This week marks the one-year anniversary of this blog. And, some 365 days and 1,200-odd posts later, here are a few of the most helpful, most rewarding, and most bizarre lessons I’ve learned.
Paul Krugman’s War on Austerity
At a time when most people are saying the path out of the financial crisis and European debt problem is for individuals and governments around the world to cut back, Paul Krugman wants us to spend, spend, spend.
So how much we spend on supporting the economy in 2010 and 2011 is almost irrelevant to the fundamental budget picture. Why,
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Stocks Rally Strongly, So What’s Next?
One day it’s fear and loathing, the next it’s hope springs eternal. We live these days with the stock market acting as a manic depressive. That’s nothing new,of course, as Warren Buffett has long characterized the equity market is such colorful terms. But lately it seems even more so, a fact made painfully clear by the rising VIX and by …
When Should You Buy Your Kid a Cell Phone?
My oldest is only six, but I have a feeling this question is going to come up in our household a lot sooner than I’d like.
Is it time to give up on frequent flyer miles?
Bill is busy blogging about soccer for the next few weeks, so let me step in to be the one outraged by the way airlines are treating us now. As my colleagues Richard Zoglin and Christine Lim report:
One category of flyer is still getting the shaft this summer: the estimated 120 million U.S. travelers who are members of airline frequent
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Tips for Homeowners, Would-Be-Homeowners, Would-Be-Landlords, and Never-Gonna-Be-Homeowners
Read on if you want to fix up your place, sell your place, make some money off of your place, or if you’re not sure if you should rent or own a place.
Eating on $1 a Day: A Blogger Proves It Can Be Done for More than a Month
How does he do it? Among other things, he forages for lemons and blackberries on public lands, gets lucky by finding the occasional unopened beer (of four) left behind by underage drinkers, and he—yes he—buys tampons in order to snag some free peanut butter.
It’s a Deal: Take Your Family to the Movies this Summer for Free
Starting this month, Regal Entertainment Group begins its Free Family Film Festival, with movie theaters around the country welcoming in families for free movies—like Kung Fu Panda, The Muppets Take Manhattan, Coraline, and Wallace and Gromit—on Tuesdays and Wednesdays throughout the summer.
Is BP headed for Bankruptcy?
How low will BP stock go? Today’s guess: All the way to zero. Already, the oil spill in the gulf has caused BP shares to drop to $30 from $60. That’s a loss in total market value of $90 billion. Earlier on this blog, I sided with the camp that thought BP might be a buy, because its stock had fallen so far and another oil company might be …
Beige Book, Bernanke, And Our Wheezy Economy
There was a bumper crop of information and comment on the economy today. Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke testified before the House Budget Committee and the Fed also released its Beige Book, which contains reports from the Federal Reserve’s district banks. On balance, the economy continues trudging through the great deleveraging, …
Cheapskate Wisdom … About Deodorant (and What’s Really Necessary in Life)
“50 years ago, no one needed deodorant. Mankind survived for thousands and thousands of years without it. Suddenly in the past 50 years, deodorant is an absolute necessity in polite culture. So how did that happen? Repetition creates reality; and using mass communications, repetition created the ‘deodorant reality’ for millions of people.”
It’s a Deal: $10 Off $25 Purchase at JC Penney
Use the coupon code SUPERDAD for online shopping, or, if you’re heading to the store, print out this coupon (thanks FatWallet) to get $10 off purchases of $25 or more at JC Penney. The discount expires on June 20.