I apologize in advance: this post is going to be a bit heavy on theory and math. We try to digest our statistics are much as possible here at DQYDJ, but this topic requires a bit more explanation than the average article on this site.

You see, a combination of Federal Reserve Policy and United States taxation law is literally eroding the value of your short terms funds. Thanks to Robert Higgs at The Independent Institute for prompting this article on the expropriation of private wealth by the government. Feel free to skip the two introduction sections below and get right to my point, or check out this WSJ article of a less wonky slant.

8.3%.

The significance of that number? In this instance, I'm talking about the most recent BLS unemployment report for January 2012. The top-line number, U3 (total unemployed as a percentage of the labor force), is the rate most often quoted in news stories and reports. Let's continue the trend and say that the top-line number improvement is an encouraging sign. As recently as September of 2011 the unemployment rate was 9.0%. Of course, drawing a trend line from a few months of data isn't the most honest graph you can make, but you can't call this drop anything except what it is: an encouraging sign.

Happy Valentine's Day, good people! Our gift to you was a marriage related article (We're expanding our repertoire! Is this site maturing?) and the new social stats you see to the right ->.

Personal finance bloggers and personal finance connoisseurs (such as me) often feel that they have ultimate control over their actions. The belief is that if one is aware of their goals, the can reach them with the greatest of ease.

• Do you want to create an emergency fund? Spend four months building one.
• Do you want to retire at age forty? Control spending now and begin investing in tax-sheltered investment vehicles.
• Do you want to reduce your money spent on gas? Simply hypermile!

Let me start by telling you ('you' might mean my readership, or 'you' might mean Mrs. DQYDJ!) that if I did I certainly wouldn't write an article about it!

Still, I enjoy living on the edge. This is an interesting question - is it ever okay to lie to your partner about finances? We've all heard that "money is the leading cause of divorce". While evidence is mixed on that front, the truth is that the number of money fights a couple has is a good predictor of divorce rates. While tossing out lies might avoid a fight now, it might also lead to an even bigger fight in the future. Regardless, let's look at the cases for both. Pick a side!

TGIS! (The 'S' stands for Saturday...) You've made it to another edition of the DQYDJ weekender. Of course, we reserve the right to post this post whenever we please...

It must be the apocalypse, because we were the target of two separate sites this week!

We've had our first major upset of the Republican primary!

On Tuesday, there were 3 major events in the Republican primary calendar. Both Minnesota and Colorado held caucuses while Missouri held a non-binding primary. Going into the night, Santorum was expected to win Missouri (he had been campaigning there, while other candidates had been avoiding it) and likely to win Minnesota as well. Colorado, having similar demographics to Nevada (although having a notably smaller Mormon population) was expected to grant Romney a victory. In fact, prior to voting in Colorado, betting site Intrade had Romney at 97% to win the state. To riff off a common sports phrase? That's why they count the votes!

Is sports gambling beatable?

Casinos, over the years, have traditionally thought of sportsbooks as an amenity to offer to their customers as opposed to a real way to make money. They cap the bets made on traditional over/unders and to people who consistently win in sports gambling (known as 'sharps'). The casinos believe that sports gambling is beatable by a select few and just hope that the losses of the masses can wash out the gains of the few. But, the obvious question is: if it is beatable, how does one stay ahead of the market/line-setters?

What sort of cognitive dissonance does it cause when you read a new post in February and the title contains a data in January? Whatamess!

Feel like helping push DQYDJ closer to the top of the world (loosely defined)? We're 2 followers away from 200 on Twitter and 2 likes away from 65 on Facebook.

A lot of recent financial news has focused around the spreading European sovereign debt crisis. The big question many Americans now try to answer is what this means for them on a day-to-day basis. At the same time as this is happening, the Fed has declared that they will endorse a policy of more transparency, opening up their forecasts to scrutiny and understanding.