Rebecca Pavese in Bankrate.com
September 30, 2010Bankrate.com, September 30, 2010Rebecca Pavese suggests ways to minimize the pain of required minimum distributions from retirement accounts.
Human Flags At The Top Of The World
September 30, 2010The town of Grise Fiord on Ellesmere Island in Nunavut, Canada, has temperatures below freezing nearly all year. Its Inuit name, Aujuittuq, means “place that never thaws.” But, for around 150 people, Grise Fiord is home. The families that settled Grise Fiord never chose to live in that arctic desert. They were stuck at the top of the world to serve as human flags. Until recently, I had never heard …
Keeping College Debt Under Control
September 29, 2010In good times, and especially in bad, college graduates tend to earn more money than their less-educated peers, and they have less trouble getting and keeping jobs. But does this mean that any college, at any price, is a sound financial investment? No, it does not. It disturbs me to see young people start their adult lives with debts that they will struggle, sometimes for decades, to repay. Many of …
The ‘Southwest Effect’ Expands Its Reach
September 28, 2010Yesterday’s announcement that Southwest Airlines plans to acquire AirTran is welcome news for travelers, but it probably made Delta executives choke on their Monday morning coffee. Just last week, Delta lost its place as the largest domestic air carrier when shareholders of United and Continental agreed to merge those companies under the United banner. Not that Delta has been on top for very long. It claimed number-one status only after …
Can Superman Rescue Parochial Schools?
September 27, 2010For more than 80 years, the Holy Spirit Catholic School in the Bronx has stood across the street from Public School 26. I attended P.S. 26 in the 1960s, but for me, Holy Spirit might as well have been on Mars. I never set foot in the place. I only knew a few Holy Spirit students, and they all happened to be girls. They were older than me and were …
Going After ‘Idle Iron’
September 24, 2010If you can’t keep people employed digging holes, pay them to fill the holes they have already dug. That seems to be at least part of the logic behind a new mandate from Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. The mandate, which the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement issued last week, requires oil and gas companies to permanently plug about 3,500 out-of-use wells in the Gulf of Mexico. …
Paul Jacobs in Chicago Tribune
September 23, 2010Chicago Tribune , September 23, 2010Paul Jacobs emphasizes the possible savings from recharacterizing your IRA.
Defending Privacy Against Border Defenders
September 23, 2010Interstates 89 and 91 intersect near White River Junction, Vt., about 90 miles away from the Canadian border. A mile or two farther south, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers occasionally set up roadblocks on I-91. I have been stopped several times in recent years as I drove between my homes in Vermont and New York. Each time, a uniformed agent politely inquired about my citizenship. I was always swiftly …
If Things Are Getting Better, Why Are We So Miserable?
September 22, 2010You have heard by now that the recession is officially over. Do you feel like celebrating? Probably not. This week’s announcement from the National Bureau of Economic Research confirmed what we already knew, which is that the Great Recession has been over for quite a while — officially, now, since June 2009. The downturn that began in November 2007 therefore lasted 18 months, making it the longest U.S. economic contraction …
The 2012 Election Campaign Gets Underway
September 21, 2010You might think the 2012 presidential campaign will get underway on the morning of Nov. 3, when both parties survey the results of the midterm elections. But I think it is safe to say that the race for the White House has already begun. President Obama got things started earlier this month with his heavily publicized speech in Cleveland, in which he attacked the Republican opposition and criticized House Minority …
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