Bankruptcy Preparation – What You Ought To Do If You Are Planning To Declare Bankruptcy

Many of us have a failing – no matter how important a task is, we tend to postpone it for another day, simply because either we are too lazy to do it, or we feel that it is too difficult. Practically no task is sacrosanct, whether it is housework, homework or tasks related to our profession. But what do you do when your financial security is at stake and you have to think about what lies ahead financially, especially if you need the services of a bankruptcy lawyer? This is one job that you can’t afford to put off – bankruptcy preparation requires careful planning and organization. In fact, you can’t start too soon; you should do the groundwork before the first meeting as this will give you confidence.

The first thing that you ought to know about this process is that it is not simple; it is bound to be long-drawn out and will require a lot of hard work from you. As a first step in bankruptcy preparation, you need to get your documentation in order and assess your current finances and your liabilities. This step will tell you whether you need to exercise the bankruptcy option. The information gathered in this step will also help the lawyer representing you in formulating a legal strategy that is right for you. A reduction in legal fees may be a desirable side effect as you already have some documentation in place and have a basic understanding of your position. You only need to pay the lawyer for time spent on discussing your case rather than on fundamental issues.

You need to assess your expenditure, asset and liabilities. You should be looking at sources of income, avenues of expenditure that include mortgage or loan payments. It is a good idea to find out the equity represented by your house and car and whether you have any outstanding balances on mortgage or loan payments. Figuring out if you owe any back taxes is also an important activity that you must undertake as a part of bankruptcy preparation. You may also need to gather the payment receipts, and loan and mortgage documentation pertaining to at least a quarter of the year.

Bankruptcy preparation means that you will need to give your lawyer details of your personal life such as probable changes in your marital status, changes in the pattern of expenditure, your current debt levels and how they will affect your assets, your handling of outstanding debts and legal issues that could affect your financial status. In fact, your creditors may perceive any debts paid off to family members as an attempt to avoid your financial obligations to them, even if the debts were legitimate.

Everything You Wanted To Know About Certified Nursing Assistants

Whenever you have gone into a hospital, you may have noticed caregivers feeding patients, turning them over, making beds, cleaning the rooms and monitoring patient health. Well, you have probably spotted a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA). CNAs are not medical professionals – they do not have the requisite academic qualifications. What they do however, is fulfill an important function in the hospitals by assisting medical professionals like doctors and nurses in their work. Some functions that come under the ambit of a CNA are those that involve direct contact with the patient – this requires that the caregiver be committed to his or her work.

In fact, this is the first requirement of a CNA – commitment to patient care. A nursing assistant is an important link in the healthcare industry, performing the functions of assistant, caregiver, data collector and healthcare facilitator. It is true that he or she is not qualified to perform actual tasks related to treating patients, but the support services that they provide are essential. Here are some of the tasks a nursing assistant is expected to perform –

• Change dressings for the patient

• Helping patients to exercise and walk

• Turn over patients who are unable to move and thus prevent bedsores

• Bathe the patients and feed them if necessary

• Help move the patient using a stretcher or a wheelchair

• Change bed linen and clean rooms

• Prepare the patient for examinations and surgical procedures

• Answer the patient’s call for help
  

A nursing assistant may also be assigned other duties of similar, supportive nature. When a nursing assistant performs these tasks, it frees up the nurses to do their job of assisting doctors in surgery and administering medication to patients. This does not mean that a nursing assistant can be without skills – a nursing assistant must be as skilled as any other medical professional must, when it comes to their job. In fact, a nursing assistant may be quite skilled, but without the academic background or the training.

What you need in order to qualify as a CNA is at least fifty hours of theory and hundred hours of clinical training under supervision at a state-approved facility that is authorized to conduct training programs. The process of obtaining CNA certification verifies the professional experience of a caregiver and his or her academic credentials by matching it with the statuary requirements and registers them with a central body. This allows them to be employed as nursing assistants in the United States. This is especially helpful for caregivers who have acquired their qualifications in another country, as this certification helps them prove to a potential employer that they too, can match the skills and the knowledge requirements of the profession. For maintaining the certification, a caregiver must obtain forty-eight hours of continuing education every two years.

It is difficult to find caregivers with the required certification and commitment, making this a profession where there is a rapidly increasing demand for certified personnel. It is a good career choice for someone who likes interfacing with people and is dedicated to making lives comfortable for patients and nurses alike.

Global Financial Meltdown

The seeds of the recent global financial meltdown were planted innocuously enough, in the United States about three years ago when major financial institutions decided to cater to the ‘subprime’ market - that is, individuals who were not good credit risks, were encouraged to invest in the housing by citing the boom in real estate.

This resulted in a rash of loans being given to first-time and second-time home owners overlooking the current credit history, and future credit-worthiness. All major financial institutions in the US were guilty of this practice. A majority of the people availing the financing were second-time home owners who bought a second home on credit even as the mortgages on their first homes were current solely as an investment that would ostensibly payoff due to the escalating real estate rates.

Predictably, the real estate bubble did not last long. Among the first casualties of the subprime lending crisis were top executives from Merrill Lynch and Citigroup, who were sacked following the declaration of losses amounting to billions of dollars as a result of investment in mortgage and loan-backed securities.

After that the crisis has mushroomed, affecting almost all the financial and banking institutions in the US.The collapse of some financial institutions has left a large number of people unemployed. Coupled with an economy in doldrums and major cutbacks in the social security and public health system, the clouds over the average working American are very dark, indeed.It is not just the average American that is affected by the meltdown, economies all around the globe are reeling with the effects of the meltdown in the US markets.

The last few months have seen wild fluctuations in the economic indices of all major Asian economies. Companies all around the globe that provided outsourced services to these financial institutions have also been affected. The resultant freeze in salaries, hiring and welfare measures for employees is very bad news. Even hitherto insulated economies like the Indian and Chinese economies have taken major blows with inflationary pressures threatening to destabilize these fledgling market economies.

The result is a global liquidity crisis staring financial institutions in the face that has various economic powers scrambling to counter the effects of the meltdown and to improve the state of the economies in question.

Now the question in the average investor’s mind is - Are we heading for a global depression? If so, how long will it last? Can I ride out the storm? The trouble is, there are no concrete measures being suggested to tide over this crisis. Though most policy makers have been attempting to tweak the economy and avert a crisis, their efforts seem like sand castles with the tide coming in. So for now, all we can do is wait and watch how things pan out and hope that it doesn’t get any worse.

A Grateful AVG AntiVirus User's Review

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Anti-virus scan of incoming/outgoing e-mail, anti-spam action and protection while using Instant Messaging or ICQ or peer-to-peer communication is included in AIS. AIS is compatible with many widely-used mail managers like Outlook Express and Thunderbird.

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A variant of AVG protection is AVG Antivirus PRO – which includes all the protective and preventive features of AIS except for Anti-spam protection and Firewall. AIS and AVG PRO are easy to install, the software updates itself in the background concurrently providing comprehensive protection, and allows customizable scheduled scans to run.

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