Special retirement benefits once reserved for police, firefighters and others with dangerous jobs are now being given to tens of thousands of state workers employed as park rangers, foresters, dispatchers, coroners, even highway laborers, museum guards and lifeguards.

The trend will add heavily to the $70 billion that state taxpayers owe state retirement funds each year and is costing states such as Florida and Maryland $15 million to $30 million annually, a USA TODAY analysis shows.

Thirty-one states have passed laws since 2000 that expand the range of workers who can retire when they turn 50 or 55 or after working 20 or 25 years, then collect special pensions that will pay some an extra $1 million or more in retirement. The pensions are enhanced because they are usually based on a higher percentage of a worker’s salary than pensions for ordinary state workers.

In Illinois, where highway maintenance workers earn up to $148,000 a year with overtime, early enhanced retirement can pay a $75,000-a-year pension at age 50 after 25 years on the job. That adds up to $2.2 million if the retiree lives to age 80 — or $1.2 million more than if the person had been in the state’s regular retirement plan. A 25-year Florida crime lab analyst can get a $60,000 pension at age 50 and collect $1.8 million by age 80, compared with $575,000 if the person was not in the state’s “special-risk class.”

Read more about states expanding lucrative pensions to more jobs.

Although the lame-stream media aren’t talking about it, failed solar companies like Solyndra and troubled businesses like SunPower Corp. received $4.75 billion in federal loan guarantees from the Obama administration …

The investments in these so-called “green” companies are victimizing already beleaguered American taxpayers – and there are virtually no answers to what may be just the tip of “green iceberg” unfolding scandal.

Right now two Republican lawmakers on two different House subcommittees are demanding answers and accountability into what many are calling “crony capitalism.”

According to news sources, The Energy Department (DOE) says on its website that the “$1.2 billion loan to help build the California Valley Solar Ranch … will help create 15 permanent jobs … the equivalent of $80 million in taxpayer money for each job.”

Reuters reports that “an Obama administration appointee at the U.S. Energy Department pressed White House analysts to sign off on the $535 million loan to Solyndra even though his wife worked for the failed solar panel maker’s law firm, according to internal emails made public on Friday. The revelation adds new drama to a political battle over the administration’s backing for Solyndra, which has filed for bankruptcy and has been raided by the FBI. The newly disclosed emails reveal ‘a disturbingly close relationship’ between the White House, campaign donors and wealthy investors relating to Solyndra, a senior congressional Republican said.”

Even worse, is the fact that the DOE gave “priority status to private investors regarding the first $75 million recovered in the event of Solyndra’s liquidation.”

In other words, the American taxpayer was cheated twice, while private firms with deep financial ties to Obama and the Democrat party recouped their investments!

As taxpayers who have just been bilked out of $4.5 billion, we deserve honesty, transparency and accountability. We cannot allow this assault on the American taxpayer by the President of the United States and the Department of Energy to simply go away!

Read more about your tax money being wasted.

As more and more workers and businesses have obtained refuge from compulsory unionism in right-to-work states in recent decades, the rationality of the free market has been showing itself. But the public sector is another and a grimmer story.

The National Labor Relations Act affects only private-sector workers. Since the 1960s, however, 21 states have enacted laws authorizing the collection of forced union dues from at least some state and local public employees. More than a dozen additional states have granted union officials the monopoly power to speak for all government workers whether they consent to this or not. Thus today, government workers are more than five times as likely to be unionized as private sector workers. This represents a great danger for taxpayers and consumers of government services. For as Victor Gotbaum, head of the Manhattan-based District 37 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union, said 36 years ago: “We have the ability, in a sense, to elect our own boss.”

How this works is simple, and explains the inordinate power of union officials in so many states that have not adopted right-to-work laws. Union officials funnel a huge portion of the compulsory dues and fees they collect into efforts to influence the outcomes of elections. In return, elected officials are afraid to anger them even in the face of financial crisis. This explains why states with the heaviest tax burdens and the greatest long-term fiscal imbalances (in many cases due to bloated public employee pension funds) are those with the most unionized government workforces. California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Wisconsin represent the worst default risks among the 50 states. In 2010, an average of 59.2 percent of the public employees in these nine worst default-risk states were unionized, 19.2 percentage points higher than the national average of 40 percent. All of these states except Nevada authorize compulsory union dues and fees in the public sector.

Read more about Public Sector Unionism.

Finally, I found this explained in a way not requiring a degree in political speak or advanced international economics. What the Greeks did wrong causing themselves to head toward default. Who is most invested in the seemingly eventual default by Greece. Why is Greece in trouble? Why did Greece need yet another bail out? Could the crisis spread? What would it mean for the eurozone?

Read the complete article about the Greece, their potential for default, and consequences. And, is the US heading in the same direction?

Being Ready for wildfire starts with maintaining an adequate Defensible Space and by hardening your home by using fire resistant building materials. Defensible Space is the buffer you create by removing dead plants, grass and weeds. This buffer helps to keep the fire away from your home. Hardening your home means using construction materials that can help your home withstand flying embers finding weak spots in the construction, which can result in your house catching fire.

It takes the combination of both Defensible Space and the hardening of your home to really give your house the best chance of surviving a wildfire.

To really be Ready for a wildfire, a Family Disaster Plan needs to be created. The plan should include:

• Several different evacuation routes
• A meeting location outside the fire hazard area
• Having a Disaster Kit

Read more about being ready for wildfire and other natural disasters.

As the Energy Department moves to finalize the last remaining loan guarantees from a controversial clean-energy fund, the federal government is on pace to put up more than $6 million for every permanent job saved or created by the program.

The loan guarantees do not necessarily represent an actual government payment — they are a commitment by the government to assume debt if a company or project goes under. But in the case of Solyndra, the government ended up lending $528 million, with taxpayers on the hook in the wake of the bankruptcy.

If any company or organization in the private sector it’d be out of business, fast.  I guess that is why job creation should be left to the private sector, not the public sector.  Its less expensive on the tax payer!

Read more about government expensive failings at job creation.

If you don’t understand your credit score and how it’s calculated then you’re in the dark regarding one of the most important aspects of your financial life. Here’s a look at how credit scores work, how they’re calculated, and ten steps you can take to start improving your score today.

With a credit score of 620, your interest rate could be as much as 1.6 percent points higher than if you had a score of 760. Now, you might think it doesn’t matter because, really, there’s not much difference between 3.9% and 5.5 %.

Wrong. For big purchases, like houses and cars, such a seemingly small difference can result in almost unimaginable extra costs over the life of the loan.

Credit scores are compiled by the Fair Isaac Corporation (FICO), and for that reason they’re often called FICO scores. Lenders rely on these scores and the accompanying credit reports to determine your likelihood of defaulting on a loan. When you apply for a loan, the bank or lender will pay one of the three main credit bureaus (Transunion, Experian, and Equifax) to obtain your report.

Read more about improving your credit score.

California’s Legislature this week sent to Gov. Jerry Brown a bill that stiffens penalities for talking or texting on a cellphone without a hands-free device while behind the wheel of a motor vehicle.

For the first time, the bill would extend the state’s 3-year-old cellphone ban to bicyclists, though with lesser penalties than motorists face.

Whats next? Riding horses, boating, and skiing?

Read more about California’s growing nanny state.

The number of obese people in the United States will increase from 99 million in 2008 to 164 million by 2030, and the number of obese people in the United Kingdom will increase from 15 million to 26 million, a new study predicts.

Already, the U.S. and U.K. obesity rates are the highest among the 34 member nations of the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation (OECD), the study said.

The U.S. obesity rate will rise from 32 percent to about 50 percent for men, and from 35 percent to between 45 percent and 52 percent for women. The U.K. obesity rate will rise from 26 percent to between 41 percent and 48 percent for men, and from 26 percent to between 35 percent and 43 percent for women.

Read more about U.S. obese adults.

So we have yet another committiee, another layer of bueacracy in Washington DC. The Deficit ‘Super Committee’. They will be pure at heart, uneffected from outside influence when they begin their important deliberations on where to tackle the national deficit. WRONG! Have a look at who and what has already got ‘em in their back pocket. Keep this in mind when you read about where and who are affected by their decisions.

Get the names and figures for whose making Contributions To Deficit ‘Super Committee’.