After you lost your “job-job,” you’ve been “decruited” more than once—maybe that “job stopper” on your neck had something to do with it—and because your financial outlook is somewhere between “blark” and “Full Walton” lately, you’ve been alternating between “Wonderbreading” and the “Peanut Butter Challenge” and need to get “approval …
How Far to Drive for Cheap Gas? Where Do Your Taxes Go? Why So Many Damn Movie Trailers Lately?
As is usually the case, I’ve got more questions than answers. Luckily, somebody has answers — to these and other puzzling questions.
Give Mom What She Deserves: $117,856
Those flowers you were so proud to give yesterday seem pretty chintzy right about now. If a stay-at-home mom was compensated properly for what amounts to a 99-hour work week, on average, her annual salary would be $117K.
Strategic Mortgage Default: Walking Away Is the ‘In Thing to Do Right Now’
Underwater homeowners explain why they’re walking away from their mortgages, even though they can afford the payments.
The stock market rebounds!
Apparently, the stock market took a little tumble last week while I was away on vacation. Now that I’m back, things are looking so much more cheery. Here we are, at 4 p.m., and the Dow, S&P and Nasdaq are all up by more than 3%. I’ve been asked to write a blog post about why.
It’s a Deal: More Than 40% Off Converse Sneakers
Use the coupon code CHUCKS17 (thanks dealnews) to get 20% off purchases at Converse.com, including items already discounted by up to 40% in the sale section.
Is financial reform good or bad for business?
As the Senate continues debating financial-industry reform this week, I’d like to re-iterate a point I first made in a Time.com article: lots of businessmen are in favor of a sweeping overhaul.
You wouldn’t necessarily know that from reading the headlines, since headlines tend to capture the highest profile lobbying—like what comes …
Cheapskate Wisdom from … Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke
“As your parents always said, money doesn’t buy happiness. Well, an economist might reply, at least not by itself.”
A Month without Credit Cards. A Year without Half Your Clothes.
I’m a sucker for experiments—from the guy who didn’t get into a car for a year, to the blogger who asked for at least one discount daily, to the women who aren’t buying clothes for 365 days. Here, two more money-related experiments that caught my attention.
What the Eurozone bailout plan means
So I arrived in London this morning, to help out my colleagues with the escalating Europe debt crisis story, only to find out that in the mere 12 hours I was on a plane, not only has the entire face of the crisis changed, the entire continent has changed. After Europe’s leaders did everything they could to undermine investor confidence …
Rage Against the eBay-PayPal Machine
After the SF Chronicle published a very brief Q&A with PayPal president Scott Thompson, readers unleashed a slew of angry comments about eBay and its sister company, “Greedpal,” err, Paypal. Comments like: “Dishonest and insufficiently secure: the wave of the future!” and “Ebay + PayPal = Greed.” And: “ebay is now a giant flea-market of …
Stocks Finish One of the Worst Weeks Ever
What do we make of a market that ignores good news? That’s what the Dow appeared to do Friday. After starting the day on a positive note, the April jobs report showing that payrolls grew by 290,000, the market turned negative within an hour and spent most of the day in the red. For the full trading session, the broad indexes were all …