Editor: we originally wrote this as a four part blog post in June 2009, only a few months after we […]

If you saw $1,377.71 lying on the ground, would you pick it up?

I hope you would. That's the sort of savings you could find from opening a Roth IRA. Any increase in your future tax rates means you made money simply from choosing the right account to invest in. Sound good? Read the article.

If you come into money, don't ignore paying down debt as an option. Oftentimes paying down debt can save you much more money than you can earn with another option. Additionally, paying off a loan in full will increase your future cash flow. Read on for a look at debt as an investment and a closer look at tax-equivalent yield.

"Bennet Sedacca announced to the world at 10:15 on the morning of March 5, 2008, that venerable Bear Sterns & Co., the nation's fifth-largest investment bank was in trouble, big trouble." The first paragraph opens with a bang. Ten days after Sedacca made that call, he was proven right. Bear Sterns was no more. William D. Cohan's House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street, explains how Bear Sterns got there.

Next month, the minimum wage in America is going to raise from $6.55 an hour to $7.25 an hour. The $6.55 to $7.25 jump is the last of the increases to the minimum wage under the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007. The minimum wage is a sexy law; politicians can stand hand in hand with the lowest income workers and say, "I'm fighting for you!". Unfortunately, the low income workers are holding the hands that hold them down.

Assuming reducing the United State's usage of oil is a worthy task, the method used to go about it is all wrong. CAFE standards mandate the production of a certain class of vehicles... generally smaller and more efficient. However, there is no disincentive to convince consumers to stop buying the larger, more inefficient vehicles. Read on for a look at some of the myths and solutions to this interesting problem...