Consolidation Credit Debt

In late 2005, victims of both Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita were allowed to register for bankruptcy without facing many of the filing demands most debtors are forced to deal with. After losing everything, many hurricane subsisters wouldn't measure up for bankruptcy under the restrictive new law.

The United States Department of Justice waived the new demands for all occupants of communities devastated by these hurricanes. The Bankruptcy Maltreatment Prevention & Consumer Protection Act of 2005 would have got prevented untold numbers of people displaced by the hurricanes from filing for the bankruptcy protection they desperately needed.

Requirements that were lifted for Katrina and Rita subsisters included:

• The intends test
• Mandatory credit counseling
• Documentation to avoid aggregation actions

Additionally, any subsisters that needed to travel to a creditors’ meeting were allowed to ran into with their creditors at a meeting topographic point stopping point to where they dwell currently, even if in another state. Representatives of the United State Trustee Program, a division of the Department of Justice, were given the duty of setting up any required creditors’ meetings.

The lifting of the restrictive new bankruptcy demands hopefully helped many subsisters who lost everything, to pick up the pieces and get on with their lives without crushing debts weighing down on them.

The Internal Revenue Service have never been known as a originative beaurocracy. To advance contributions to Katrina victims, however, it is being very creative.

The Internal Revenue Service have come up up with Hurricane Katrina Leave Contribution Program to assist out those in need through particular tax treatment rules. In a land breakage program, employees can donate their holiday and ill leave of absence contributions by asking their employer to do a cash contribution equivalent to the amount that would otherwise be paid.

Employees

Employees benefit from this new programme in two ways. First, they can do contributions without taking money out of their current cash savings. Second, the employee will not be responsible for paying takes on the donated time, which would obviously be a huge deterrent.

Employers

Employers also profit in two ways with this alone program. Initially, they can work manus in manus with employees to assist the relief effort. Second, the employer can subtract the cash payments as either a charitable part or normal business deduction. Importantly, employers are NOT required to pay employment taxes on any donations. This fact alone do participating in the Hurricane Katrina Leave Contribution Program a worthwhile venture.

The Internal Revenue Service have really stepped to the plate to assist the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Often reviled, the Agency should get a standing standing ovation for taking these steps.

The recovery from Katrina and Rita shows in a new epoch of Catastrophe Recovery and Prevention. Governments and people are rethinking their response to catastrophes and the stairway they can take to forestall or minimise the worst consequences. The biggest accelerator for this new epoch is the political fall-out from Katrina.

The slow response to Katrina was a achromatic oculus for the Shrub administration. For Michael Brown, the ex-head of FEMA, it was a national humiliation. The Fates of Pelican State governor Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans city manager Beam Nagin stay to be seen, but reports have got pointed out their failures in bar and response, and that volition come up into drama at election time.

President Shrub desires to do up for the bungled response (and reconstruct some political capital)and have earmarked a recovery attempt that may number $200 billion dollars. The early response to Katrina have go a preventive narrative for politicians and administrative officials in federal, state and local governments, and you can be certain they will be pushing for more than catastrophe bar disbursement in their ain peculiar fiefdoms. And the mass media is keeping watch—newspapers inch California have got been filled with narratives warning about the deficiency of catastrophe (especially earthquake) readying in the state.

The Army Corporation of Engineers, burned by the deficiency of follow-through on their recommendation to raise the New Orleans levees, is now looking to repair vulnerable countries around the country. And they’re not the lone ones.

New homes have got multiplied along vulnerable coastal areas. From Florida to the Outer Banks up to The Hamptons and all throughout the east coast, coastal property values have got soared. Dune Road, a splinter of land with costly homes between the ocean and a bay in Westhampton, New York, was virtually wiped out by implosion therapy small more than than a decennary ago. Now it have been rebuilt with even pricier multi-million dollar homes. You can be certain these homeowners will pass what it takes to protect their properties.

And they may need to because it looks like large violent storms are brewing. If many meterologists are correct, we may have got got entered a rhythm of increasing frequence and badness of hurricanes.

Combine the measurements slated for homeland security, rebuilding the Gulf seashore and the ramp-up of catastrophe bar around the country and you have a close lasting state of catastrophe recovery and prevention.

For some companies, let’s name them Hurricane stocks, the chance to take portion in the Gulf recovery intends a great deal of more than business in the short term. For others, it may intend more than business for many old age to come.

Hurricane pillory are companies that are needed right now. For instance, the contiguous need to assist those whose homes have got been destroyed or are unhabitable. Think of companies that supply impermanent life and endurance gear. Think of Coleman encampment products, such as as tents, sleeping bags, portable stoves, flashlights. Coleman is owned by Jarden (JAH:NYSE).

Manufactured homes have got come up a long manner in the past decade, and will turn out to be a good impermanent solution for many and a lasting solution for others in the Gulf. Cavalier Homes (AMEX:CAV) have been contracted to construct and present manufactured homes to the Federal Soldier Emergency Management Agency to house Gulf Seashore occupants displaced by Hurricane Katrina. The contract is expected to generate $58 million to $63 million in gross for the company.

Some other compnnies in this sector include Champion (NYSE:CHB), which spouses with nearly 3,000 independent retailers, detergent builders and developers,
Fleetwood Enterprises (NYSE: FLE) and Coachmen Industries Inc. (NYSE:COA).

Oil and gas facilites in the Gulf seashore also need emergency repair. The economic system of the Gulf Seashore and, to an extent, the economic system of the U.S. depends on it. A number of boring rigs were damaged in the storms, which intends that a company like ENSCO (NTSE:ESV) which have boring rigs in the area, will be in large demand. Oceaneering International (NYSE: OII), which inspects and repairs submerged substructure of oil facilities, volition be busy, as volition W. W. Jacobs Engineering (NYSE:JEC), providing engineering and building services to oil and gas companies.

Rebuilding the Gulf Coast

Rebuilding will include the large domestic dogs in construction, like Halliburton (NYSE:HAL), The Henry Wheeler Shaw Group(SGR) and Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT). But many smaller companies will also take part, often as subcontractors. The Army Corporation of Engineers have increased its undertaking order from $10 million to $20 for Aduddell Roofing, a subordinate of Zenex International, Inc. (OTCBB:ZENX). National Storm Management (NLST:PK), Associate in Nursing expanding national building company specializing in violent storm Restoration management, will also make a good deal of Restoration work in the Gulf Coast.

To construct you need building materials. Home retail merchants such as as Home Terminal and Lowe’s volition be seeing their orders increase, but so will companies that supply natural stuffs like timber. Take a expression at Rayonier (NYSE:RYN)and Plum Brook Lumber (NYSE:PCL), 2 REITs that ain and manage lumber properties.

Some Hurricane and rebuilding pillory have got already jumped and retreated. But the point to retrieve is that while the hurricanes resulted in an contiguous need to assist those in desperate need, they also ushered in a new era, an epoch when authorities and people in the U.S. and around the human race cognize they can make more than to retrieve from catastrophes and minimise the consequences. So maintain an oculus on companies that volition be at the centre of the Catastrophe and Prevention subject for old age to come.