May 10 Elderly Folks at Home and the Curse of Internet Investing 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… Continue reading
May 10 Old Folks at Home and the Curse of Internet Investing Name: Chris Curry Question: The Bureau of the Public Debt sent a letter to account holders of Legacy Treasury Direct notifying them that the program was being phased out (in favor of the online TreasuryDirect system) beginning May 1, 2011. Continue reading
May 09 My Least-Favorite Investment Vehicle (Except For All the Other Ones) By Elizabeth Shell Name: Will G. Knox Question: Safety of TIPs? Paul Solman: The shortest question ever received on the Business Desk demands a rather more discursive answer. As longtime readers of this page may recall, my own family's retirement fund… Continue reading
Apr 26 Suppose You Want to Pay Down the National Debt, All by Yourself? By Paul Solman Photo by Flickr user CarbonNYC Slate, the online magazine, has a fascinating explainer of an oft-asked question: can individuals help pay down the debt and if so, how? From Slate's Brian Palmer: There are several ways for… Continue reading
Apr 26 Suppose You Want to Pay Down the National Debt All by Yourself? By Elizabeth Shell Slate, the online magazine, has a fascinating explainer of an oft-asked question: can individuals help pay down the debt and if so, how?… Continue reading
Apr 19 S&P’s Dire Warning: Of Any Significance At All? Call me a contrarian -- or just your garden-variety journalist/skeptic -- but when I read the much-ballyhooed Standard & Poor's announcement yesterday, I shook my shiny head. "Because the U.S. has, relative to its AAA peers, what we consider… Continue reading
Mar 10 ProPublica’s Mortgage Mod Squad: HAMP’S a Flop By Diane Lincoln Estes, Paul Solman As you've probably heard by now either on our program or elsewhere, the administration's Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP for short) has been a disappointment -- to put it generously. The program, announced back in February 2009, aimed to… Continue reading
Nov 18 GM: Worthless to Record-Breaking By Elizabeth Shell Over a year ago, General Motors told investors its stock was worthless and to stop trading it. To say the company has experienced a turnaround is a bit of an understatement. After a month of speculation and a last-minute… Continue reading
Nov 11 American Debt and The Chinese Government: A Match Made in Purgatory? By Elizabeth Shell Editor's Note: The United States is in debt to the tune of $13.7 trillion. But for what, and to whom? Basically, the debt is the result of more spending that saving at every level, from individual households to businesses to… Continue reading
Nov 11 U.S. Debt and the Chinese Government: A Match Made in Purgatory? By Elizabeth Shell The United States is in debt to the tune of $13.7 trillion. But for what, and to whom? At its core, the debt is the result of more spending than saving at every level, from individual households to businesses… Continue reading