All in all, the responsibility does fall on the individual. Always remember the five P's. Whether your in the military, government job, or just an average "joe", unless you are a sales person working on commission, one knows exactly how much they are making.%

All in all, the responsibility does fall on the individual. Always remember the five P's. Whether your in the military, government job, or just an average "joe", unless you are a sales person working on commission, one knows exactly how much they are making. However the blame does not stop solely on the individual. Our society as a whole needs to straighten up. I remember my older relatives always say never trust banks or credit and most importantly save for a rainy day!!!! Growing up, my brother and I might not have had the trendiest clothes or the best toys but we were always clean, never hungry, and always had a solid home. I recall a commercial I saw back in the late nineties showing a brand new Cadillac and the message was you could finance this vehicle for x amount of dollars and end up paying triple for it or you could save for a few years and buy it out right. These weren't the exact words but most understand where they were going. I only saw that commercial twice and it was pulled. People, we live in a " I have to keep up with the Kardashians and Jones and do not care about the future till it get here. Why live in a 500 to 800K house when the quality of your life sucks stressing out paying your bills. What is wrong with a 200K house that is nice and comfortable while working your way up to the 500 to 800k dollar house. I am not a Republican and do not side with the right completely but I really believe that we are going to have to stop with many of the social services and let the people fend for themselves. We have to wise up people. It is not a sin to live well beneath our means....

It is stupid that they have this rule in place. The DOD believes that if you have bad credit, you would sell secrets to the enemy and betray your country.

It is not just limited to enlisted personnel. But people not in the military working on the base in supportive services.

It is a dumb rule.

MANY MANY misconceptions here. Debt alone does not prevent a security clearance. I was $22,000 in debt when I applied for my security clearance at the navy shipyard (to reapply for the same clearance I had while in the Navy). I filled out the required paperwork, along with my plan for repayment of my debt, and I was approved (I work with nuclear reactors). There are a couple of things about debt that will jeopardize your security clearance

1) Hiding you debt. If you are embarassed enough about your debt to lie to the U.S. Govt about your debt, then you are a security risk because you have demonstrated a lack of integrity. I know of many people who's debt was severly less than mine who lost clearances because of their attempts to hide their debt.

2) If you are continuing to acquire debt at a rate far exceeding your capability of repayment. This security risk is only assigned to sailors that demonstrate a clear attitude of fiscal irresponsibility.

3) You acquired a debt (at no fault of your own, usually from multiple unscrupulous lenders, payday loans, etc.) due to naivity of financial responsibility to a point that your current income doesn't even allow you to make minimum payments. This is usually accompanied by a refusal to ask for help with a plan to eliminate this loan (usually because of unwillingness to depart from an extravagent lifestyle).

It's unfortunate that lenders tend to prey upon young people that are irresponsible with their money, but placing all the blame on either the lenders or military pay-rates is being blind to the major causes of this problem.

Another idiotic tenet by our gutless administrative idiots. What are they afraid of - that the person in debt will go to work for the Russkies or the Chinks? They make me sick like a finger down the throat.

"You can lose that security clearance if you have credit or debt issues," said John E. Pickens III, executive director of VeteransPlus. "If you lose that clearance, you can become un-promotable or you can be taken from your assignment. And, ultimately, you can even receive a bad-conduct discharge.

...................The U.S. military pays close attention to debt and other financial issues when it comes to screening applicants for security clearance to handle sensitive information."

****

But yet - devout Muslim Mohammed Elibiary - with known close ties to The Muslim Brotherhood - who Janet Napolitano of Dept of Homeland Security - allowed Obama to appoint to her Homeland Security Advisory Council - was given a Security Clearance - that he abused - when Elibiary downloaded Sensitive Classified Information - to his personal computer.

Elibiary's actions were reported - to members of Congress - by the numerous media outlets - that Elibiary was soliciting - with the use of this Classified Information - to write articles about the State of Texas being Islamophobes.

Elibiary's intentions appear to be the SMOKESCREEN devised - by the Obama Administration - w Eric Holder as US AG and Barack HUSSEIN Obama, "jr" - as POTUS and Commander-in-Chief - interfering with INDICTMENTS issued - against the co-founder of CAIR - and other Radical Muslims - who were unindicted co-conspirators in The Holy Land Foundation terrorism-financing case - who were about to be "arrested" - from a decades-long investigation out of Dallas, Texas.

If Obama and Holder were not involved in what devout Muslim Mohammed Elibiary

was doing - in misusing his Security Clearance - to download Sensitive Classified information - on his personal computer - and soliciting media outlets - to make use of this Classified information to discredit the State of Texas as Islamophobes,

then Obama and Holder would be filing charges against Mohammad Elibiary - immediately revoking his Security Clearance and removing Elibiary from the Homeland Security Advisory Council.

Instead Janet Napolitano as Sec of the Dept of Homeland Security - is "protecting" Elibiary as if he did nothing wrong - and has not moved on revoking his Security Clearance or removing him from the Homeland Security Advisory Council.

Until recently, Napolitano believed she had gotten away with - sweeping ANOTHER Security Breach - under the rug - since she FAILED to get back to the Committee members - as she stated she would do - when Elibiary's actions had first become known to our members of Congress. But now, it has become "another" SCANDAL - under the Obama Administration - because Napolitano has done NOTHING about it - and had to be issued a subpoena for her appearnce before the committee - to get information from her.

Napolitano was asked if Mohammed Elibiary had gone through a background check - and what did she determine about it - to give him a Security Clearance - when he is directly connected to The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. She was asked if she knew he had a non-profit in The USA - involving a Radical IMAN - to raise money for The Muslim Brotherhood - that was not re-certified because Elibiary refused to give information to the US Govt. that is required of a "non-profit" to remain in good standing w the US Govt. Napolitano was informed this alone should have raised questions about what he is doing on US soil - prior to ever being placed on the Homeland Security Advisory Council and given a Security Clearance - that he abused to download classified information on his personal computer.

Napolitano even went so far as to insult members of the committee inquiring into ANOTHER Security Breach - under Napolitano's command - who were questioning why Elibiary had a Security Clearance to access any information in the first place - when Elibiary just sits on an Advisory Council.

Instead of Napolitano responding to what should occur - when someone violates their use of a security clearance, she claimed that Elibiary was only being "singled-out" because he was Muslim.

Elibiary "singled-out" himself - as a TRAITOR to our country - as is Napolitano for downplaying Elibiary's acquisition and misuse of his Security Clearance - downloading Classified information on his personal computer - as ANOTHER Security Breach at Homeland Security - under Napolitano's watch.

Janet Napolitano as Sec of Homeland Security - should be removed from office - and prosecuted - right along with Obama's Mohammed Elibiary.

********

But yet, our Servicemen and women face having their Security Clearances REVOKED and a Bad Conduct Discharge - if our American Troops get into "any" financial trouble.

This can easily happen in the Economic climate that Obama has created with his Failed presidency - and refusal to prosecute Banks and Lending institutions - for their "predatory" lending practices and Illegal foreclosures - that also affected our US Military members.

While Obama made it a Big Deal to the American people - and the world - when (falsely) claimig he would be prosecuting banks and lending institutions to the fullest extent of the law, under the radar, Obama "interfered" with having Criminal charges filed -

because he does not want anything to affect campaign donations for his re-election.

Obama's deranged and malicious intentions were exposed - by the New York State Attorney General -

who was part of a 50-State Attorney General Coalition -devised by The Obama Administration - that was created to handle the Criminal activites of Banks and lending institutions - subjecting people to predatory lending practices and illegal foreclosures -

until the REAL MISSION of the coalition became known = Obama does not want criminal charges against any bank or lending institution - because he does not want anything to affect campaign contributions for his re-election.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/08/04/New-Film-May-Place-Napolitano-Back-in-Hot-Seat
Whipping across the internet last week was a

"New Film May Place Napolitano Back in The Hot Seat"

Youtube clip of an angry House Judiciary Committee exchange between Janet Napolitano and Rep. Louie Gohmert (R, TX). The Secretary of Homeland Security was being grilled by a boiling mad Gohmert about a certain Mohamed Elibiary on her staff when she dealt the Congressman what in PC Land functions as a knockout blow: "What bothers me, quite frankly, are the allegations made against anyone who happens to be Muslim." Checkmate!

But this particular tussle is far from finished. Gohmert already had legitimate concerns about the Napolitano-appointed Elibiary, a man who has a history of Islamist radicalism and who took advantage of his DHS

security clearance to download classified files. A newly-released documentary will make Napolitano’s appointment even more troubling: Elibiary, it seems, is tied to one of the most radical imams in America (full disclosure: our organization, Americans for Peace and Tolerance, produced the film).

Napolitano appointed Elibiary in October of 2010 to the Department of

Homeland Security Advisory Council. On paper, Elibiary seems a PC poster boy for moderate Islam. He founded and headed a Texas-based Muslim civic engagement group called the Freedom and Justice Foundation. According to the DHS, he had advised Texas law enforcement agencies on terrorism and Muslim sensitivities for years. He’s even donated to Republican campaigns!

But last year, Elbiary got caught using his Napolitano-supplied DHS security clearance to download "For Official Use Only" documents from the Texas Department of Public Safety databases he was authorized to access. According to

Patrick Poole over at PJ Tatler, Elibiary tried to shop those documents around to journalists in hopes of ginning up "rampant Islamophobia" stories about the Texas state government. In other words, he was trying to embarrass Governor Rick Perry and undermine his presidential campaign.

Gohmert was particularly angry this time around, because he had asked Napolitano last fall about this breech and she promised to look into it and get back. She did not get back to Gohmert; she got back at him: "The statements that have been made in that regard are false, they are misleading and objectionable." She told Gohmert that Elibiary will not be removed from his position and will not lose his security clearance. "These kinds of insinuations," she shot back, "demean the committee."

Questioning the conduct of any Muslim leader in America, it seems, can and will be used – even by government officials tasked to protect us from Islamic terrorism -- to raise questions about YOUR character. This rhetorical device, armed and loaded, aims to silence critics and distract the public from an inconvenient narrative. Were it not an important policy goal of our government, extending back to President Bush, to do everything in our power to prove that we are not an Islamophobic nation, certain items in Elibiary’s past might have lit up the warning system that Napolitano has clearly disarmed.

In December, 2004, for example, Elibiary spoke at a Dallas conference in honor of Iran’s

Ayatollah Khomeini. The conference was called "A Tribute to the Great Islamic Visionary." When a reporter for the Dallas Morning News brought up this inconvenient fact in 2006, Elibiary told him that he shouldn’t be surprised if he finds a banana in his car’s exhaust pipe. Classy. Homeland Security material for certain.

But

youthful tyrant-worship and a passing fruit outburst may pale before Elibiary’s newly discovered, close, long term relationship to one of the most extremist imams in America, Abdulhakim Ali Mohamed. Mohamed calls America the worst country on earth. He claims that Christian teachings about the divinity of Jesus are the biggest lie ever told. He believes that Jews are vicious and Israel is an evil state, and he looks forward to a mass battle between Muslims and Jews, which he says will happen very soon. He tells worshippers that they should seek death and hate life because the earthly world is trash. So why would Mohamed Elibiary, now sitting on the US Department of Homeland Security Advisory Council, hire such an extremist to a top post in his organization?

In 2008, Elibiary brought Abdulhakim onto the board of his Freedom and Justice Foundation (FJF) and appointed him as the head of FJF’s Texas Islamic Council, an umbrella group of Texas mosques and Islamic

schools. Through this appointment, Elbiary put Abdulhakim in a position of influence over more than http://www.freeandjust.org/OurTeam.htm">100,000 Texas Muslims. Abdulhakim was still listed as part of Elibiary’s board in October 2010, the month that Janet Napolitano personally swore him in as a http://www.freeandjust.org/OurTeam.htm">Homeland Security Advisor. Had she properly vetted Elbiary, Abdulhakim’s extremism might have raised more red flags than the Ayatollah and the banana episodes.

In 2008, Abdulhakim had just arrived in Texas from Nashville, Tennessee after suddenly leaving his position as Imam of the Islamic Center of Nashville in 2007. He came to Texas loaded with baggage. In the 1990s, he was Imam of the Al Farooq mosque in Brooklyn – a target of multiple federal investigations into terror fundraising for

Al Qaeda in Yemen. But it is his tenure at the Islamic Center of Nashville – and his possible relationship to an American convert to Islam who murdered an American soldier in Little Rock in the name of Islam -- that should cause the biggest stir.

These are explored in our just-released documentary,

Losing Our Sons. The film follows the journey of Carlos Bledsoe from a middle-class Baptist college student in Nashville to committing the first successful Al Qaeda murder on U.S. soil since 9/11 and attempting to murder two Jewish rabbis.

When Carlos arrived in Nashville to study business administration at Tennessee State University, Abdulhakim was teaching classes on Islam at the University through his proselytizing group, Olive Tree Education, which he

http://www.olivetreeeducation.org/whoweare.html">co-founded in 1999. Olive Tree’s website at the time featured links to sermons by the notorious Al Qaeda terrorist http://www.olivetreeeducation.org/islamiclinks.html">Anwar Al Awlaki. Sermons given by Abdulhakim at Nashville campuses and mosques are replete with hatred toward America, Jews, and Christians, as well as calls for Muslims to become martyrs.Nashville Muslim leaders, where he joined Anwar Al Awlaki’s Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula organization. He came back to the United States and embarked on a spree of jihadist attacks on Jewish and military institutions that culminated in the murder of Private William Andrew Long outside of a Little Rock, Arkansas recruiting station on June 1, 2009.

As a sophomore, Carlos converted to Isla and started attending Abdulhakim’s Nashville mosque. He adopted Abdulhakim Mohamed’s name as his own. He was sent to a terrorist training camp in Yemen by

So now we have a situation where a person like Elibiary, legitimized and empowered by the Department of Homeland Security, is placing Islamic extremists with ties to terror in positions of power and influence over American Muslims. This is hard to understand. Is Secretary Napolitano ignorant or naïve? Perhaps she is following President Obama’s strategy of coopting Islamic radicals by embracing them in the hope of influencing them to moderate their positions.

Regardless of motivation, Napolitano’s behavior goes to the heart of the matter in the current surreal failure of leadership in America’s local and federal governments. Our leaders are simply unwilling to honestly deal with the extremism among much of the Muslim leadership in America and the Middle East. "Losing Our Sons" shows this unwillingness to keep Americans safe in stark detail after stark detail. Denial and political correctness are trumping the need to act against real threats to our society. As Governor Mike Huckabee said after reviewing Losing Our Sons

on his show: "I hope -- and I say this with all my heart -- I hope that you will get this documentary "Losing Our Sons." Watch it. Get your friends and your family to see it. It opened my eyes to some things, and I thought I was fairly informed. And it is powerful. It is a gut punch. That's the best way I can describe it."

If you think Louie Gohmert was angry, just wait until you see this film.

www.peaceandtolerance.org).

**********

For those of you who never served in the military, the towns outside the gate offer easy credit, predatory lending i guess they would call it, they know you get paid twice a month, and they know if you dont pay they got you by the a zz, they have all kinds of bangles and bobbles and most service persons, are young and get into financial trouble with their new found wealth, the military should incorporate some kind of classes on this, and being financially viable.

accountability...at the soldier level! Rant all you want against it, our military can teach you to fight a war one battle at a time..but all common sense eludes you when it comes to personal finance....hmmm.....sounds like a lack of planning to me.

If I make 8$'s per hour and work 130 hours per week and am only compensated for 40 hours....it's basic math 101....pull the head out of the butt...use you're noggin for more than a hat rack....that is what I hear my father saying to me in this situation...but I am a military bratt...go figure!

You can be trusted to extract my brother from a combat zone but cannot be trusted to manage you're own personal finances....that's questionable...so yeah, not sure you need to be trusted with a clearance at any level. (consideration to special circumstance should be given)

...shruggs...your bad...war comes with a manual and a hellova' cost to train...a basic high school edumacation gives you the skillz needed to demonstrate basic accountability/financial responsibility ( if the cost of x monthly is greater than the means afforded to a soldier with a net income of y - a-b-c = -$450 monthly...hell it's a no brainer) You can be trusted with authority to use deadly force...but can't do basic math...give me a break...I have been laid off twice as a civilian and am looking at having to give up my home - suck it up soldier...if you can't afford it level up, learn from it and move on...no BS allowed!

let's approach this with a more remedial effort:

lessons learned the hard way are not easily forgotten....

there is a great deal of information on how to mitigate these types of issue at clearance jobs dot com. I neglected to plan is a better answer than "it ain't my fault", communicate with creditors and document your efforts, don't sit on your hands or point a finger at another in blame...debt requires individual participation, default no different....

One MAJOR reason a lot of troops are having financial issues that threaten clearances that come out of the blue is the High Divorce Rate.

Get a divorce and watch your debt ratio/bills go ape @!$%#.......All you genius's that want to blame the irresponsibility of the troops. LOVE.....dont give a @!$%# when its time to close the door and spilt it 50/50. Oh and that 50/50 @!$%# is a myth.......

Mama usually wins........NO MATTER HOW THE JUDGE SLICE'S IT!!! HE does not give a @!$%# about NO bills. At least not YOURS, especially if you are a MAN.

what a crock of sh it the gd government cant even pay its fking bills and maybe if they were not behind on paying their MILITARY THEY WOULD NOT HAVE ANY debt issues

Take note of the photo in this article. A 2001 compact Ford selling for $6,995 and a 2003 compact Ford selling for $11,995. I hope no one is dopey enough to buy these rippoffs.

We have all these brave men and women serving this country and this country would rather waste money on sending sh_t to mars than help our troops. Sad Sad state of affairs. They need our help and some training in handling money.

Severed Head in a Jar,
#16.1 "And of course once you terminated them they really had financial problems.
Well done!"

And what, praytell, should Invisible Hand have done instead?

terriels
#16.2 "Yes, because only people with financial problems are dishonest. Puleez. Then explain Cheney."
1. I read IH's post several times, and nowhere did I read that he concludes that dishonesty is so exclusively the domain of that class of people. Can you enlighten us?
2. What about Cheney?

Amminadab
#16.4 "And why is Mitt Romney hiding his tax returns from the voters?"
I guess you wish to imply something. Why not spell it out instead? Mind, as far as I know, his returns passed IRS muster.

And, just to be fair and balanced. . . .
#16.5 WiteSoxFan,
I'm not sure about 'only president' and all his records', but for example (fwiw), it's my understanding that academic records are typically sealed (or treated as confidential, I guess) by the college or university as a matter of course. That said, as far as I know, anyone can request and have unsealed, or publish, their records if they so choose. And I do agree about the blah blah tax returns blah. More releases might just reveal that Mitt Romney is financially rich (!) or that he/his accountant utilized the provisions of the tax code (!).

F&B666

The Active Duty Air Force won't even let someone sign up if they have an income/debt ratio over 40%.

Funny how they would take a soldier's clearance over something so stupid, yet these pinheads in our Government have clearances and end up leaking info all the time. If it isn't that, it's some gay sex scandal or flat out fraud. Ridiculous reason for yanking someone's clearance.

It's hard to be in the military as a young man/woman and not find yourself in debt. We continue to pay these soldiers peanuts for the job they do (Killing people). Do you think our stupid politicians would ever serve their country for the same amount of money??? Hell NO! They expect pensions and $100,000+ paychecks for the NON-work they call service. That is one reason I've always felt that NO person should ever be allowed to hold a federal office without FIRST giving his/her country 4 years of military service. I KNOW we would get a much better class of "servant" than the garbage we have today.

I wonder how many of these ex soldiers would have secret Swiss bank accounts or Cayman Island bank accounts?

I definitely won't argue with your beef with our rich politicians (I agree 100%), but you are having the wool pulled over you eyes if you don't understand that the majority of these security clearance issues are with single sailors that live in the barracks, eat in the dining hall, and yet still rack up thousands of dollars in bills by living well above their means. I am retired enlisted military and saw this pattern all the time, and it was not an issue of too little pay.

Well if Obama sees fit to allow Islamic Jihadist to work within our top government positions I'm sure he won't mind writing up another bill that will continue to lessen our military integrity.............. It's a darn shame that even our men and women in uniform are being effected by Obama and his blunders of thinking he could handle the office of president. What he should have done was after his first hour as a sworn president, he should have made an emergency address to the country and admitted that the position of President was much more difficult than he thought and that he was in no way fit nor able to handle such a position and hence resign. Then again with that loose pistol of a VP he has, America just might be the UN Headquarters and the American flag would have been replaced with the UN flag................... pathetic...

Young kids that join the military are no different than kids that don't; they make quick decisions and don't think about the consiquinses. They always try to live above thier means; hopefully they get a squad leader who tries to keep them straight. I always tried to keep my troops from making those mistakes; but like all young people most make poor decisions; sometimes you feel more like a social worker than a leader; but thats the job, and if you don't make an effort then more will make the same mistakes. As for the debtors calling unit commanders and with the possibility of messing up there clearance; well that just not the case anymore; I can't remember when it was but around 2000 new laws prohbited debtors from calling members commander to try and hassle thier leaders into forcing them to do the dirty work for the debtors; cause thats what they would do; call the unit CO or First Sergeant know that they would get pissed off and force them to take action. They can not do that anymore; they cannot put that stipulation in contracts and claim that that was part of the contract. It's illegal. If you are a Unit First Sergeant call your local JAG Office and they will give you the regulation and laws so that you can imform the Debtor that they can have action taken against them if they continue to hassle you. Thats what I did and it took care of it ASAP! Of course they would try and pull some contract BS on me and I would inform them that the guy would be collecting from them instead; and that would stop calls to my office.

I'm sick of this kind of BS. Credit bureaus have no credibility with me. I have been dealing with errors on my credit reports for years. The worst is a judgment showing against me which was vacated by the court. I have sent all three credit bureaus certified copies of the order vacating the judgment for at least five years by certified mail, all to no avail. I have discussed this with a lawyer, but can't afford it. I look like some deadbeat due to these errors and being mistaken for others, all to my detriment. I pay higher car insurance thanks to the assinine credit bureaus. I think they should be put out of business. Payday loan companies should not be allowed anywhere near military bases. Soldiers who have problems paying bills timely need help in learning how to do so and besides they live much different lives from the rest of us. Night maneuvers anyone?