For most Americans, the European Debt Crisis is anything but riveting. Sure, Wall Street has been bouncing up and down in response to news about the Euro bailout fund, but Greek sovereign debt is a pretty esoteric subject for almost everyone else. Yet the cover of this week’s Economist magazine advises, “be afraid.” What are they worried about? Read the full article

Michael Cembalest, Chief Investment Officer at investment bank JPMorgan, has done the world a service by publishing a graphic view of the European Crisis, courtesy of his 9-year-old son.

As the Greek debt tragedy plays itself out, it’s become apparent that problems in Europe have the potential to nick some U.S. money market funds. Read the full article

Late last week, the Board of Trustees of the trust fund that covers Social Security and Medicare issued its annual report for 2011. Read the full article

Both the House and Senate have passed the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010, and the bill is expected to pass into law soon. What goodies does it hold for taxpayers? Read the full article

Which states are likely to have the worst pension liability problems in the future? A couple of studies, one from the Pew Center on the States and the other from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, indicate that while a few are in decent shape, some are much worse than others. Read the full article

Many employer-sponsored tax-deferred retirement plans, including 401(k)s, offer a unique investment option called a "stable value" fund. If you've invested in such a fund, you should take a close look at what's inside; its value might not be as stable as you think. Read the full article

Increasingly in the media, there are discussions relating to deflation: are we experiencing deflation, and is deflation worse than inflation? Occasionally, discussions of the economy refer to disinflation. This will be the first in a series of posts exploring price changes and their implications for investing. Read the full article

Recently I was listening to an IRS webcast on tax law changes (yes, it’s just as exciting as it sounds!) and something caught my attention. I was already aware that people living in disaster areas are eligible for various kinds of tax relief, but I realized that I’d missed an important fact. You don’t have to live in a disaster area to get a tax break; the Heartland Disaster Tax Relief Act of 2008 includes special provisions for educational expenses incurred by students attending college in areas struck by disaster in 2008. This article will be of interest even if you don’t qualify for the expanded disaster relief benefits but are interested in tax benefits available to households with college expenses. Read the full article

For buyers in the most expensive housing markets, the rules concerning “conforming” mortgages have been confusing over the last year or so. Conforming mortgages are eligible to be purchased by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two government-run companies that together own or guarantee most home mortgages. One benefit of a conforming mortgage is the all-important interest rate: mortgages whose values exceed a specified amount are not conforming and typically carry interest rates that are ¾% or more higher than conforming mortgage rates. Read the full article

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. I’ve learned that it's not unheard-of for a professional tax preparer to advise a married individual to file his or her tax return using the single filer status. No! No! Bad tax preparer! Read the full article

There are a number of differences between stocks and bonds. In addition to those I discussed earlier, the two also differ in terms of the unpleasant things that can go wrong with them. The deal struck between Citigroup and the Treasury recently provides an opportunity to illustrate a few more differences. Read the full article

Last year, one of my clients asked me this question. He was well-educated, but had simply never had an occasion to learn how investments work. It struck me at that moment that if he didn't know, then plenty of other people probably don't, so I decided to prepare a short introduction to the topic. Read the full article

What do FedEx, General Motors, Frontier Airlines, Eastman Kodak, Motorola, Sears and Unisys all have in common? All have announced plans to cut costs by suspending their matching contributions to employee 401(k) plans. Even Starbucks has announced that it may drop its 401(k) match in 2009. Read the full article

It's now agreed that our nation is in a recession. With increasing frequency, recent media discussions about the economy have turned to the question of whether it will turn into a depression. What's the difference? Read the full article

The news media continue to reverberate with details of Bernard Madoff’s fraudulent investment scheme. Sadly, a number of charitable foundations, including Elie Wiesel's Foundation For Humanity, Steven Speilberg’s Wunderkinder Foundation, the Carl and Ruth Shapiro Foundation, and the Robert Lappin Foundation, had most of their funds invested with him. The Lappin Foundation, based on the North Shore of Boston, has had to shut down. Read the full article

With stock markets down precipitously and few asset classes that haven’t declined significantly this year, many investors in 529 college savings plans are wondering what to do. In some situations, it may make sense to make a change in your child’s 529 plan. Read the full article

As 2008 draws to a close, take some time to consider what you can do before year-end to reduce your income tax bill. Read the full article

With stock market indices down 30% or more from their January 1st levels, most investors are battered, bruised, and hoping for happier times. In the midst of a generally depressed stock market, there are still a couple of clever ways to make the most of a bad situation using a Roth IRA. Read the full article

Having discussed why having an emergency fund is a good idea and how big an emergency fund needs to be, I’d now like to talk about investments suitable for an emergency fund. Read the full article

American International Group, one of the largest insurance companies in the world, has been struggling to stay afloat this week. Moody's Investors Service and Standard & Poor's lowered their ratings on AIG; these downgrades, in turn, trigger clauses in AIG's contracts with its trading partners that could require the company to raise billions for collateral or penalty payments. It looks as though the federal government has decided to keep AIG from going under.
Still, today insurance policyholders may have been wondering: what happens to my insurance policy if the insurer goes bankrupt? Read the full article

Master Limited Partnerships are complicated investments in which you share in the profits from an income-generating business. Most often these partnerships make their money in energy-related businesses. They’re publicly traded and offer certain income tax benefits. They aren’t for everyone, however. Read the full article

Last week, state regulators closed down the Columbian Bank and Trust Co. of Topeka, Kansas. It was the ninth bank failure thus far this year, and probably not the last. I've written several posts recently on FDIC insurance of bank accounts and CDs, but many investors have far more money in their retirement and brokerage accounts than they do in banks. Since FDIC doesn't cover these assets, should you be worried? Read the full article

Although I’ve been slow to notice it, I’m now certain that it’s true: our food is shrinking.

More precisely, the companies that sell food and consumables are putting their goods into smaller packages and hoping that we won’t notice. Read the full article

Today I'd like to offer a simple explanation for how life insurance works. This discussion will also lay a foundation for discussing the difference between term and permanent life insurance. The first post in this series, on the reasons someone might need life insurance, is worth reading if you're not sure whether you need life insurance. Read the full article

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