Name: Peter Anderheggen Question: I recently heard that in 2011, the nation, on the whole, is paying substantially less in taxes than it did in the nineteen fifties. I do not know if this is true or just a spin.

By Paul Solman
Editor's Note: Today we hand over question-and-answer duties to Charles Ferguson, former MIT academic and dot.com entrepreneur who is now a documentary filmmaker, and who created the Academy Award-winning analysis of the Crash of '08, "Inside Job." Last week,…
May 10

By Paul Solman
The TreasuryDirect.gov homepage. Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and Web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Tuesday's query: Name: Chris Curry Question: The Bureau of the…
May 06

By Paul Solman
Once again, the monthly unemployment data give occasion for those who have hair to lose more of it. The Household Survey, from which the much-trumpeted "Unemployment number" comes, brings us a rise in official unemployment to 9 percent, due to…
// Editor's Note: Producer and director Charles Ferguson won an Academy Award this year for "Inside Job," his documentary about the financial crisis. On Wednesday night's broadcast, we spoke with Ferguson about one of the major…

By Paul Solman
Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Wednesday's query: Name: Hillhopper Question: I just listened to a business executive on TV…
May 04

By Elizabeth Shell
Name: Hillhopper Question: I just listened to a business executive on TV say that the investment he made would return in three years based on fuel savings. Why is it that people that make financial decisions are not math savvy?…
Photo of President Obama by Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images Editor's Note: The Obama document du jour may be the President's birth certificate, but here on the Business Desk we've been looking into another document: the First Family's tax return. Last…

By Paul Solman
Photo: Getty Images. Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and readers on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Monday's query: Name: Charles Robertson Question: The media estimate 5 to 8 million houses…
A graphic chronicle of debt ceiling hikes from Bloomberg Businessweek. For the record, it doesn't seem like either 'political gamesmanship' or a game of chicken, so much as a vivid illustration of how and why the national…
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