The Internal Revenue Service isn’t going to fight people any longer who want to deduct the cost of gender reassignment surgery from their taxes.
‘This Home is Occupied’: An Occupy Atlanta Protest Moves to a Foreclosed Home
Occupy Wall Street, an offshoot of which has roosted in almost every major U.S. city, generally sets up camp near the center of large metropolitan areas. Now it has occupied the front lawn of a small home in suburban Atlanta.
Fewer Holiday Travelers This Year Will Mean Higher Ticket Prices
If you haven’t booked your flight for Thanksgiving, be prepared to pay up: Ticket prices around the holiday will be 6% to 12% higher than last year.
Italy’s Crisis: Endgame for the Euro?
You know the old saying: It ain’t over until the fat lady sings. Well, in the case of the euro zone debt crisis, that lady is Italy, she’s plump enough to cause quite a bit of trouble, and the orchestra looks to be tuning up.
We’re in the middle of yet another global financial rout, with stocks plunging around the globe, the …
Delinquencies in Mortgages, Credit Cards Rise
As a nation, we’re collectively late with our payments again. For one, the rate of 60-day delinquencies among homeowners — basically two missed mortgage payments — rose in the September quarter, according to TransUnion. The jump from 5.82% to 5.88% is the first rise in the delinquency rate in two years.
Let’s Tax Christmas Trees … To Help Sell More Christmas Trees
The number of real Christmas trees sold has reportedly been dropping—from, for example, 37 million in 1991 to 31 million in 2007. By some indication, sales of artificial Christmas trees have also soared in recent years. To push …
Is the Popularity of Gift Cards on the Decline?
In a recent survey, nearly half of adults said they received a gift card during the holidays last year. That’s a tremendous number of people. Nonetheless, there’s reason to believe that gift cards aren’t quite as hot as they once were.
Talk About ‘Old Money’: Old Folks Got Richer, Young People Much Poorer Over the Years
We’ve all heard of how the rich have gotten richer over the past several decades—the “great divergence,” as it’s been called, in which a small portion of the population has garnered an increasingly outsized percentage of net …
Bank Transfer Day: The Tally Is In
Americans fed up with their banks voted with their wallets last Saturday, and we finally have some numbers to go along with the anecdotal reports of people ditching their old bank for a better alternative. Credit unions around the country acquired 40,000 new members, and roughly 80 percent of credit unions added members, according to the …
After Walking Away from a Mortgage, No Regrets—Not Many Consequences Either
Two years ago, a national debate raged regarding strategic default: Was it wrong to walk away from one’s mortgage? Or, when a homeowner is underwater—owing more than the home was worth—is it a purely business situation in …
An Ivy League Education: Money Wasted or Money Well Spent?
You’ve heard the advice ad nauseum: An education is an investment in your future. But as we all should know, some investments pay off better than others.
For Sale: The Homes of Hollywood’s Broken-Hearted
In the wake of Kim Kardashian’s divorce, there are a number of other fresh celebrity breakups that have resulted not only in broken hearts, but also in broken homes.