892 articles · page 29 of 45
In response to the Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections, a recent New York Times article likened Facebook’s deficient advertising policy to an out-of-control Frankenstein monster. While there is some truth in comparing Facebook, Google, and other mega social-media sites to out-of-control systems, this article does a great disservice to Frankenstein’s reputation. In…
One of the Trump administration’s less visible goals is to allow American corporations to bribe foreign governments to win business. As reported in the New Yorker, Trump expressed this goal in a discussion with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Tillerson, the former head of Exxon Oil, countered that this was not a goal…
If you are sorry about your meager 4% annual raise or if you did not receive anything at all, you can take heart: Now, a new employee benefit is being offered to make it easier to borrow from your future wages. Like the poorly-regarded pay-day loan industry, the new employee benefit offers a line…
The poor disaster relief response to Puerto Rico has rightfully attracted national attention. Still, the many explanations about the failures to alleviate the suffering fail to address the main reason: Puerto Rico is a colony. This means the island, now classified as a commonwealth, is free to be financially and politically victimized by U.S.
We don’t think hurricanes are fabulous, majestic spiritual creations but deadly, destructive natural events. The news covers the meteorology that created the hurricane, but that gets subordinated to announcements about evacuations and preparedness. While those caveats are essential, they also cause us to miss a great spiritual opportunity to see hurricanes as purely natural,…
What happens when one of the nation’s largest financial services firms victimizes its employees? Simple. It produces one of the fastest financial settlements in court history. In the case of Krystal M. Anderson and All Others vs. Principal Life Insurance Company, a lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for the Southern…
As the stock market gains, so does the retirement crisis. The latest evidence comes from a new study from CareerBuilder and Harris polls, which shows that almost 8 out of 10 American workers live paycheck to paycheck to make ends meet. This is an increase of 5% to 78% in 2017. (The Harris Poll surveyed…
The nation’s biggest banks cannot help preying on their customers, large and small. The latest case involves the esoteric world of securities lending, which is used for short selling and hedge funds and is an essential means of eliminating “failed” transactions. In exchange, the lender (such as a brokerage firm) charges a stock loan…
The recent news that the worldwide LIBOR interest rate will be replaced after years of scandals about it being rigged by some of the world’s largest banks has started a slow-motion earthquake that will rattle interest rate lending worldwide. It will also be one of the most expensive fixes ever applied to the $350…
Is buying in a country club a good investment, an ego trip, or a way to become a member of an adult Disneyland? It may not be all three of these choices. The once-coveted dream of owning a home in a county club was a dream for millions of Americans. But now, this lifelong…
It’s pretty clear that Bernie Sanders was denied nomination by the Democratic National Committee and would have made a better candidate than Hillary Clinton to combat Trump. As numerous politicians have noted, the 2016 election was for Hillary Clinton to lose. And she did. But why was Sanders denied any attempt…
It is widely recognized in the modern world that the earth revolves around the sun. Now, it is time for more investors to understand that the fees charged to manage your mutual funds in a 401(k) and elsewhere all reduce your net investment returns. There is a direct connection: the more you pay in fees…
For highly trained and well-compensated financial experts who routinely delve into the outer limits of stochastic calculus, Black Scholes, and Finite Difference Method techniques of numerical options pricing, Wall Street does a lousy job of gauging public opinion. Like most people who have to give self-evaluations and the old saw…
Fidelity National Title Group, a subsidiary of Fidelity National Financial, the largest title insurer in the world, has issued an underwriting bulletin to its agents in 28 states not to insure any land used “for the production or distribution of marijuana.” According to the memo issued June 29, 2017, by Fidelity National…
It’s no secret that college debt is a significant factor preventing millions of grads from paying down on a house. It’s also no secret that college debt is at its highest levels than at any other time in U.S. history. The surprise is that high housing debts impact a student borrower’s ability to build…
Good workers in a corporate society are commonly expected to bracket their personal biases and emotions when they enter the workplace. While this may be changing as more corporations adopt a “work-life balance” position, most people in the retirement planning industry, including writers who regularly cover this topic, have a right…
This site has never printed an entire news article from another site, but this is a great story about how bond traders lied during the 2007-2008 housing fraud that led to the financial crash. That housing crash resulted from top-down and bottom-up fraud involving realtors, mortgage companies, hedge funds, banks, traders, and global investment…
This is an undergraduate who wrote an academic paper we should all get to know: ON THE QUESTION OF BEING Christofer B. Koch ABSTRACT “The question of Being is one of the oldest questions in all of philosophy. It is one of the foundations of metaphysics and is the central question of ontology and was…
Investment professionals with exceptional research skills, proven track records, and access to large amounts of data are in a better position than average people to discern the investment future. So, with that in mind, here are well-prepared assessments from Kevin C. Smith, CFA, founder and CEO of Crescat Capital, Denver, and investor Jim Rogers…
Robotics, automation, globalization, Uber, and gig economies have all captured the attention of anyone planning a career or life over the next decades, but what is missing is the link between these new definitions of work and what happens when work ends. It would be logical to assume that any fundamental change in the…
