Drug Rehab is a lifelong process, where the addict is required to maintain their sobriety through daily work throughout their life, as there is no known cure for addiction.

When you are dealing with Jonathan Keller Management you are dealing with Jonathan Keller and his models personally – this approach to the modeling management is what makes Jonathan Keller Management and his staff the most respected in their niche. The company is expected to grow very aggressively in the new year.

In Miami, this morning, Jeffrey Chernick, a 70 year old New York business man pled guilty and was sentenced by a federal court judge in Florida to 3 months imprisonment followed by 12 months probation, said court spokesperson.

Jeffrey Chernick evaded tax by maintaining Swiss bank accounts including one at USB. At one point he hid more than $ 8 million from the IRS.  Jeffery Chernick was facing a long prison sentence and a hefty fine, but he turned government informant and received a lighter sentence.

The US government has been trying to get at wealthy US investors who have evaded tax laws by investing their money in Swiss accounts, especially Swiss bank USB AG. The government did receive a break and from insider information now have a long list of these people.  This is the second case this week where a previous US client of the Swiss bank has been treated leniently because of assistance provided to federal authorities.

Jeffrey Chernick’s lawyers had sought probation for their client but instead he got a 3 month sentence. However, Mr Chernick will still have to pay the tax penalty which is equivalent to 50% of the highest total of his foreign investments, which means about $4 million. The judge accepted the tax penalty and did not enforce any other penalty.

After decades of going back and forth, The US authorities finally worked out a deal with USB executives last august whereby the bank agreed to turn over names of close to 4000 wealthy US clients who had money invested in undisclosed accounts.

Just this past week, Steven Michael Rubinstein, who also cooperated in the UBS investigation, was sentenced to 12 months house arrest and a huge fine on Wednesday for his role in avoiding taxes on millions of dollars.

Authorities called Chernick’s assistance considerable in an investigation that centered on Americans with anonymous offshore accounts at UBS; it is believed that Chernick’s evidence helped penetrate the legendary secrecy laws of Swiss banks.  Chernick’s information was vital and led to the indictment last summer of Swiss banker Hansruedi Schumacher and Zurich attorney Matthias Rickenbach. These two individuals were accused in a Florida court of abetting wealthy Americans to trade secret accounts from UBS to Neue Zuercher Bank (NZB), a private banking facility to hide money from IRS.

The Swiss government is also in the process of charging Schumacher and Rickenbach of breaking certain banking laws.

The federal government has an amnesty for all those on the USB list to come forward and pay the tax penalties. The government has been relentless in pursuing these tax evaders and is in no mood for sympathy. Rest assured that who do miss the amnesty deadline will be penalized heavily.

Numerous physicians have been surveyed in the past decade and there is universal disharmony about Medicare and its payment program. In fact, in some parts of the country physicians have stopped accepting Medicare patients. Physicians today believe that Medicare does not reimburse physicians adequately enough to cover all the costs that occur while looking after the elderly.

Now there is announcement Medicare is going to introduce a 21% cut in payments.  Says Dr David Wilt, an internist at a Kansas City internal medical practice, “If Medicare further cuts its reimbursement rates, then we’ll be functioning at a loss. If the “21%” cut happens, that cut in our payments will exceed our profits. The only option to us to stay in business will be to fire employees,”

Since the 21 percent cut was announced by Medicare scheduled to take place in 2010, many physicians have written to President Obama and their respective senators. However, just la few days ago, the Senate voted against stopping that cut and other annual cuts that were proposed for the coming years.

Some physicians have now combined forces and started to boycott Medicare because they are tired of dealing with payment cuts on an annual basis. The doctors say that these cuts simply are not adequate to help cover all their costs and the only solution is to cut down on their practice or stop seeing Medicare patients.

The federal government and Centers for Medicare is aware of physicians who do not acknowledge Medicare beneficiaries, but data from the agency show that this trend has only affected a few elderly patients. CMS says that more than 95% of all practicing physicians currently accept Medicare patients, which includes close to 600,000 physicians.

Say Renee Mentnech, director of CMS Research and evaluation group, “Geographically, the level within every state is less than 5% of Medicare beneficiaries who have difficulties accessing a doctor.”

However despite these positive statistics from CMS, reports of elderly patients not being able to find physicians continue to increase. Now the sentiments are on side of the physicians and the American Medical Association which speaks for most physicians in America is pushing for an improved reimbursement plan to help maintain elderly care.

Said, Dr James Rohack, president of the AMA, “We believe that as part of comprehensive health reform, physicians have to be incented to keep people healthy and out of the hospital. Under this formula, they are penalized for doing it.”

The government is set to release third-quarter Gross Domestic Product (GDP) statistics which experts say will reveal that the GDP is rising at an annual rate of about 3%. These figures validate a commonly held conviction among financial executives that the recession did end last summer. However, these numbers make no sense because there are close to 15 million people still looking for jobs and countless small business and individuals have been unable to get loans. Each day the real estate market reveals home for sale at dirt cheap prices.

The government has continued to maintain its vocal rhetoric’s about the improving economy but in reality it has raised more questions as the situation is in fact worse. While the government keeps on saying the recession is over, it really depends on whom you speak to. As Ronald Regan once remarked, “A recession is when your neighbor loses his or her job. Depression is when you lose yours.”

Despite the grim news on unemployment, economic forecasters predict that the GDP growth is going to remain on the positive side throughout 2010. Says, Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, “From a technical perspective, the recession is very likely over,”  To further emphasize the above point, Christine Romer, the chair on White House Council of Economic Advisers added, “A recession that showed no signs of ending last January appears to be firmly entering the recovery phase.”

However, not all experts agree with the above figures and indicate that despite the positive GDP showings, unemployment is still going to linger around 10 percent and there is a lot more work to be done before one can really claim that the recession is over. Since the recession began in Dec 2007, the US economy has lost close to 7 million jobs; with more than 50 percent of the losses occurring after President Obama was elected in Jan 2009.

While there are some signs of recovery in the economy, the road has been shaky.  Stocks have pitched up by about 50 percent since March but continued to dip on a daily basis. Since Washington injected fund into some companies, large banks have shown signs of profit. However, the number of small banks failing is at an all time high.  There is significant public discontent among the CEO bonuses and this recently led the government to tighten down on executive compensation on firms that received financial bailout money.

Said the president in his weekly Saturday radio address, “While credit may be more available for large businesses, too many small business owners are still struggling to get the credit they need. These are the very taxpayers who stood by America’s banks in a crisis — and now it’s time for our banks to stand by creditworthy small businesses, and make the loans they need to open their doors, grow their operations and create new jobs.”

There have been some improvements in the manufacturing sector but overall there are residual signs of weakness in the commercial market, airline industry, transportation, real estate and retail business. The only good news has been for US exports-the relentless decline in the US dollar has made American goods cheaper and more viable overseas.

“It’s time for those banks to fulfill their responsibility to help ensure a wider recovery,” Obama said. “We’re going to take every appropriate step to encourage them to meet those responsibilities.”
This week the president declared novel measures to solve the credit issue small business have been suffering. Besides capital booster into community banks, Obama has requested congress to increase the restrictions for small business administration (SBA) loans from $2 million to $ 5 million for the manufacturing sector.

Said the president, “The goal here is to get credit where it’s needed most — to businesses that support families, sustain communities, and create the jobs that power our economy,”

In the coming weeks the president has requested Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner and SBA Karen Mills to assemble a conference of banking officials, congressional leaders, financial regulators, lenders, and business persons to come up with further steps to advance credit to small businesses who would like to develop or expand. Many banks have self imposed restrictions on lending and have been hesitant to loan money.

In the weekly radio address, the president also mentioned that his novel health care plan would permit small businesses to purchase insurance at much lower rates. The president did mention that the present day exorbitant costs of health care have discouraged many would be entrepreneurs from even trying to establish a business. This has resulted in lack of opportunities and lost jobs in the American economy. Added the president, “Small businesses have always been the engine of our economy — creating 65 percent of all new jobs over the past decade and a half — and they must be at the forefront of our recovery,”

The president went on to say that he is well aware of the economic crises and the impact it has had on the average American. The president did mention that his aides are working intensely behind the scenes with senate leaders to merge legislation that will help ease health costs and at the same time offer hope to the millions of uninsured Americans. These proposed health care changes are felt to be the biggest since the evolution of Medicare nearly 43 years ago. However, not all agree with the president’s plan and feel that he has not kept up many of his pre-election promises.

News out this morning indicate that the Obama administration is serious about the bonuses being given out to CEOs and will demand cut backs in pays packages that will involve close to 175 elite executives.
Source tell CNN news that for the past two months, Kenneth Feinberg has been thoroughly looking at pay plans for many of the companies that received bail out money and that includes Citigroup, AIG, Bank of America, General motors, Chrysler, GMAC and Chrysler Financial. The plan is to get these corporations to recompense the government back the money as soon as possible and not squander it out executive bonus pay.

The official plan is expected to be announced by the Treasury soon and there is word that annual salaries/bonuses of CEOs at the above seven firms are going to fall by at least 80-90 percent.
Some financial experts believe that targeting firms which received the most bailout funds will most likely results in loss of top talent that these firms so desperately need to get out of the recession.
According to reports, the firm which is really going o be hammered is AIG. Within AIGs contentious financial division, the sector that led to the company to near extinction, no worker is anticipated to receive more than $200,000 in total reimbursement.

Besides hammering at pay control, there is word on Wall Street that Feinberg is going to insist frequent changes in authority at the above seven firms.

So far all those involved in the issue including the Treasury Department, AIG, bank of America, Chrysler and GM have declined to comment on these news
The news about the clamp down by the Obama administration should come as no surprise. Just last week, retiring Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis announced that he would no longer accept a salary or bonus for 2009. However, this decision only came after a “nudge” from Feinberg, sources say.

To avoid the government’s wrath, some CEOs have taken it upon themselves to announce that they would limit their pay or bonus. Vikram Pandit, the high ranking CEO of Citigroup said that he would only accept a pay of $1 for the present year and will wait on a pay increase until the firm recovers. What Pandit forgets to mentions is that last year alone, he took home close to $11 million in salary and stock options.