Posted 1 week 6 days ago by Philip Brewer
The US Treasury pays more money to more people than just about anybody in the world. Last year it disbursed more than $1.6 trillion in 982 million individual payments. As you can imagine, they save a lot of money when they can make direct deposits instead of printing paper checks. So they're always trying to figure out what makes people reject direct deposit. One such thing is garnishment.
Posted 4 weeks 4 days ago by Xin Lu
Yesterday I read a news item that stated the House and Senate are considering another tax benefit for homebuyers and homebuilders. The idea the House is considering is basically giving a tax credit of $7500 to people who have not owned a home in three years. In the Senate, the version of the bill gives buyers up to $7000 for purchasing a foreclosed home. It sounds like free money, right?
Posted 5 weeks 4 days ago by Xin Lu
This week the Justice Department reached an antitrust settlement with the National Association of Realtors that is meant to spur competition and bring down the standard 6% commission that comes with each real estate transaction. Basically, the NAR is no longer able to withhold the information on multiple listing services from discount online brokers such as Redfin and ZipRealty. Will consumers like us see a huge deduction in real estate transaction prices soon?
Posted 21 weeks 5 days ago by Philip Brewer
For most of the 20th century, capitalism and democracy seemed to go hand-in-hand. After all, every democratic country was largely capitalist and nearly every capitalist country was, at least to some extent, democratic. What we've seen since the 1970s, though, has been a huge upswing in capitalism, while democracy has weakened. Robert Reich's book is about how this happened and what we might do about it.
Posted 22 weeks 2 days ago by Linsey Knerl
Government assistance such as the Food Stamp Program and cash welfare payments are sticky topics of discussion. What exactly is frugal about using a hand-out, anyway? If you take a closer look at the way U.S. assistance programs are utilized, you may find that it’s not that taboo after all.
Posted 23 weeks 6 hours ago by Paul Michael
I'm must confess, I'm a bit of a history junkie. I can often be found digging through The History Channel On Demand shows, all too often because we can learn valuable lessons from the mistakes we have made in the past. So when I recently discovered that The Library Of Congress was releasing hundreds of copyright-free images on Flickr, I just had to find out more.
Posted 27 weeks 16 hours ago by Philip Brewer
Recessions spread. A minor downturn in one business spreads to its suppliers and then to their suppliers. Workers are laid off (or simply fear that they will be) and buy less, spreading the downturn to other sectors of the economy. Since the 1940s, governments have tried to act to limit the damage caused by recessions, but not everyone agrees that government action can help.
Posted 33 weeks 3 days ago by Philip Brewer
Want to eat a cheap, healthy diet? Want some recipes that use real food instead of packaged food products? Want to argue about how much it costs to feed a family a healthy diet? Here's a free tool, created by the USDA, that will help you with any of those.
Posted 51 weeks 4 hours ago by Philip Brewer
Let's say you've paid off any debt, except maybe a low-rate mortgage or student loan, and you've started saving the 3-6 month's spending money that all the books say you ought to have. So, where do you put that savings? An option with the maximum safety and considerable flexibility is treasury bills.
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| Posts | Cmts | |
|---|---|---|
| Fred Lee | 3 | 19 |
| Julie Rains | 4 | 19 |
| Linsey Knerl | 10 | 32 |
| Margaret Garcia-Couoh | 2 | 6 |
| Myscha Theriault | 7 | 52 |
| Paul Michael | 6 | 14 |
| Philip Brewer | 12 | 37 |
| Will Chen | 2 | 2 |
| Xin Lu | 9 | 22 |
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