I have a confession to make. I hocked my car. Yes, your stalwart, ever prudent, trousers rolled, personal finance columnist borrowed against his car. In 40 minutes I went from being a guy with no car payments — a guy who hasn’t had a payment book in years — to being a debtor committed to 60 equal…
ReadThese are lean times for savers Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve (not a music group) have declared war on us They have declared that interest rates on savings will be held close to zero Meanwhile inflation is running near 3 percent so savers are losing purchasing power Recently the…
ReadQ When I started taking required minimum distributions from my IRAs I used a withdrawal formula based on dividing the value of my IRA by 27 4 I understood that this value would have to be withdrawn annually until the IRA was depleted Of course the RMD is taxed at my current tax rate During a…
ReadIs there an investment message in our checkbooks Very likely Since consumers account for 70 percent of the economy changes in how we spend are the make or break factor for most companies With that in mind I used my Quicken files to see where the Burns family is spending more (and less) money…
ReadNearly 30 years ago Amory Lovins took on the utility industry The industry was predicting a high energy future filled with nuclear power plants Lovins called the utility forecasts "the hard path" because they committed us to producing ever more energy Writing in Foreign Affairs Lovins suggested…
ReadI've got a project and I need your help Four years ago I left Dallas on a motorcycle to travel along the U S Mexico border and report on what I saw At the start I gave readers my e mail address and asked for suggestions The result was amazing Within days I had hundreds of e mails Two thirds…
ReadSome ideas are stinkier than others This one comes from Europe and its carmakers Specifically both Volkswagen and DaimlerChrysler are planning to start selling some diesel powered SUVs in this country Soon The idea is to make a gesture toward improving the poor fuel mileage of SUVs …
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