Media

Last week, TransCanada began construction on the southern section of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. Despite serious concerns about the environmental impact of the pipeline, the Obama Administration backed building the southern portion earlier this year. It’s not hard to see how this is just the first step to building the entire pipeline.

This morning, The Washington Post reported on a new study -- commissioned by the Manufacturers Alliance for Productivity and Innovation (MAPI) -- that finds federal regulations that impact the manufacturing sector on a perilous rise.

Economic inequality is a famously complex phenomenon, but some parts of this trend are quite simple: Like how today's rich are benefiting from a rare confluence of record high compensation and record low taxes.

Despite some rain showers, over 60 percent of the country is still suffering from drought conditions and nearly a quarter is suffering from extreme or exceptional drought. We’ve detailed how this has impacted agriculture and ranching and over 60 percent of Iowa’s land is still classified as being in either extreme or exceptional drought.

Some eight years ago, I was at a presentation by Vanguard founder Jack Bogle at a business journalists' conference in Denver, and when his PowerPoint crashed, and he had to use transparencies on a vintage 20th-century overheard projector. After the presentation, he let me keep them, and they still serve as a sort of Rosetta Stone for me for enlightened investing.

News has been trickling out today that the process of hydraulic fracturing of natural gas will be allowed in parts of upstate New York.

Right off the bat, this is clearly bad news for New York's environment. Upstate communities are directly exposed to toxins by the controversial practice and millions of downstate New Yorkers rely on the same at-risk aquifers.

MIAMI – In just three years Florida’s higher education funding per student decreased 40 percent, according to a new report by national public policy center Demos and the Florida-based Research Institute on Social and Economic Policy (RISEP). As a direct result, Floridian families now spend 25% of median income on the cost of a single year of attendance at a public four-year college. The situation is only looking grimmer, with the recent $300 million cut to public four-year universities.

One clear path to retirement security is to buy a home early in life and pay off it before you retire -- at which point you can either live there at a pretty low cost or cash out and use the wealth to help cover living expenses in a cheaper place.