Today the House Financial Services Committee approved a bill establishing the Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA). Read the full article ... Read the full post ... Read more

Despite a decline in the Consumer Price Index (CPI), major retirement plan limits remain unchanged. Read the full article ... Read the full post ... Read more

Yesterday’s second hour of the radio program “On Point” featured the author of “Buy Ketchup in May and Fly at Noon: A Guide to the Best Time to Buy This, Do That, and Go There.” Read the full article ... Read the full post ... Read more

At this time of year it’s a good idea to look for last-minute opportunities to minimize your taxes. Most opportunities require some action before the end of the calendar year; here are several ideas to consider. Read the full article ... Read the full post ... Read more

Bizjournals.com recently released its analysis of per capita income growth in the 100 largest US metro areas. Except for Bridgeport-Stamford, CT, Boston was the only metro area in New England ranked among the top 10 . Read the full article ... Read the full post ... Read more

Last week, the NPR show This American Life marked the anniversary of the housing-credit crisis by updating its entertaining report on the events that led to the collapse of the credit markets last year. Read the full article ... Read the full post ... Read more

Don Dion, writing in TheStreet.com, has included UMM and DMM on his list of the " 10 Most Dangerous ETFs. " Technically, they're not ETFs, but that's a minor quibble. Going beyond the criticisms I offered of MacroShares Major Metro Housing Up (UMM) and Major Metro Housing Down (DMM) , Dion com ... Read more

Annuities have a bad reputation. They’re insurance contracts, which means they’re necessarily complicated. Often, they involve lots of hard-to-understand fees. And variable annuities, in particular, have earned a really bad reputation . Still, there is evidence that some form of annu ... Rea ... Read more

Home mortgage interest has been a tax-deductible expense on Federal tax returns since 1913. But in a report issued recently, the General Accounting Office (GAO) has recommended that the IRS do a better job of enforcing the rules that apply to the mortgage interest deduction. Read the full arti ... Read more

Figuring out which cell phone plan to buy can be a huge pain. There's no point in paying for services that you don't use, and if you pick the wrong plan, you're stuck for as long as two years unless you pay a termination fee. Over at the Flowing Data blog, there are some graphs that help simplify ... Read more