Homeowner Improvement Authorization Letter: Fill & Download for Free

Does the CCP view democracy as a concept that is positive and beneficial? Outside countries like Switzerland, where everybody votes on everything, the CCP is probably the world’s leading democracy because it has the closest alignment between what people want and what the government delivers.No matter which way you look at Chinese democracy, it’s beating the Western models hands down. To save time by let’s look at Joseph Wang’s answer to How do we convince a Chinese communist advocate that judicial independence is important?So lets go back to 1990.You: Democracy and judicial independence are great thingsCCP: We agree. It’s just that we have different definitions of democracy and judicial independenceYou: But your definitions are wrongCCP: Why?You: Because your government is obviously broken. Just look at how wonderful things are in the US and EU, and how much things suck in China. Obviously our definitions are better.Today:You: Democracy and judicial independence are great thingsCCP: We agree. It’s just that we have different definitions of democracy and judicial independence. Any by the way, we been spending the last thirty years copying bits and pieces of your system, that we think can work.You: But your definitions are wrongCCP: Why?You: Because your government is obviously broken. Just look at how wonderful things are in the US and EU, and how much things suck in China, and errr……Let’s compare America’s current version of democracy to China’s constitutionally, electively, popularly, procedurally, legislatively, operationally, substantively, collectively and financially.Constitutionally, China’s constitution cites the concept of ‘rights’ twenty-five times, ‘democracy’ thirty-three times and ‘freedom’ twelve times and stipulates, America omitted the d-word from all its Constitutional documents.Electively, The Constitution refers to the National People’s Congress’ role a hundred times and stipulates, “The National People’s Congress and the local people’s congresses..are responsible to the people and subject to their supervision. All administrative, judicial and procuratorial organs of the State are created by the people’s congresses to which they are responsible and by which they are supervised”. Directly elected village representatives vote for township members, who vote for county representatives, who vote for provincial representatives who vote to send candidates to the National People’s Congress, which votes for the Central Committee’s two hundred members are the party's highest organ of authority when Congress is not in session. They also vote to elect the seven members of China’s highest executive group, the Politburo Standing Committee: the president, premier and cabinet. The president cannot even choose his own prime minister, hire or fire officials or assign or suspend members of Congress. In the U.S., by contrast, wealthy, unelected people propose and fund candidates for election and an unelected Electoral College chooses the chief executive.Popularly, the Chinese, who bear many scars from past governance errors and it was when Mao ignored his own advice, “If we don’t investigate public opinion we have no right to voice our own opinion. Public opinion is our guideline for action,” that China suffered. Today, the government spends prolifically on surveys and a thousand independent polling firms seek insights, as author Jeff J. Brown wrote me, “My Beijing neighborhood committee and town hall are constantly putting up announcements, inviting groups of people–renters, homeowners, over seventies, women under forty, those with or without medical insurance, retirees–to answer surveys. The CPC is the world’s biggest pollster for a reason: China’s democratic ‘dictatorship of the people’ is highly engaged at the day-to-day, citizen-on-the-street level. I know, because I live in a middle class Chinese community and I question them all the time. I find their government much more responsive and democratic than the dog-and-pony shows back home, and I mean that seriously”. Princeton’s Gilens and Page, on the other hand, examining the causes of Americans’ fifty-two percent participation, found that ‘the preferences of the average American appear to have a near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy’.Legislatively, President Obama’s healthcare initiative relied on his popularity and promises while China’s initiatives rely on math. Two-thirds of Chinese trust data more than personal experience–compared to only half of us globally–and technical experts remain the most trusted members of their society. As Robin Daverman explains, “China is a giant trial portfolio with millions of trials going on everywhere. Today, innovations in everything from healthcare to poverty reduction, education, energy, trade and transportation are being trialled in different communities. Every one of China’s 662 cities is experimenting: Shanghai with free trade zones, Guizhou with poverty reduction, twenty-three cities with education reforms, Northeastern provinces with SOE reform: pilot schools, pilot cities, pilot hospitals, pilot markets, pilot everything. Mayors and governors, the Primary Investigators, share their ‘lab results’ at the Central Party School and publish them in ‘scientific journals,’ the State-owned newspapers. Major policies undergo ‘clinical trials,’ beginning in small towns that generate and analyze test data. If the stats look good, they’ll add test sites and do long-term follow-ups. They test and tweak for 10-30 years then ask the 3,000-member People’s Congress to review the data and authorize national trials in three major provinces. If a national trial is successful the State Council [China’s Brains Trust] polishes the plan and takes it back to the 3,000 Congresspeople for a final vote. It’s very transparent and, if you have good data and I don’t, your bill gets passed and mine doesn’t. People’s Congress votes are nearly unanimous because the legislation is backed by reams of data”. Legislation is entirely data-driven and the data and its sources are publicly disclosed prior to the vote. American legislation, by contrast, is written by unelected bureaucrats and professional lobbyists and often passed without a single Congressperson’s having read it.Procedurally, in Prime Minister Wen Jiabao's words, policy setting ‘emphasizes solutions to major problems, either relevant to the grand strategy of the country's socio-economic development or of deep concern to the public’ and, although the process is neither fully scientific nor totally democratic, calling it ‘authoritarian’ (a Western concept) misses the point. If the government says, ‘to reduce pollution this year, please don’t turn your heaters on until November 22,’ ninety percent of Chinese will shiver because they trust the government’s data. If President Xi claims that global warming is a hoax he will be regarded as autocratic, not democratic. If he wants a new climate policy and persuades five cabinet colleagues to support it, he can push it into the trials pipeline but, without solid trial data, he can’t propose legislation. The Party sees itself as a follower of scientific methodology and looks at its American counterparts the way scientists look at people walking into their lab off the street. Their scientific, data-driven democracy has steadily narrowed the gap between public expectations and government capacity and Chinese support for government policies stands at 96 percent, higher than Switzerland’s or Singapore’s and far loftier than our twenty percent.Operationally, as The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman said, “If we could just be China for one day we could actually authorize the right decisions”. Instead, American presidents resemble the medieval monarchs upon whom their office was modeled, as Abraham Lincoln's Secretary of State, William Henry Seward, observed, “We elect a king for four years and give him absolute power within certain limits which, after all, he can interpret for himself”. Our presidents hire and fire all senior officials, secretly ban fifty-thousand citizens from flying, order people kidnapped, tortured, imprisoned and assassinated and take the country to war. No Chinese leader, even Mao at his peak, could do any of those things. Instead, China’s State Council analyzes data and prepares policy suggestions. They suggest tradeoffs and runs policy simulations of optimum outcomes, publish their findings in journals and present them at conferences. They support what Zhang Weiwei calls ‘a neutral government shaping national consensus’ and pass their recommendations to the Politburo, twenty-five officials with a thousand years of collective political experience who pass the refined document to the Steering Committee: seven independently elected Cabinet members with equal votes. The Steering Committee polishes the legislation so that ninety percent of the 3,200 national congresspeople will support it.Substantively, China has won her battle for survival and is now militarily and economically impregnable, so authoritarian giants like Mao and Deng are no longer needed. Today, an awful lot of consultation goes into making law in China. Researchers, experts, media, academics, stakeholders and obstreperous citizens set the agenda and draw up Five Year Plans beginning after the mid-term of the previous 5 year plan. The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) carries out mid-term assessment and requirement research using questionnaires and grass roots forums and sends a report to National People's Congress, which organizes scholars and specialists to evaluate the list and prioritize the budget. Politburo members guide planning teams who visit areas across the country, listening to local elites’ opinions to form proposals of the areas they are in charge of. The final proposal for next 5 Year Plan is discussed and officially published at the Central Committee’s next Plenary Session. After the official proposal is published, State Council solicits suggestions from all areas and all social levels (workers, farmers, businessmen, entrepreneurs, specialists, etc.) and written submissions from government organizations at all levels and appoints a Financial and Economic Committee to do the preliminary analysis and budgeting. Since 2000, China has allowed foreigners to conduct surveys and publish apolitical results without submitting their questionnaires and Harvard’s Tony Saich, who’s been polling there for over a decade reports, in Governing China, that ninety-six per cent of Chinese are satisfied with their national government and, according to Edelman’s 2016 Report, almost ninety percent of Chinese trust it. World Values Surveys found that eighty-three percent say China is run for their benefit rather than for the benefit of special groups–compared to thirty-eight percent of Americans.Collectively, Chinese peasants have always practiced direct democracy because every dynasty, for the sake of its own survival, is forced to investigate disturbances and to discipline responsible officials. The nation, Mozi said, does not belong to the emperor: the emperor is merely the country’s manager and, when he manages badly, he must apologize. For millennia China’s emperors have written Letters of Public Apology when things go amiss–a democratic device unknown in the West. Despite support for Beijing’s policies, there is still widespread dissatisfaction with local government because, when communes were being shut down during the Reform and Opening, thousands of local officials stole land and equipment. Last year the government reported 150,000 ‘mass incidents’ stemming from local officials’ unfairness, dishonesty or incompetence. Because police are unarmed, rowdy public demonstrations are safe, cheap, exciting and effective. People paint signs, alert NGOs and social media, round up friends and neighbors, parade in the street banging drums, shouting slogans, live-stream the event to millions on social media and, within hours, after a call from Beijing, a shaken official speeds to the site, bows deeply, apologizes profusely, kisses babies, pets dogs, explains he had no idea that such things were going on and promises that, starting today, things will improve. And, gradually, they do.Financially, ninety-five percent of poor Chinese own their homes and land. In its 2017 study, Global Inequality Dynamics, America’s National Bureau of Economic Research reported that, though the bottom half of Chinese saw their share of national income fall from twenty-seven percent to fifteen percent after 1980, Americans’ share collapsed to twelve percent. While China’s top one percent captured thirteen percent of all personal income, America’s grabbed twenty percent. Since those figures were compiled, China has eliminated urban poverty and, the World Bank says, “We can reasonably expect the virtual elimination of extreme poverty in [rural] China by 2022”. Every Chinese–including the poor–has doubled her income every ten years for the past 40 years–an extraordinary improvement in income mobility and the inverse of Americans’ experience, says Stanford’s Raj Chetty, where “rates of absolute mobility have fallen from approximately 90% for children born in 1940 to 50% for children born in the 1980s. Absolute income mobility has fallen across the entire income distribution, with the largest declines for families in the middle class”. Another measure of financial democracy is decentralization–local governments’ share of spending. Economist Pierre Landry says, “One would expect the PRC to be one of the most centralized countries. Instead, China's observed level of decentralization is consistent with the behavior of a federal democracy. A 2004 International Monetary Fund (IMF) study found that, in 1972-2000, this figure averaged 25 percent for liberal democracies and 18 percent for non-democracies. But, for China, the average figure was 54 percent for 1958-2002 and, by 2014, it had risen to a staggering 85 percent”.Today, clearly, things suck less in China than in the US. More Chinese own their homes, for example:People are safer, more financially secure, better educated and more trusting of each other their government in China, and a trusting environment contributes to a higher quality of life:Chinese people see that the situation of poor folk is improving, too–and equitability is a big factor in quality of life, too:They all look forward to rising real wages–which double every ten years–and that puts everyone in a good mood:And their kids can look forward to making more than they do, which makes every parent happy:So it’s not only the CCP that views democracy as a concept that is positive and beneficial–it’s everybody. Or 96% of them, anyway.

“In a new phase of the Vacant and Abandoned Properties Initiative, South Bend partnered with the Notre Dame Clinical Law Center to provide free legal assistance to qualifying applicants wishing to acquire vacant lots and, with local nonprofits, to repair or construct homes and provide low-income home ownership assistance using South Bend HUD (Housing and Urban Development) funds.[117][118] Buttigieg increased city funding levels for home construction and improvement in the 2018 South Bend budget via several programs, including the UEA (Urban Enterprise Association) Pilot Home Repair Program, a grant intended to improve low-income residents' quality of life.[119][120][95]In 2013, Buttigieg proposed a "Smart Streets" urban development program to improve South Bend's downtown area,[80] and in early 2015—after traffic studies and public hearings—he secured a bond issue for the program backed by tax increment financing.[121][122] "Smart Streets" was aimed at improving economic development and urban vibrancy as well as road safety.[123] The project involved the conversion of one-way streets in downtown to two-way streets, traffic-calming measures, the widening of sidewalks, streetside beautification (including the planting of trees and installation of decorative brickwork), the addition of bike lanes[122] and the introduction of roundabouts.[123] Elements of the project were finished in 2016,[80] and it was officially completed in 2017.[123] The project was credited with spurring private development in the city.[122]In 2017, after complaints from downtown business owners about an homeless encampment that had formed under the Main Street railroad viaduct, Buttigieg assembled a 22-member task force to develop recommendations to prevent such encampments from forming. The task force's report recommended a gateway center and permanent supportive housing project, which would have a "housing first" approach that would provide immediate shelter regardless of behavioral or substance abuse issues. However, this project was scrapped by the city, due to the being unable to find a location due to opposition from prospective neighbors. The city instead opted to attempt a scattered-site housing approach with participating landlords.[124]Under Buttigieg, South Bend invested $50 million in the city's parks, many of which had been neglected during the preceding decades;[95] the city also began a "smart sewer" program, the first phase of which was finished in 2017 at a cost of $150 million.[125] The effort utilized federal funds[126] and by 2019 had reduced the combined sewer overflow by 75%.[125] The impetus for the effort was a fine that the EPA had levied against the city in 2011 for Clean Water Act violations.[125] However, Buttigieg also, in 2019, sought for the city to be released from an agreement with the EPA brokered under his mayoral predecessor Steve Luecke, in which South Bend had agreed to make hundreds of millions dollars in further improvements to its sewer system by 2031.[127]By 2019, the city had seen $374 million in private investment for mixed-use developments since Buttigieg had taken office.[128][95] In 2016, the City of South Bend partnered with the State of Indiana and private developers to break ground on a $165 million renovation of the former Studebaker complex, with the aim to make the complex home to tech companies and residential condos.[129] This development is in the so-called "Renaissance District", which includes nearby Ignition Park.[125][130] In 2017, it was announced that the long-abandoned Studebaker Building 84 (also known as "Ivy Tower") would have its exterior renovated with $3.5 million in Regional Cities funds from the State of Indiana and $3.5 million from South Bend tax increment financing, with plans for the building and other structures in its complex to serve as a technology hub.[131] While many aspects of South Bend had improved by 2016, a Princeton University study found that the rate of evictions in the city had worsened, more than doubling since Buttigieg took office.[125]In January 2019, Buttigieg launched the South Bend Home Repair initiative. This expanded the existing South Bend Home Repair Pilot, which helps make available funds to assist residents with home repairs, through the use of $600,000 in city funding (double what the city had earlier pledged to the program) and $300,000 in block grants.[132] It also created two new programs. The first of these is the South Bend Green Corps, which makes funds available to lower-income homeowners for such uses as energy-saving measures and basic weatherization, the installation of smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, lead tests, and energy bill review. It also provides education on reducing energy bills.[132] The South Bend Green Corps was funded with $290,000 from the city and $150,000 from AmeriCorps.[132] The second program is Love Your Block, which assists citizen groups and local nonprofits in revitalizing neighborhoods, and which was funded with $25,000 from the city and $25,000 from the nonprofit Cities of Service.[132]Buttigieg had been arranging a deal under which the city's parks department would sell Elbel Golf Course to developers for $747,500.[133] In January 2016, amid public pressure, the city dropped the plan.[133] The idea had been floated in 2014, when the city was exploring selling the Blackthorn golf course,[99] but began to gain momentum in 2015.[134] Buttigieg had justified the plan to sell the city-owned golf course by claiming that residents found golf to be a low priority, that the course had failed to turn a profit for over five years, and that the city was subsidizing rounds of golf at about $2 per round.[133] Buttigieg characterized the course as a drain on the city's finances.[134][135] Opposition arose, with concerns that the sale would limit public access to the land and endanger the protection of wetlands surrounding it.[133][136] At 313 acres (127 ha),[137][138] Elbel constituted the city's largest park.[99][139] The park, while owned by the city, is outside city boundaries.[99] The original plan Buttigieg outlined for the sale would have allowed it to be developed freely by the buyer.[139]Buttigieg supported a proposed high-rise development in South Bend's East Bank neighborhood[140][141] that would greatly exceed the existing height ordinances.[142][143] In the weeks after the Common Council voted against the development in December 2016, Buttigieg and his administration negotiated a new compromise plan with the developer, Matthews LLC, that reduced the height from twelve stories to nine.[144] In January 2017, the Common Council voted to approve a ten-year tax abatement for the $35 million development.[145] In February, the Common Council raised the height limits for the East Bank neighborhood to facilitate the development.[143][146] The city later committed $5 million in tax increment financing to the project.[147]In July of 2017, the Federal Railroad Administration revoked the city's quiet zone on the very active tracks (Norfolk Southern's Chicago Line and Canadian National's South Bend Subdivision) that run through the city, demanding that median barriers be installed at roughly eleven grade crossings and other deficiencies were remedied.[148][149] By September of that year, part of South Bend's quiet zone was restored after work was undertaken.[150][151] Buttgieg was able to get even more of the city's quiet zone restored, completing phase one of the city's quiet zone project by June of 2019 on the west side of the city[152][153]In September 2018, Buttigieg voiced concern about a number of issues regarding the Housing Authority of South Bend, calling for reforms to be made.[154] The following month, he presented its board with a letter outlining several problems, and declaring that the Housing Authority of South Bend had risen to the, "top tier of priorities for my administration, and will receive sustained attention from my office for the balance of my time as mayor."[107]In September 2019, the city of South Bend finalized a long-anticipated agreement with St. Joseph County to jointly fund the county's $18 million share of the project to double-track the South Shore Line.[155][156] Buttigieg was a supporter of efforts to double-track the South Shore Line.[148]Beginning in August 2018, Buttigieg promoted the idea of moving the city's South Shore Line station from South Bend International Airport to the city's downtown.[155] He made it a goal to have the city complete this project by 2025.[157] Buttigieg's earlier budgets had allotted funding to the existing South Shore Relocation project,[158][159] which would have moved the station to a different end of the South Bend International Airport.[160] Buttigieg's new push for a downtown station engendered suggestions of other possible locations. Buttigieg ordered a study of five location options, including his personally preferred downtown option, as well as two that would keep the station at the airport.[161] Of the five, the downtown location was found to be the priciest, but also the one with the greatest potential economic impact.[162] In December 2018, an engineering study was commissioned to further examine the cost of a downtown station.[157]In 2019, South Bend launched Commuters Trust, a new transportation benefit program created in collaboration with local employers and transportation providers (including South Bend TRANSPO and Lyft) and made possible by a $1 million three-year grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies Mayors Challenge.[163][164]During Buttigieg's tenure, Downtown South Bend saw roughly $200 million in private investment.”“In 2019, South Bend launched Commuters Trust, a new transportation benefit program created in collaboration with local employers and transportation providers (including South Bend TRANSPO and Lyft) and made possible by a $1 million three-year grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies Mayors Challenge.[163][164]”In 2020, the website "Best Cities" ranked South Bend number 39 on its list of the 100 best small cities in the United States, giving much credit to the progress made under Buttigieg. They cited him for his contributions to urban transportation, and mobilization, and environmentally friendly forms of travel, and commuting.

1. Rapid RescoringErrors on your credit report can seriously impact your score, and correcting them on your own can be a lengthy process. To get it done quickly, ask a lender to request a rapid rescoring on your behalf.You can request rapid rescoring through a new or existing lender. To start the process, request your credit reports from all three major credit bureaus and review them carefully for incorrect information. Some errors you might see are:Accounts that you do not ownInaccurately listed account balances or limitsAccounts erroneously labeled as delinquentIf you find these or any other inaccuracies, gather the correct information and present it to your lender. The lender can contact the credit bureaus and repair the error, often within a few days.2. Increasing your credit limitsYour credit score also depends on how much you owe relative to your credit limit. This is called credit utilization, and experts suggest that it should stay below 30 percent.If your balance is higher and you don't have a way of bringing it back down quickly, you can request a limit increase. All you have to do is contact your lender and ask how to apply for a higher limit, so that the amount you owe will be a lower percentage of your allowable credit. Just be careful that you don't start using that new credit and increasing your utilization again.3. Open a new credit cardOpening another credit card can also decrease your overall utilization ratio, but only if you don't put a lot of new debt on the card. You can, however, transfer some of your existing debt to a lower-interest card. Here's how to do it:1.Open a card that offers 0 percent interest on balance transfers2.Figure out how much you can repay while that offer is active3.Transfer that amount onto the new card and pay it offIf you can't afford to pay off your balance quickly enough look for an offer that suits you better. Everyone's situation is different, so start by using an online card selection tool and interest calculator to help you choose what's best for you.4. A pay-for-delete letterThis strategy is just what it sounds like: you agree to pay a bill provided that the lender will remove the account from your report. This is more likely to work if the bill has gone into collections; original creditors tend not to comply.To request a pay-for-delete, obtain a sample letter and change the details to suit your account. A good option is the example published by MyFico, which requests that the lender:•remove all information on the account from credit reporting agencies•deny knowledge of the account if contacted, and•respond before a certain date, after which the debtor will rescind the offerThis kind of comprehensive letter helps to protect you by specifying the terms of the agreement. Send it to your lender, including your personal information, and take note of when you should receive a reply.5. A statement of goodwillIf your debt exists because you had extenuating circumstances, a goodwill letter may be more effective than pay-for-delete. This kind of letter:1.acknowledges your responsibility for the debt2.highlights your prior responsible payment history3.includes any relevant evidence, especially if errors are involved4.takes a tone of humility and appreciationIf the statement of goodwill is effective, the lender will remove the debt from your record in exchange for payment. The key is to earn the empathy of the representative who receives your communication.6. Negotiate for account removalThe law does not require a creditor to report a late or delinquent payment. If you call the collection agency or creditor, you can get the contact information for someone who has the authority to remove the delinquent account from your report. When you call, explain:1.what you are doing to repair your credit.2.why you need a good credit score, and3.any extenuating circumstances that prevented you from paying on time.Be accurate and truthful, but use whatever details you can to show the creditor that you have fallen on difficult times.7. Hire a credit repair serviceCredit repair companies do many of the things you can do yourself, including disputing errors and negotiating with creditors, but it can be well worth the money to pay someone else to take over those tasks. Look for companies that:•have been in business for at last five years•employ in-house attorneys•are licensed, bonded, and insured locally•offer free consultations and warrantiesConsumers' Advocate offers a starter list of reputable credit repair companies. If you compare their listings, you can see which one might work best for you.Fast Credit Repair Services for Struggling HomeownersAs you have seen, raising your credit score quickly can be difficult, especially if you have a lot of debt that you can't pay. If you own a home, you may have considered selling just to get the equity. Of course, that means you have to move, which is expensive as well as emotionally painful.To help homeowners avoid having to make this choice, EasyKnock has created a program known as Sell & Stay. The company buys your home and enables you to collect the equity, but it allows you to stay in place as a tenant. You can pay off your debts, which rapidly improves your credit score, and then re-purchase your home once you're back on your feet. You also have the option to relocate at the end of your lease, should that suit you and your finances better. Call EasyKnock today to learn more.