A popular prescription in the personal finance domain is to increase or maximize annual contributions to 401(k)s or similar retirement plans. However, one of the best financial decisions I’ve m

(Editor's Note: Minyanville welcomes back Jessie Smith, who is sharing her journey from financial fiasco to fiscal fitness every Tuesday and Thursday in Going for Broke ... and Back.)“A journey

A 40-year veteran of small-cap investing, Bill Nasgovitz never used to concern himself much with the broader macro picture of the US economy. A dedicated, bottoms-up value investor, Nasgovitz simply

When my kids were little, my wife and I would tell them: “Trust is like a LEGO tower. It takes a long time to build it up, but only an instant to knock it down.”I was reminded of this tod

Editor's Note: Welcome to Love It or Hate It, a regular dual-column feature that will capture the love-hate relationship America has with some of its biggest, most controversial companies. For past c

Economist Brad DeLong, of the Department of Economics at UC Berkeley, is getting increasingly pessimistic. He says the chance of Great Depression now is at 5%:  For 2 1/4 years now I have been

Birds are singing, the sun is shining, and life is beautiful again. On the surface, the vital signs of our economy are improving with every economic report. In some areas, like unemployment, the rate

Surprise! It's Christmas! (again...) Christmas always seemed to surprise me when I was first living on my own. It would be about this time of year I realized that I needed to spend a large sum of mon

Bank overdraft fees that can turn a cup of coffee into a $40 expense disproportionately hit the young and the poor, consumer groups are complaining to Congress.Last year, overdraft fees -- charges wh

I’ve seen my fair share of CEOs lose sight of where their businesses are headed during restructuring periods, but Blockbuster’s (BBI) Jim Keyes is a lost soul.The 7-11 guru brought in to