www.markholder.org

If you've spent any time at all on this site, you will have noticed I have an interest in investing. I had no interest in finance until my mid-40s, when I took a job at a printing company in which one of the partners is a CPA. I learned personal finance the hard way, struggling with credit card debt in my early 20s (it was the 90s; I blame the guitar and camera stores). After digging myself out of the hole I was in by age 27, I was cautious to avoid debt anytime I could. Investing, aside from employer retirement plans, was not on my radar. Fatherhood really spurred me into action when it came to investing. There's simply no way a savings account can outpace inflation; if you want to thrive financially, investing is the best way to get ahead. So, with encouragement from my boss, I began to study and learn. Investopedia and The Balance proved to be immensely helpful. In time, I opened an account and started buying exchange traded funds (ETFs) and was on my way. I read a few...

Big trouble is brewing in a neighboring town. Cedartown, Georgia has a scandal of its very own: an affinity fraud in the form of a Ponzi scheme is allegedly being perpetrated by a building and loan organization. The target: conservative Christian Republicans. The alleged perp: a fellow conservative Christian Republican, tho there's nothing conservative about the amount of money bilked: $140,000,000.00 from approximately 300 victims. That's a stunning average of $466,667.00 per victim.  Affinity fraud is nothing new. For a prime example, just search the name "Bernie Madoff" and you'll receive a Master's thesis of information. Like Madoff, the head of the building and loan targeted those who felt they could trust their fellow traveler. Also like Madoff, the alleged perp promised  unusually high returns on investments in distressed businesses. The returns were rumored to be in the area of 8-18%. I'm no financial guru but if my business needs a loan with a 1...