By Nicky Burridge, PA

The losses faced by taxpayers on the part-nationalised banks have widened to £26 billion, it was reported today.

The figure is considerably higher than the £18 billion hit the National Audit Office calculated the taxpayer was nursing on Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group shares on 27 November, according to the Guardian.

The increase has been driven by the dire performance of the banks’ shares during 2009, with RBS the worst performing company in the FTSE 100, while Lloyds Banking Group was the sixth worst performer.

RBS, in which the Government now holds a stake of around 84 per cent, accounts for the majority of the loss after the shares lost 40 per cent of their value during the year.

The group’s shares ended 2009 at just 29.2p, well below the 50p level needed for the Government to break even.

Shares in Lloyds did not do much better, closing the year at 50.69p, well down on the 74p which the National Audit Office believes was the average “buy in” price paid by the Government for its 43 per cent holding.

Overall, the taxpayer is currently nursing a £20 billion loss on the RBS shares and a £6 billion one on its holding in Lloyds Banking Group.

But the situation could be worse, with RBS shares sinking to a low of just 10p at one point in 2009, while Lloyds has also endured a volatile year.

However, there was also a brief period during the autumn when the taxpayer had made a nominal profit, after RBS shares rose to 58p and Lloyds’ touched 111.3p.

The National Audit Office has calculated that every 10p rise in RBS shares translates into a £9 billion gain for the taxpayer, while a 10p move in Lloyds ones increases the value of the taxpayers’ stake by £3 billion, the Guardian said.

The National Audit Office has previously said the Government was right to bail out the banks, because it was difficult to imagine the consequences for the economy and society if a major institution had collapsed.

But it added it remained to be seen how much the bailout would cost the taxpayer.

A Treasury spokesman said: “The Government will sell its shares in the banks at a time that ensures the best possible return for taxpayers.

“We estimate that any eventual losses to the taxpayer from overall support for the banking system will be less than £10 billion.”
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Rouses Point, N.Y. – U.S. Customs and Border Protection Buffalo Field Office, announced the apprehension and arrest of three Chinese nationals illegally present in the United States. The three male citizens of China apparently were destined to Burlington, Vt. when they took a wrong turn and ended up at the Rouses Point Border Crossing on November 18.

Thirty-one-year-old Quing Wu, 50-year-old Binhua Zheng and 46-year-old Songbin Piao, all citizens of China were encountered at the Rouses Point port of entry. The individuals were denied admission into Canada and were turned back to the U.S. side of the border. Due to a lack of identification and clear itinerary, the vehicle and occupants were escorted into the secondary inspection area.

Record checks and interviews conducted by CBP officers on the subjects revealed that they were all illegally present in the United States. Two of the men claim to have entered illegally while the third subject entered legally but had overstayed his visitor’s visa. All three had been working without authorization in the Plattsburgh area and were destined to another job in Vermont.

The three subjects were arrested by CBP and are being held at the Clinton county jail pending a deportation hearing before an Immigration Judge.

“These subjects have been living and working in the U.S. illegally for 4 years or more prior to being arrested by our officers,” stated James T. Engleman, CBP director of Field Operations for the Buffalo Field Office. “Intercepting and arresting violators of our immigration laws at our borders is a very important part of CBP’s mission. I commend the thorough inspection by our officers leading to these arrests.”

Some states have enacted no-fault auto insurance laws in a effort to help control the cost of insurance. If you live in a no-fault state, it is important to understand the effects of no-fault insurance.

Background
Traditional fault insurance puts the responsibility of the costs of an accident on the party in fault. This can result in court battles to determine who was at fault and problems for victims of uninsured at-fault motorists.

Function
No-fault insurance makes the individuals responsible for their own costs resulting from an accident without determining fault for payment purposes. An insured driver who has an accident would collect all costs from their own insurance company.

Identification
Thirteen states have enacted some form of no-fault auto insurance: Utah, Pennsylvania, New York, North Dakota, New Jersey, Michigan, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Kansas, Kentucky, Hawaii, Colorado and Florida.

Significance
Proponents of no-fault insurance point to quicker payment of claims and reduced legal costs and lower insurance premiums as benefits.

Limitations
No-fault insurance do not allow suing for pain and suffering reimbursement. All no-fault plans have a threshold amount of cost or seriousness above which traditional fault insurance rules apply.

The government has agreed to pay $3 million to a former agent of the Drug Enforcement Administration who sued CIA officers for illegal eavesdropping.

The proposed settlement followed a ruling by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth in July that CIA officials committed fraud to protect a former covert agent against the eavesdropping allegations.

The lawsuit was brought by former DEA agent Richard Horn, who says his home in Rangoon, Burma, was illegally wiretapped by the CIA in 1993. He says Arthur Brown, the former CIA station chief in Burma, and Franklin Huddle Jr., the chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Burma, were trying to get him transferred because they disagreed with his work with Burmese officials on the country’s drug trade.

Horn sued Brown and Huddle in 1994, seeking monetary damages for violating his civil rights. The CIA itself was a defendant in the lawsuit until early this year.

Then-CIA Director George Tenet filed an affidavit asking that the case against Brown be dismissed because he was a covert agent whose identity was a state secret that must not be revealed in open court. Lamberth granted the CIA’s request and threw out the case against Brown in 2004.

Lamberth found out last year that Brown’s cover had been lifted in 2002, even though the CIA continued to file legal documents saying his status was covert. The judge found that the CIA intentionally misled the court and he reinstated the case against Brown.

The agreement in the case was revealed in court papers filed Tuesday night, and Lamberth will now consider whether to dismiss the suit. Under the proposed settlement, the government makes no admission as to whether the allegations in the lawsuit are true.

Over the years, the number of foreigners entering the country has significantly increased. As many sources state, the reason for the influx of immigrants to the US is attributed to more work opportunities and better sources of income for professionals. However, getting permission to work in the US is not a simple process, as there are legal issues regarding foreign employees. At the same time, certain benefits like medical assistance and education will not be available if a foreigner is not recognized as a US immigrant or permanent resident.

With all these concerns in mind, help from a reliable immigration lawyer is needed. Issues regarding citizenship and immigration may take a long time to be resolved if a professional such as an immigration lawyer is not around. The lawyer’s duty is to make the process easy for you to understand. At the same time, the lawyer provides information such as forms, submission procedures, and the like, so that you are well-guided about the proper methods for filing petitions, whether it is for a visa or a green card.

In some cases wherein a foreign employee is not assisted by his or her company regarding his petition for working visa, the immigration lawyer will represent the client, and ensure that he or she gets the paperwork and attention he deserves. With issues regarding marriage to a  US citizen, these lawyers also assist the foreign spouses with their applications. The immigration lawyer is also very helpful in case you are not getting quick responses regarding applications you have filed a long time ago. Usually, immigration lawyers have connections with concerned agencies to help speed up the process for you. With an experienced and reliable immigration attorney, you can be assured that your files are in good hands, and you won’t fret about getting denied because of improperly completed forms.

Understanding the headaches and frustration massive insurance agents suffer by cold calling people day in an out after paying for worn out insurance leads.

I am compelled to write this article about Internet Leads, Life Insurance Leads, Health Insurance Leads, Homeowners Insurance Leads, etc. and why it has been a huge waste of money and time for the majority of insurance brokers and agents in the insurance industry. I am grateful for such a great resource like EzineArticles which is a powerful tool in communication to the masses!

Agents all over the United States are constantly bombarded with solicitations daily with new lead programs from many different insurance lead providers. I have a friend who is an insurance agent and owes her insurance company money for insurance leads. She is required to buy a certain portion of leads on a monthly basis.

Feeling the pressure from your own insurance boss to close more deals i call this The Greatest Scam of all Times when it comes to (Internet Insurance Leads). Internet leads or leads generated by companies online are about 90% frivolous = trash. The great big lie that we only share these leads with one other insurance company, but when you eventually call, the bottom line is that 5 to 7 others called before you. Wolves in Sheep clothing is what i call these camouflaged as exclusive leads.

Decent insurance leads come to light about once every 20-25 leads. That is a minimum of $350 to run into that decent lead. This does not include the greatest expense, labor and time spent on19 to 25 other leads that did not pan out. This can be burdening on the insurance agent who is not good at closing and has issues dealing with rejection. After calling so many insurance leads and getting the big NO I AM NOT INTERESTED, and the agent apologizing to maintain his integrity, after saying sorry so many times, they begin to feel sorry.

So what specifically these insurance lead generating companies are doing wrong? What is happening with the conversion rates? As you continue to read i will disclose some hidden secrets.

Would you like to know the insurance lead generating companies that are literally giving insurance brokers and agents tons of garbage no good leads? if you do a query on google, msn, yahoo and many other search engines, you’ll find that a vast majority of them dominate top rankings in these search engines for terms like heath insurance leads, mortgage leads, life insurance leads and more.

One way these major companies generate leads is buying these positions on the search engines with (PPC) pay per click advertising. Many companies invest aggressively in search engine optimization to technically dominate good positioning on search engines (Organic Listings). Paying several web masters to aggressively design lead capture pages to generate leads is also a tool used once they are dominating top search engine rankings. Mind you a good portion of them do not know much about the Insurance Business, but generating the leads, they master it!

If you have a hefty budget to invest on (PPC) Pay Per Click, companies like Google Adwords will place your insurance website at the very top almost immediately as long as your a good bidder above other pay per click participants. The average cost per click on Google Adwords for the keyword 9life insurance) is between $18-24 per click with no guarantees! of any conversions.

These big lead generating companies will then sell the leads to brokers or insurance companies that funnel these leads to their brokers at a fraction of the cost, but multiplied many times over, so their investment brings in a big and chunky (ROI). So how does it happen? Well, everybody down the line will pay $15-20 a piece, So what was a $20 investment initially is multiplied by 10 = $200! And who gets the real headache? The client by 7-10 agents calling them and giving them a speech on why they are the best, then they outbid each other.

As many companies use various ways to generate these leads, there are several tactics, sometimes suspicious, sometimes legal and sometimes straight bogus, but that is another story!

Using natural search results, which are found further down the pay per click links, about 3 links lower on the organic section. If you do a search on google typing in (life insurance quote). Usually the first 3 sites are pay per click advertisements, below you will find the natural search results. Major search engines have been weeding out the Spam, but there is a good portion that persist and most likely continue to Spam as long as SEO (search engine optimization) professionals are getting paid!, the job will get done.

These lead generating sources get to the top of natural search engine listings without knowing much about insurance policies – but hiring experts who master SEO (search engine optimization), link building or link exchange and all the technical ways to gain prominent positioning.

Companies are also lead brokers, another bogus way many websites are accumulating these leads to sell to the masses is from other websites. Websites that have prime positioning and get good amounts of traffic easily will cut a deal with companies and become (commission affiliate brokers) that sell leads at wholesale prices. Why are these leads bogus? Because they generate leads by spamming, hacking and buying dead lead lists to redirect them to the affiliate sites and the list goes on, doing whatever it takes to generate leads.

At least a tenth of these websites that dominated search engines for any given term do not know much about insurance, nor do they have content that provides value for the consumer!

Other common problems with insurance leads that are generated are screening issues and pre-qualifications, but most companies will boast that they have screened clients very well, which, after speaking with insurance agents and brokers, their experience claims it not being true!. Speaking with insurance agents and brokers doing research, i found that approximately 85-90% of the leads from these Internet Lead Companies left false contact information, they really were not interested in an insurance policy, all they wanted was a price figure for comparison purposes, or would submit their information only to say (sorry, it’s just too much money for me right now) when the policy came in (per requested!). Here you see alot of wasted manpower. Even companies that have an effective follow-up system, with the most aggressive rates in the industry, dedicated assistants and staff members, technological and underwriting resources at their fingertips – even this makes it a complex lead program to work.

So where is the Insurance Industry headed and what will come of all this? Fact!, People are shopping online daily. They go to these insurance lead generating websites, fill the application, and next thing you know an agent calls them with hopes of closing a deal. Now, the client has numbers that was quoted to them. However, that Insurance Agent RARELY gets a chance at closing a deal. Now the Insurance Agent is chasing a lead and is focused on a misconception. If the client is truly interested in opening up a new policy, now using those quotes goes back to his existing insurance agent, finds one online locally or calls up a friend or family member and discusses theses numbers which in return get refereed to a trusted local insurance agent by word of mouth recommendation.

So there you go! Insurance is usually sold by word of mouth recommendation from trusted associate resources, friends and family members. It initially cannot be sold via the Internet, but using this reliable resource for local insurance companies is vital to their business. If you have an insurance business and your website is not positioned where your local consumers are seeking out information, then you are subject to other insurance agencies intercepting your local leads. Now it balls down to closing skills and providing useful value and great quotes to have the client determine whether or not you are a reliable firm or agent to do business with.

Insurance companies easily say that their best foot forward is implemented in acquiring good solid leads with the best intentions, therefore the leads they provide are well worth the money and if any bad leads exist, they will either refund your money or replace them.

Unfortunately these lead generating companies blame insurance brokers and agents for not having the proper ability to provide quality information with enough value that will lead the consumer to closing themselves, nor have the competitiveness that these online insurance companies show them when quoted for an insurance policy. Most of the time they refuse or make an excuse to why they will not credit you, because there was or is (enough contact information provided to you) which most of the time never gets a response from the client.

This is a challenge for most insurance companies purchasing these leads. If you have 8-10 agents calling the same client, now it IS time to compete and when this happens, fraudulent quoting becomes a common denominator due to competitiveness among insurance agents. Many insurance agents will say anything in order to get that person to walk in the office, sign a deal or outbid another quote. When this happens it leads to unattainable premiums and false claims based upon a clients true rating! Too many variables such as A+, underwriting issues or backdating all play a part in a true quote for a client, so there is a big loop hole in luring the client to fill in the application which ultimately harbors corruption. When the smoke clears and months have gone by, the client is more likely to take the policy because at this point he/she is exhausted and overwhelmed with waiting, they just want it to end it. Bottom line, the lowest pricing usually closes the deal, not the insurance agent who gives the accurate quotes.

This is very unfortunate for many honest and ethical insurance agents who strive to provide the best value. However, the solution to this is in assuring your positioning on the internet with top search engine rankings and be in the way when your consumers search for information concerning insurance quotes. Who better to find than the local insurance company in the neighborhood.

Are you still thinking about buying leads online? Think again!

If you are a broker and your insurance agency has slowed down, and agents have left you slowly but surely, i have a question for you! What kind of search engine rankings does your website have?

If you are a (Broker or Agent) and you are looking for Quality Insurance Leads that call you direct, i recommend you start using Web 3.0 platforms like YouTube, Myspace, Facebook ect. to initially have some immediate viral exposure and work on getting your website to the top of search engines where your potential clients are digging for your information.

http://www.webseospecialistinnyc.com/

http://webseospecialistinnyc.blogspot.com/

The Justice Department has asked a Boston judge to dismiss a lawsuit that claims a federal law defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman is unconstitutional.

The lawsuit claims the act wrongly denies gay couples access to federal benefits given to other married couples.

In court documents filed Friday, the Justice Department makes it clear the Obama administration thinks the law is discriminatory and should be repealed. But the department said it was defending the statute because the law is “constitutionally permissible.”

The 1996 federal Defense of Marriage Act bars federal recognition of gay unions and denies gay couples access to pensions, health insurance and other government benefits.

Seven gay couples and three widowers from Massachusetts filed the challenge to the law earlier this year.

WASHINGTON – U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) today reopened the fiscal year 2009 H-2B petition filing period and will immediately accept new H-2B petitions.

Although on Jan. 7, 2009, USCIS announced it accepted and approved a sufficient number of H-2B petitions to meet the congressionally mandated annual cap of 66,000, the Department of State received far fewer than expected requests for H-2B visas and as a result, has issued only 40,640 H-2B visas for fiscal year 2009 to date. This means that there are approximately 25,000 visas that may go unused, as they have not been granted. Because of the low visa issuance rate, USCIS is reopening the filing period to allow employers to file additional petitions for qualified H-2B temporary foreign nonagricultural workers.

The normal (non-premium processing) adjudication time frame for H-2B petitions is 60 days.  USCIS will make visa numbers available to petitions in the order in which the petitions are filed.  However, because H-2B petitions (Form I-129) for fiscal year 2009 visas must be received, evaluated, and adjudicated on or before the fiscal year 2009 deadline of Sept. 30, 2009, USCIS cannot guarantee approval of any H-2B petition on or before the Sept. 30, 2009 deadline.  Employers therefore are encouraged to file as soon as possible and to request premium processing by filing a Form I-907 and submitting the $1000 premium processing fee, which will allow for expedited adjudication.  See http://www.uscis.gov/premiumprocessing.

To qualify for a fiscal year 2009 H-2B cap number, employers must:

• Submit the Form I-129 Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker to USCIS with all required documents, including an approved Alien Employment Certification from the U.S. Department of Labor that is valid for the entire employment period stated on the petition.

The petitioner must also indicate an employment start date before Oct. 1, 2009.

Petitions received on or after Oct. 1, 2009, and/or requesting a starting date on or after Oct. 1, 2009, will be considered towards the fiscal year 2010 H-2B cap and are subject to all eligibility requirements for fiscal year 2010 H-2B filings, including 8 CFR 214.2(h)(6)(iv)(D), which requires that the start date listed on the petition be the same as the starting date authorized on the temporary labor certification.

The H-2B program allows U.S. employers to bring foreign nationals to the United States to fill temporary nonagricultural jobs for which there is a shortage of available U.S. workers. Typically, H-2B workers fill labor needs in occupational areas such as education, construction, health care, landscaping,  manufacturing, food service/processing, and resort/hospitality services.

For more information about this reopening of the H-2B fiscal year 2009 filing period, please see the related list of questions and answers. More information about the H-2B visa program is available in the USCIS guide, “How Do I Hire a Foreign National for Short-Term Employment in the United States,” please see Related Links on the right of this page or by calling USCIS’ National Customer Service Center at 1-800-375-5283.

Sofia. Bulgaria has already started exchanging criminal conviction certificates with authorities in Spain, Germany and France, as is was mentioned in a report of the Ministry of Justice.
The progress was made under an EU project, involving 14 Member States and 3 countries-observers.
Currently, tests are underway with Belgium and Luxembourg.
Bulgaria’s Ministry of Justice has also joined the Electronic Apostille (E-Apostille) program, by setting up a special register and e-version of the latter. Apostilles are used to validate the papers of Bulgarian citizens – diploma, driving license, property and company certificate, which they are to use abroad.