Media

The financial services industry is second to none in dreaming up ways to rip off Americans. Show me a a financial product—credit cards, mortgages, checking accounts, 401(k)s, annuities—and I'll show you a stack of consumer complaints documenting how banks and other firms have sought to bleed dry the American public. 

To retirees, the offers can sound like the answer to every money worry: convert tomorrow’s pension checks into today’s hard cash.

Bet if I asked, the odds are good that many people could tell me to the penny what they just paid for a gallon of gas.

So how much did it cost you to invest in your 401(k) last year? I don't know myself. And you likely don't know either.

Over the years, most of us have heard that if we just start saving a few hundred dollars a month in our 20s, we can retire a millionaire. Compound interest is your best friend.

But what about the fees in a 401(k)?

I watched the disturbing Frontline documentary on PBS,The Retirement Gamble, and not surprisingly, I got to thinking about the fees I pay for investing in my retirement accounts.

A new report from Mayor Bloomberg's Office of Economic Opportunity shows that parts of New York City are nearly as economically stratified as anywhere in the world. 

The fast food conglomerate Yum! Brands is one of the largest private employers in the United States, with nearly some half million workers, most of whom make near poverty-level wages. Which is why some workers at Yum! restaurants -- which include Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut -- joined a strike this week in Chicago.

The interaction of economics research and ideological politics has once again brought to the forefront the blurring of advocacy and academic integrity that has become so prevalent since the financial crisis. Harvard economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff published research in 2010 that has been used widely to assert that austerity is needed for economies that are both in a recession and carry a debt to GDP ratio that exceeds 90%.

ALBANY, N.Y.—With the recent indictment of New York politicians like Senator Malcolm Smith and Assemblyman Eric Stevenson, many wonder, can they trust state lawmakers?

"We do a random sample of more than 800 registered voters and our sample looks like the New York electorate both in terms of geography, bipartisan break up, gender, age, income etc. so we do it very carefully to ensure we get a representative sample," said Greenberg. "Voters don't feel really strongly about that legislature and don't have great confidence in them right now."

Americans owe more than $1 trillion in student loans — a total that surpasses credit card debt — but millions who are past due on payments are not taking advantage of a program designed to make their debt manageable.

The federal income-based repayment­ program reduces an eligible borrower’s monthly payment based on income, and it forgives the loan balance after up to 25 years. Those who owe more than they earn in a year are probably eligible. And those working in public service fields, such as teachers, can have loans forgiven after 10 years.