May 16, 2008
Best Columns: Cracked nest eggs, Lost legacies
Retirement plans calculated with projected returns of about 10 percent “rest on two decades of outsize returns,” says Sandra Block in USA Today. General Electric is joining the “small but high-profile club” of companies that have shed “businesses once synonymous with their brand names,” says Matt Vella in BusinessWeek.com, and it could be a smart move.
May 15, 2008
Best Columns: HBO’s lessons, Holiday’s budget
The film offshoot of HBO’s 'Sex in the City' says a lot about “the future of film and television,” says John Gapper in the Financial Times. “Sure, gas and food prices are high,” but you can still afford to “get away” this summer, says Marshall Loeb in MarketWatch.
May 13, 2008
Best Columns: Overpriced parachutes, Underpriced airfare
“Lavish severance packages” for CEOs have “regrettably become common in recent years,” says Knight Kiplinger in Kiplinger.com. Airfares are rising, amid soaring fuel costs, but great deals are “still around,” says Peter Pae in the Los Angeles Times.
May 8, 2008
Best Columns: Broadband bets, Credit card games
WiMax could finally give U.S. Internet surfers a “true alternative” to the dominant “broadband duopoly,” says the Los Angeles Times in an editorial. Using credit cards is a lot like “gambling in Las Vegas,” says Michelle Singletary in The Washington Post: The bank always wins.
May 6, 2008
Best Columns: Fuel Hogging, Price Insurance
Record gas prices might be pushing you to ride the bus, says Marshall Loeb in MarketWatch, but you “can take less drastic measures,” too. Then you can “get ready for higher auto insurance premiums,” says Eileen Ambrose in The Baltimore Sun.
May 1, 2008
Best Columns: Inverted calendars, Friendly pirates
We’re at the end of the “best six months of the year” on Wall Street, says Alexandra Twin in CNNMoney.com, and it’s hard to blame investors for “feeling cheated.” “Corporate raider” Kirk Kerkorian is investing in Ford, says Paul Ingrassia in The Wall Street Journal, and Ford executives and shareholders “should be celebrating.”
Apr 30, 2008
Best Columns: Foolish bears, Food snobs
Wall Street is “flirting with a bear market,” says Money’s Jason Zweig in CNNMoney.com, but there’s “still a bull market" for "utter nonsense.” The soaring cost of food is taking its toll on “food snobs” as well as “poor working families,” says Daniel Gross in Slate.
Apr 25, 2008
Best Columns: ATM smarts, Dumb lies
Consumers threw away $4 billion on ATM fees last year, says Marshall Loeb in MarketWatch, but you can avoid these “pesky fees.” Of all the reasons for the “mortgage meltdown,” says Mark Gimein in Slate, the least-discussed is the “liar’s loan.”
Apr 22, 2008
Best Columns: Eyeing inflation, Investing in optimism
The economy is heading “in an ominous direction,” says Fred W. Frailey in Kiplinger.com, as we face a “huge burst of inflation.” But there are reasons for optimism, says Money’s Michael Sivy in CNNMoney.com.
Apr 21, 2008
Best Columns: Saving money, Gauging wealth
There is “little, if any, relief in sight at the fuel pump or from soaring utility bills,” says John F. Wasik in Bloomberg, but you can take action. There is more than one way to gauge the median national income of a particular country, says Tim Harford in Slate.
Apr 18, 2008
Best columns: Fighting inflation, Tossing food
U.S. shoppers are facing the “worst food-price inflation in more than a decade,” says Jeffrey Strain in TheStreet.com. “Tossed food” is the “third most common refuse found at landfills” in the U.S., says Thomas Kostigen in MarketWatch.
Apr 17, 2008
Best Columns: Converting Roth IRAs, Deregulating airlines
Converting your traditional IRA to a Roth IRA could make sense, says Mary Beth Franklin in Kiplinger.com. Did U.S. airline deregulation achieve its twin goals of “spurring competition and bringing down airfares”? says Micheline Maynard in The New York Times.
Apr 15, 2008
Best Business Commentary
It’s tax day, and “you have less than 24 hours to make good” with the IRS, says Eileen Ambrose in The Baltimore Sun. Blockbuster’s bid for Circuit City has rightly been “panned from Wall Street to Hollywood as financially risky and poorly timed,” says Therese Poletti in MarketWatch.
Apr 11, 2008
Best Business Commentary
So your flight was canceled, says Kelli B. Grant in SmartMoney.com. You’re not alone. Today’s “Americans are unaccustomed to recessions,” says The Economist in an editorial, especially ones that involve “shopping less.”
Apr 10, 2008
Best Business Commentary
The commodity “bubble is about to burst,” says Jim Ostroff in Kiplinger.com. About 80 percent of Americans are worried about their retirement savings, says Robert Powell in MarketWatch, and “with good reason.”
Apr 8, 2008
Best Business Commentary
U.S. food prices rose 5.3 percent last year, said Kelli B. Grant in SmartMoney.com, and credit-card issuers want your “escalating grocery bills” on their cards. Air passengers should “plan on shelling out considerably more money” to fly, with fewer choices, says Jennifer Waters in MarketWatch.
Apr 4, 2008
Best Business Commentary
Dell “led a sales revolution in the late 1990s,” says John Dvorak in MarketWatch, but it’s “still living in the 1990s.” “Budget-minded shoppers” might be missing out on online sales, says Jayne O’Donnell in USA Today.
Apr 2, 2008
Best Business Commentary
A “small but powerful” group of “supply-siders” blames the “credit market meltdown” on an “obscure accounting rule,” says Daniel Gross in Slate. Gas prices are “hitting record highs nearly every day,” says Marshall Loeb in MarketWatch, but you can help diminish the pain.
Mar 27, 2008
Best Business Commentary
“More Americans than ever before are being audited,” says Catherine Clifford in CNNMoney.com, but you can reduce the chances that “the tax man will take a second look” at your returns. Lying on your résumé is “a really bad idea” today, says Molly Selvin in the Los Angeles Times.
Mar 26, 2008
Best Business Commentary
Real estate, more than any other asset, is “conducive to hopeful overvaluation,” says David Leonhardt in The New York Times. After the “tough winter for the stock market,” says Ben Steverman in BusinessWeek.com, are we finally seeing “some signs of spring”?
Mar 24, 2008
Best business commentary
In “times of financial crisis (like now),” said Fortune’s Katie Benner in CNNMoney.com, the question of where to keep your cash “isn’t so simple.” “Smart businesspeople” like Sam Zell and Brian Tierney “appointed themselves as life savers” of the newspaper industry, said David Carr in The New York Times . . .
Mar 20, 2008
Best business commentary
Is “another Great Depression” out there “lurking over the horizon”? says Michael A. Hiltzik in the Los Angeles Times. The “boom in affordable consumer electronics” is great, says Jennifer Openshaw in MarketWatch, but it has a downside . . .
Mar 18, 2008
Best business commentary
Until this “recent tempest,” Wall Street was a “black box on the Hudson that worked its own brand of magic,” said Fortune’s Shawn Tully in CNNMoney.com. But with the recent financial carnage, “what’s an individual investor to do?” says Kathy Kristof in the Los Angeles Times . . .
Mar 14, 2008
Best business commentary
With gold topping $1,000 an ounce, investors are “looking for ways to join in the gold rush,” says Ben Rooney in CNNMoney.com. “It must pain” Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to “push for more government regulation” of banks, says the Los Angeles Times in an editorial . . .
Mar 13, 2008
Best business commentary
The U.S. dollar is clearly on track “to test new depths this year,” says Andrew C. Schneider in Kilplinger.com, but there’s no “reason to panic.” Students in the class of 2009 face a tough fight to get into top colleges, says Sue Shellenbarger in The Wall Street Journal, but parents, don’t quit your jobs to help them . . .
Mar 11, 2008
Best business commentary
It has been dubiously accepted “as gospel” that Google’s paid click rate is down 12 percent since October, says Chris Wilson in Slate. The world of mutual funds is a “quagmire of money-losing tricks and traps,” says Marshall Loeb in MarketWatch . . .
Mar 10, 2008
Best business commentary
Folks are increasingly stashing their money in “ready-made investment mixes,” says Jonathan Clements in The Wall Street Journal, but it's fun to mix your own, too. We’ve been stuck in a “quality-of-life recession” for 33 years, says Robert Costanza in the Los Angeles Times . . .
