to Peru to photograph the pre-Colombian ruins in both the summer and winter.

“[The Incas] put this big city in the middle of this beautiful natural environment, and something about the place catches you off guard,” Torrey said. “It just feels like it works. I was struck by [the idea] that there should be an interaction in what we build and the surroundings.”

Torrey would spend 10 to 12 hours a day at the ancient Incan city to capture the site without including the hoards of tourists who descend upon it each day.

“I wanted to photograph it like I was the only one there, but there’s a couple of thousand people there a day,” Torrey said. “Sometimes it would just take a second, and suddenly, for a hot second, there was nobody in the picture. I wanted to have more of a singular experience there, and that’s how I experienced it.”

Margaret Torrey is proud of her son’s new book, she said.

“I think it’s beautiful, a perfect job, but he’s a perfectionist,” she said. “You always like to see your children happy with their work.”

Who: Architectural photographer Mike Torrey will sign copies of “Stone Offerings”
Where: Martha’s Bookstore, 308 Marine St., Newport Beach
When: 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday
Information: www.stoneofferings.com

In his new role, Cortez is responsible for guiding the national charity's Hispanic Mentoring Program, an initiative that has resulted in a 28 percent increase in the number of Hispanic children served by Big Brothers Big Sisters' nearly 400 agencies from 2007 to 2008.

"Hector's deep understanding of the challenges our youth face today - as well as hands-on experience on how to foster positive change - make him an ideal choice to lead our Hispanic mentoring effort," said Judy Vredenburgh, President and CEO, Big Brothers Big Sisters. "Hector joins us just as we are releasing new data from research conducted for us by Harris Interactive, suggesting adult 'Littles' are more likely to have four-year college degrees and household incomes of $75,000 or more, and that they are more likely to have positive family relationships. His work to better engage Hispanic volunteers and families will make a huge difference in many communities we serve," she added.

Cortez will work closely with the Big Brothers Big Sisters' Nationwide Hispanic Advisory Council and institutions such as the Hispanic Scholarship Fund and community and faith-based organizations across the country to develop and implement strategies focused on increasing the number of Hispanic children and adult volunteers to create Big Brother/Big Sister matches.