Crucial Steps into Your Personal Jubilee
[Editor’s Note: This the fifth and final article in the “Your Jubilee in 2010” Series describing the personal and national “Year of Jubilee” available to us in 2010. The four preceding articles are: (1) “‘Jubileer' or ‘April Fool’?”; (2) “Our National Jubilee’s Forgiveness Factors”; (3) “Your Personal Jubilee’s Forgiveness Factors”; (4) “Getting Psyched Up for Your Personal Year of Jubilee." All together, the articles comprise the five chapters in one entire, free “sneak preview” at the heart of Ken’s forthcoming book, Judo Politics—The Transformation of the Electorate that Upsets Big Brother, due to be released this Spring. To access the entire series, click on “Your Jubilee in 2010” Series under the Categories section to the right.
Husband: “I read your first ‘“Jubileer” or “April Fool”?’ article and just couldn’t get my mind around it. But, for some reason I persisted with articles #2 and #3 on our Personal and National Jubilee’s Forgiveness Factors. Then, I went back to Article #1 and it suddenly all made sense to me!
Wife: “As I read, at first it seemed like you were describing pieces to the puzzle with which I am quite familiar. But, then you started filling in pieces between the pieces, enabling me to see the larger mosaic come together, so that I could take the next step forward instead of just being forever stuck in my recent paralysis!”
Dear Walk Show Family,
Absent an essentially spiritual, then financial, Second American Revolution, in my opinion we are at the beginning of the end of the First American Republic.
Kingdom economist and Walk Show advisor, Jay Ferris, sent me an article this week about the economic dominoes that are already beginning to fall, starting in Greece and on to the rest of Europe. To add insult to injury, Jay included a hint at the much larger collapse that is underway in the U. S: an article and video link in which Fed Chairman Bernanke admitted to Rep. Ron Paul in a Congressional hearing that he printed 1.3 trillion dollars out of thin air in recent months! Such monetizing of our national debt not only guarantees hyper-inflation soon; it almost makes one wonder why Bernanke didn’t just print up a similar amount to pay for all of our health care and save the nation the Congressional health care trauma of this past year, plus bail out California and a bunch of cities on the backstroke. After all, it’s free money, isn’t it?
Mass delusion and corruption are the names of the game now in the First American Republic.
Concerning the falling dominoes, Jay Ferris commented, “I got the impression yesterday that it may have been the beginning or at least a real mile post on the way to our economic end.” Yet, Jay is not a pessimist. So far he has written three books about a new type of “kingdom economy” that offers nothing less than “authentic hope” and “genuine change we can believe in” as all of the godless world systems continue to crumble.
The intrigue in it all is that this higher and better economy is already operational for those who put their trust in the unseen Reality that supersedes and transcends the seen unreality all around us.
Following are some possible guidelines for you as a faith-filled “Jubileer,” described earlier in this series as “the fiercely loyal and proactive minority,” during this your 2010 Jubilee celebration. As Jay Ferris would suggest, the penalty for not acting upon some of these choices could be serious or fatal for you, but the rewards could mean Jubilee/Liberty for you this very year!
My suggestion is that you work your way down through the list, to see if any of the items might fit your situation and spur you to immediate action. If you would benefit from personal recommendations in any of the following scenarios, feel free to contact me, as I have already experienced the privilege of personally working through the following Jubileer checklist with the assistance of the Walk Show team of sponsors who serve in each of the areas listed below:
1) Asset Protection—I have noticed that many Americans, Christians included, work hard at creating assets, but very few spend the few dollars per month necessary to protect those assets from litigious assaults and identity theft. This is, in my opinion, your first and foremost responsibility as a good steward. As I explain in detail in my Judo Politics chapter entitled, “It Starts with Me,” my own pre-paid legal services have already paid for themselves until I reach well into my nineties, and my identity theft protection has guarded me during three identity theft attempts (two on my business and one personally). Both The Walk Show and Robin and I personally are served by one of the most competent, articulate spokespersons I know of in this dual pre-paid legal and identity-theft-protection industry.
2) Downsizing—Robin and I have upsized and downsized from time to time in years past, primarily due to the needs of a growing family that has finally left the nest. In this present economy, we are looking to downsize once again, with a desire to streamline, save money, etc. At our age we have a greater appreciation for the reality that, in America, “You don’t tend to own things as much as they own you!” We have concluded—for us, at least—that the less we have to pay for every month, the less we’re on the American treadmill and the more time we’re given for the important things to us in life and our business-ministry.
3) Real Estate Acquisitions—The combination of historical low rates and low property values could make now the best chance ever to purchase a new home. Probably for a very short time more, first-time home buyers will still be able to move into a mortgage payment that is very close to what they were paying in rent. Last month FHA rates (30yr fixed) were as low as 4.75%, with conventional 30-year fixed rates at 4.75%, as well. Conventional 15-year mortgages went as low as 4.125%. At this point rates can only go up. Time is money. Waiting even a month—such as this past month of April when the federal tax incentives were still in place—can cost thousands immediately and thousands more over the life of a loan.
The Walk Show continues to run its “Loan Watch Program,” which assures our customers of the lowest rates, no hidden fees, and no unnecessary changes in the game plan during the closing period. I have personally watched Walk Show listeners save piles of cash, while also watching others get creamed for ignoring the “Walk Show Loan Watch Program” various protections from unscrupulous practices in the mortgage industry. Whether you need a quality Loan Officer or a Real Estate Agent, The Walk Show’s business-ministry can introduce you to the best of the best.
4) Loss Mitigation—There’s a slow way and a fast way to work your way out of debt. Since many are caught between a rock and a hard place, they might consider a fast one—loss mitigation.
You may need to negotiate down your loans or credit-cards. With the proper professional help, it is not unusual to be able to cut them by half or more. As there are many pitfalls when working with creditors, I’ve found that rarely are people equipped to handle the terrain without professional assistance. Long experience has taught me this fact of life: “A trained, equipped, and experienced professional rarely costs me anything and usually saves me mucho money, as they normally create more value in their service than they charge in fees.”
If you find the best loss-mitigation counselor (as distinct from many incompetent advertisers of loss-mitigation services), you are not likely to spend a dime more than you would if you tried to do the job yourself, and you’ll probably spend less—yet without all the stress! In The Walk Show’s search for “the best of the best” in this field, we now have experienced, trustworthy loss-mitigation professionals to recommend to you.
If you are having temporary difficulty making your mortgage payments, you might start out by considering a forbearance agreement with your bank or other lender. A forbearance agreement is typically an agreement to postpone, reduce, or suspend payment due on a loan for a limited and specific time period. Competent counsel here might help here, as well, for each bank has its own quagmire to plod through. The Walk Show’s competent counsel warns us about the end-game on the forbearance limited time period—increased payments:
Forbearance is for homeowners trying to get caught up. This process requires not only that you pay your current payment but [eventually] an additional amount to “catch” up the arrears. Often it is not a viable situation for homeowners . . . How can you pay more than your payment if you got behind on you payment to begin with? Be careful, this is not always viable….and a definite no no if you are short selling.
One of our Walk Show preferred loan officers describes a second line of defense if you are having difficulty making your mortgage payments:
The one thing I would mention to your audience members who are “upside-down” is to look into a loan modification before doing a short sale (unless they really want be out of the house). Many lenders are reducing the interest or the principal to make the payment be about 35% of the borrower’s income. This is a better alternative to saturating the market with short sales. It usually is a win-win between the borrower and bank. A friend of mine recently had her loan modified and her payment dropped by $900! . . . I can get into more detail for you on the procedure and differences from bank to bank.
One beauty of first investigating a forbearance agreement; then, if turned down, a loan modification; then, if disqualified, a short sale, is that each application and processing period buys you more time! Yes, even if you are turned down by any of the three options, with each procedure you have normally bought weeks’ or months’ more time in your home without foreclosure and often without making payments. Time can be everything when seeking to restore your cash flow! Ignorance of these matters, as well as the lack of professional advice, can unnecessarily stress you out as well as “do you in.”
5) Short Sale Your House the Right Way—If you’re upside down with the loan-to-value ratio of your house, where your house is worth less than the mortgage(s), you may need a short-sale. I noticed the other day that in one of our Western Washington counties, close to 80% of all residential sales are now “short sales”—where the house is bought for less than its mortgage, and the bank absorbs the loss so as to avoid even greater losses through foreclosure. Because many if not most candidates for short sales are under financial stress, your indecision, ignorance or bad decisions in this arena could needlessly shorten your ability to stay in your house while you are working to improve your cash flow.
A properly shepherded short sale can often buy you up to a year or more in the house before you have to move out—yes, even a year without mortgage payments if you’re in a distressed situation. Again, in times like these, cash flow is everything, and even the lenders themselves will suggest that it is best for you to remain in the house throughout the short sale process. Yet, I still watch as the naïve or ill-informed get clobbered when trying to navigate through these shark-infested waters alone. With the right professional help, the short sale process can be much more stable and manageable, giving you less stress and more time to get repositioned.
I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you that one of the primary reasons short sales are taking so long—to the benefit of cash-strapped sellers—is that the current national Administration has so hamstrung the industry with its confusing, capricious and arbitrary regulations, along with the ever-present threat of new ones, that the banks themselves are largely in paralysis. One banker told me, “We’re not sure how to interpret the regulations that are already hitting us, and we never know what new ones are going to come down the pike. For example, if we liquidate too soon, we might miss out on a government bailout. So, we remain in paralysis!”
Every government “cure” I can think of nowadays is much, much, worse than the original “disease” it would purport to treat, so if you’d like to learn something about what it might mean to be “wise as a serpent and gentle as a dove” (Matthew 10:16), you might consider the many, many, many ways in which you can employ the force and momentum of the corrupt and deluded’s own weight against them. Buying time in financial transactions is but one expression of what is called Judo Politics!
Not everybody who offers to help you in your short-sale process can really serve your highest interests. For example, most short-sale negotiators will not have investors ready to make an immediate offer on your home. The short sale/loss mitigation service you employ should definitely have such built-in investors, so that the short sale proposal is submitted with a bona fide purchase offer. This results in your short-sale file immediately being thrown in a much more secure category with the lender, which normally puts 90-120-day foreclosures on hold until the short-sale negotiations are completed. If your mortgage is with some of the larger, bureaucratic banks, it can average as much as the afore-mentioned year or more before you will be needing to move out.
If at all possible, do not enter into short sale negotiations without a built-in investor.
I know of one case where, out of ignorance, fear, and the bad choices they often engender, the distressed sellers moved out of their home into rented facilities. When they got help from The Walk Show’s favorite short-sale negotiator, they were able to move back in and are still living there without making mortgage payments while they seek to get their cash flow back up to speed. Don’t hold your breath, but I actually know of one unusual case where the short-seller, without making a single payment, has maintained ownership of the house for over three years now and still has possession.
Short sales also provide an income-generating opportunity for investors (see #9’s “Income Generation Opportunities” below).
6) Debt Consolidation/Refinance—If you’ve got enough income and equity and don’t need to move, you can often still benefit greatly through refinancing your house right now. Historically low interest rates will enable you to pay off high-interest credit cards and radically reduce your interest payments. Last month’s interest rates were still in the 4%’s, but the end will soon be in sight, as the nation’s fiscal choices already set in motion will soon present us with high rates. Again, The Walk Show’s “Loan Watch Program” can save you thousands while protecting you from the unscrupulous practices and players that greatly helped bring down the real estate and mortgage markets in the first place.
7) Money- and Investment-Management and Accelerated Debt Amortization—Do you own your house? Do you still have a mortgage? Which one of those would you like to keep—your house or your mortgage? If you own your own home, want to stay in it, have more income than bills every month, and wish to manage your money and investments, while radically accelerating the pay-down of what debts you do have (including mortgages), The Walk Show has found the best known system for accomplishing those objectives. In fact, we’ve already put our listeners on the road to improving their bottom lines by over $100 million, and that’s just the beginning.
This approach takes discipline, which, in time, becomes a much lighter yoke than that carried by the undisciplined. I mentioned earlier one Walk Show listener who was blinded by the headlights of his wife’s fears (of a restraint on her lifestyle) in such a way as to throw away more than one million dollars of hard, cold cash by not availing themselves of this actuarially demonstrable remedy to their predicament.
Why not, instead, knock off those debts, including your mortgage, in a fraction of the time you might have thought without changing your lifestyle—or even more super-fast if you simultaneously choose to streamline your lifestyle.
8) The “BK” Word—Irrational fear is often attached to bankruptcy (or BK). Actually, the process, although paper-intensive, irritating and humbling for those who pass through it without proper guidance, can become peace-infused for Jubileers going through it by the Spirit of the living God.
You see, there are still some vestiges of the grace and mercy of God contained in our nation’s bankruptcy laws. In fact, our Creator’s original Jubilee process afforded an “automatic bankruptcy,” so to speak, which is still apparently built right into the very nature of things every 50 years. Either do it voluntarily, or it happens to you involuntarily via a national economic collapse!
We must not be quick to falsely judge ourselves or others whom have gone or are going through bankruptcy, for often people are too shy, insecure, confused or godly to share with you all of the contributing factors. Usually their predicament flows from a combination of their own personal choices and sabotage from others. This might be the case, for example, where we receive overwhelming health care bills from physical conditions brought on by our own poor lifestyle choices, combined with the gouging at the hands of medical providers, insurers, or government. Sometimes it’s just sabotage alone . . . maybe an accident, theft, bureaucratic bungle, capricious and arbitrary government edict, or broken contract.
We may have asked for and received God’s forgiveness for our part in the problem, and done everything within our power to be responsible toward our creditors; nevertheless, sometimes it simply becomes necessary to ask or demand forgiveness of our debts from our creditors.
With the advanced state of corruption and delusion manifesting itself by every possible type of “creditor” in our Republic—from our governmental, economic, political, and spiritual abusers—eventually the day may well come when you just throw up your hands and say what is in effect a prayer for divine help: “Enough is enough! Lord, is it time for bankruptcy to become an option in my own personal Year of Jubilee?”
May I suggest that we can pass through this BK aspect of our personal Jubilee—if needed in 2010—without false guilt?
9) Immune-System Boosting via Detox and Nutrition–The times they are a stressin’, and maintaining good health during the global economic upheaval ahead is going to become essential if we are to prosper both in and after our personal Jubilee.
In my opinion, few will make it even through their personal “Year of Jubilee” without a strong immune system. Therefore, of necessity I have felt constrained to insert a health care component into the Jubilee process.
There are many good nutritional companies, but in keeping with The Walk Show’s vision statement, we will only recommend those with whom we have had extensive experience and who have products unexcelled in their field. In my forthcoming book, Judo Politics, The Transformation of the Electorate that Upsets Big Brother, I reveal proprietary information about one company whose founding vision was and still is to build up our immune systems to prepare the church for the times of great shaking immediately ahead. I could only describe their patented products as “regenerative,” a label I could not apply to any other single nutritional company’s products.
In an age when it is permissible to lie your head off about drugs that might hurt you and cannot usually help, and it’s illegal for distributors to tell the truth about nutritional products that might help you and can’t hurt, in Judo Politics I will provide you information about nutritional products that have successfully contributed to the healing of over a hundred major disease conditions, when the very distributors of these products are prohibited from telling you one word about their efficacy.
10) Income Generation Opportunities via Home-Based Business and Investments–It’s ancient and obvious advice, but if you’re in trouble financially, the problem can normally be solved either by reducing your debts and expenses, or increasing your income. From what I have gathered in conversations with Walk Show listeners, such things as the government-induced crushing of the private sector, thrashing of the dollar, and the resultant inevitability of depression or hyper-inflation, are combining to provoking kitchen-table discussions all across America to the effect:
We’ve just GOT to find a quality home-based business that will allow us to generate more cash for the family!
You may remember that we started out this Jubilee series by asserting that there is no such thing as a bad economy; it’s just a matter of which side of the economy you are working! Wherever there is crisis or even disaster, there is also an opportunity—a silver lining to every cloud.
The most robust start-up business we initially thought of was one for us baby boomers with adult children: a business that installs revolving doors on the front of our homes! One time I had three daughters back home, with our garage stuffed to the ceiling with the furniture to three complete apartments! With not even a pathway, we had to climb onto the pile to retrieve anything . . . and just forget about garaging a car!
All kidding aside, to search for this silver lining, a couple years back The Walk Show changed our first hour format to: “The Home-Based Business Hour,” where for the first hour we focused upon quality home-based businesses and equipping one another to succeed in the new “era of the home-based entrepreneur.”
The Walk Show did the homework in each field, then came up with what we felt was the very “best of the best” home-based businesses that would hopefully match with whom God made you to be. (See Judo Politics’ chapter on “Foundation Stone #1—Personal Identity.”)
Each featured business is bolstered by practical mentoring in the ideas, strategies and resources that will help the home-based entrepreneur efficiently and successfully grow their businesses. This is because the Walk Show team is unanimous in our opinion that the worst epitaph that could ever be on your tombstone is: “He (or she) died with the music still in them.”
As one of our sponsors mentioned to me today:
Home base business is the single most amazing tax shelter available to Americans . . . If you make money in your venture, it is imperative you understand corporate structure and apply it accordingly or find yourself subject to excess taxation . . . We can help with basic business advice on how to position yourself by selecting the correct structure to avoid excess taxes . . . Not only is it important how to make money but how to KEEP your money.
Your Personal Jubilee in 2010 is Just the Beginning
Perhaps it would help to sum up this Jubilee section of Judo Politics by asserting that your personal Jubilee is intended to help you get repositioned for the even-greater challenges and opportunities to come. The Jubilee phase of that larger process entailed getting ourselves out of debt in all ways—spiritually, relationally, financially, and politically, etc. We started with our acceptance of God’s forgiveness, paid for through Jesus Christ’s death on the cross. We continued with our forgiveness of others for their debts incurred against us. Then, we learned how to get forgiven of our various debts to fellow human beings and society’s institutions.
Many who don’t see themselves in trouble now will soon be up to their necks in alligators, so the premium is upon restructuring and repositioning now so as to be prepared for the financial crocodilians, whether now or later. Our personal Jubilee is only our first step.
Yes, God doesn’t stop there! In fact, our personal “Year of Jubilee” is just the beginning of a lifetime of explosive productivity! Like with its Old Covenant shadow, the Jubilee opens up the prospects of the “next fifty years” of phenomenal fruitfulness! Once you’ve gotten freed from the various types of debt that were dragging you down, you become useful in the times of great shaking immediately ahead.
I encourage you to call me and discuss the formation of your personal “Jubilee Master Plan.” Don’t worry, for there’s nothing you can say that could alarm me, as I am somebody who has plumbed the depths of every single Jubilee item on our checklist above. I may be able to help you get on course for your own personal Jubilee in 2010—whether you need help “building fences at the top of the cliff, or an ambulance service in the valley below.”
If you think I might be able to be of some help to you, I encourage you to call me at 1-877 WALK SHOW [1-877-925-5746—locally, 253-333-1813], or email Ken@KenTalbott.com for the best time and place for us to talk as fellow Jubileers.
Conclusion: Why Your Jubilee in 2010 is “Crucial”
It did not escape my attention that he word, “crucial,” as in “Crucial Steps Into Your Personal Jubilee,” means “cross-shaped.” Yes, it takes a type of “death” for us to abandon all of our soul-driven dreams, visions and expectations in favor of God’s true Jubilee/Liberty for each of us. It’s time for us Jubileers to pick up our crosses and follow Christ daily on the road into Jubilee, through it, and onto a whole new beginning thereafter.
Every single morning I get a “spiritual DNA tune-up” via an “Open Windows” daily e-letter quoting from the works of T. Austin-Sparks (TAS) at www.Austin-Sparks.net. In the April 21, 2010, excerpt, TAS points to this Jubileer’s ultimate objective in the purposes of God:
In the course of our spiritual history God deals with us in ever-deepening ways. Down, down, down, He goes, until He touches bottom to have things true at our very depth. He undercuts all our professions, doctrines, assumptions, pretensions, illusions, and customs… There is no mere formalism about this; no mere Jewish ritual in this; no mere outward observance of rites and ceremonies in this! No! This has got to go right into the inmost being, in the inward parts. God works toward that. God is ever working toward the most inward parts. Do you recognize that? Do you understand what He is doing with us? Oh, He will meet us with blessing on a certain level, as we walk before Him [like the man in Psalm 1]. He will meet us with His gracious provision when we transgress and trespass and fail, and do wrong - He will meet us there in grace [as in the Jubilee process]. But God is going to pursue this matter to the most inward place of our being, and register there His work of grace and redemption (from: “Truth In The Inward Parts”).
To access the first four articles in this “Your Jubilee in 2010″ Series, click on “Categories” to your right, then “Your Jubilee in 2010” Series.
Pullin’ and Prayin’ for and with you,
Ken
Ken Talbott
Host, The Walk Show
1-877-WALK SHOW [1-877-925-5746--locally 253-333-1813]
Ken@TheWalkShow.com
