I have an idea. It’s an entirely impractical idea. But so is running a democracy where minimizing what you pay in taxes is a badge of honor, as opposed to a blatant shirking of one’s patriotic duty. I might not always like what our government spends money on, but that’s why I vote and get involved and do all those other things that hold …

I wrote a story for Time.com about our nation’s new housing-rescue plan, but it’s not online yet. So for now I’ll leave you with a link to this story, the fact sheet from Treasury (it’s a PDF), and a Q&A about how you might benefit (another PDF).

UPDATE: Here’s where you can read my full story.

One thing that struck me while going …

Taking a page from the Hyundai playbook, JetBlue is now offering to refund airfare for people who lose their jobs and let the airline know at least two weeks before take-off. It’s not the world’s easiest thing to get your refund–you’ve got to mail a notarized letter and send a fax and there are plenty of restrictions. But maybe helpful …

As if we needed any more reminders that when someone offers you “improbable, if not impossible” investment returns, you should run the other way, we now have the SEC complaint (PDF) against R. Allen Stanford for allegedly defrauding investors by telling them that their certificates of deposit were invested in safe, highly liquid …

There’s immediate help for out-of-work people collecting unemployment in the massive stimulus bill President Obama signed into law this afternoon: an extra $25 dollars a week, an exemption from income tax on the first $2,400 collected, a 65% subsidy for staying on your old employer’s health insurance.

Then there is the part that looks …

This is the view from my window in the exurbs of Park City, Utah. The photo was taken at sunrise yesterday, so there are no pretty pink clouds on view as I look right now. But it’s still a nice view.

I’m on vacation this week, but I’m working today because TIME’s crack ad sales team actually ‘sold’ my column in this week’s magazine. …

Happy Presidents Day from western PA! I am here, about an hour south of Pittsburgh, to help my grandmother pack up her house. Her house–which she sold after it was on the market for two weeks. So maybe I’m not that smart after all. I guess it’s still true that all real estate is local. And a house on the road to Newell is a hot …

A very interesting tale from the blog of Tim McGuire, the former editor of the Minneapolis Star Tribune who now teaches at Arizona State:

Most people believe this is an industry implosion none of us could have ever imagined. Well that’s not really true.

The Cowles family imagined it and after years of strong stewardship decided in

…

Step 1. Know what has—and hasn’t—worked in the past.

Friends of the Curious Capitalist will be familiar with how much I like to go on and on about how there’s no good data showing which sorts of mortgage rewrites keep struggling borrowers out of foreclosure in the long-term. And how it would be nice, before we spend $50 billion …

I have a column online and in the issue of TIME with faith healing on the cover. It begins:

Don’t spend more than you make. Don’t buy things you don’t need. Save for a rainy day. If Americans had followed these simple rules over the past decade, there would be no financial crisis, no worst-since-the-1930s recession, no acrimonious

…