On Tuesday, “iPhone Queen” replaced “Welfare Queen” as an attack on lazy Americans who don’t want to pay for things. This attack is much broader, however. “So rather than getting that new iPhone that they just love and want to go spend hundreds of dollars on that, maybe they should [Keep reading]
Instead of demanding that presidents produce their tax returns, maybe we need to be asking for their credit reports instead. After all, it’s not what a person has, or what a person earns, that creates a real conflict of interest. It’s what — or who — that person owes. Debt [Keep reading]
Chart from Macrotrends.net – my annotations. Click for data. Whatever you think about President Donald Trump, the stock market sure likes him — at the moment. Stocks are up about 10% since the election, and this three-month run-up simply cannot be ignored. The question is: Is it a rally [Keep reading]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau won a significant legal victory Thursday when an appeals court agreed to re-hear the case that threatened to fundamentally change the agency’s structure and imperiled its leader, Richard Cordray. A Washington D.C. circuit court of appeals ruled last fall that the bureau’s structure was unconstitutional. It found [Keep reading]
It should surprise no one that the biggest winners so far in the Trump administration are those who hold stock in America’s largest banks. Bank stocks soared on the news last week that the new president was serious about rolling back financial regulations put in place after the economic [Keep reading]
What’s with the suddenly disappearing Presidential Executive Orders? Perhaps the Trump administration is growing more careful with the way it rolls out new orders. Or, perhaps there’s some other explanation for an entire day’s White House events calling attention to orders that then…seem to vaporize. It’s happened twice in the past [Keep reading]
The folks at Grow asked me to explain a frustrating situation recently: Interest rates are going up for everyone — except consumers! Savers are still getting almost nothing for their virtuous habit of saving money. Meanwhile, now that the Fed is raising rates, all the rates that *hurt* consumers — [Keep reading]
Good-bye, CBF. A famous woman died yesterday, one who set the stage for independent, strong women everywhere. At about the same time, an important woman died who did just the same thing. You didn’t know her, but CBF was my friend. And she was your friend, too. Her fingerprints and [Keep reading]
Almost lost amid all the celebrating and marching this weekend were a set of official actions the Trump administration took soon after the Inauguration. One directly impacts some consumers who are house-hunting right now. You might have seen headlines suggesting President Donald Trump raised taxes on middle-class homeowners, but that’s [Keep reading]
There’s a person I meet every time I write about money. A sanctimonious, self-righteous, arrogant, uncaring and unsympathetic eel of a person who I sure hope never encounters any kind of unpredictable financial event in their lives. Because I assure you, no one will have any sympathy for this high-priest [Keep reading]
Bob Sullivan