Last week, I went to a security analystsÁ¢€â„¢ luncheon featuring John Bogle, the retired founder of the mutual fund company Vanguard Group. Bogle didnÁ¢€â„¢t have nice things to say about…
Current Events
486 Articles
Ann Logue
1 Min Read
Donald Trump wants everyone to know that heÁ¢€â„¢s a billionaire. HeÁ¢€â„¢s suing an author who dared claim that Trump was worth as little as $150 million. That wonÁ¢€â„¢t get anyone…
Ann Logue
1 Min Read
In the summer of 1998, HarperÁ¢€â„¢s Magazine published one of its most talked-about stories, Vince PassaroÁ¢€â„¢s narrative of how his family accumulated $63,000 in credit card debt. He and his…
Jon Cummings
1 Min Read
When the long-awaited, religiously incendiary sequel to The Da Vinci Code arrives in theaters and the anticipated uproar is reduced to a low roar, you know itÁ¢€â„¢s gotta be a…
Ann Logue
3 Min Read
Financial theory starts with two key assumptions: first, that markets are efficient; second, that investors are rational. And, of course, in the real world, we all know that markets arenÁ¢€â„¢t…
Jon Cummings
7 Min Read
Any time now Á¢€” maybe even during the too-few moments between my pressing Á¢€Å“submitÁ¢€ and this column going live Á¢€” President Obama is going to announce his appointee to replace…
Ann Logue
1 Min Read
ItÁ¢€™s tough being a grandiose financial criminal these days. Lots of people ran scams that took millions from clients; Allan Stanford even collected a title while allegedly fleecing investors with…
Jon Cummings
2 Min Read
The Republican PartyÁ¢€â„¢s annus became considerably more horribilis this week, with Arlen Specter switching parties, President Obama taking what amounted to a 100-days victory lap (despite the economyÁ¢€â„¢s continuing decline),…
Ann Logue
1 Min Read
This month, Thomas Geoghegan has an article in Harpers about how debt changed working-class America. Barack Obama sat down with bailed-out banks to discuss their credit card practices. I paid…
Jon Cummings
1 Min Read
It may be that only an event like this could have propped up that downward-spiraling phenomenon, the beauty pageant: An out-and-proud celebrity gossip-monger asking a comely Californian how she feels…
Ann Logue
3 Min Read
On Tax Day, I went to the Chicago Loop post office Á¢€” the one with the Calder where Ferris Bueller twists and shouts Á¢€” to mail in my forms. An…
Jon Cummings
2 Min Read
Have right-wing evangelicals won their last battle? Maybe not, but Jon Cummings thinks it’ll take them more than three days to resurrect their political fortunes.
Ann Logue
2 Min Read
Different countries are…well, different. They have different laws and languages, funny stamps, and candy that you canÁ¢€â„¢t get at home. We usually think that part of being a distinct country…
Ann Logue
1 Min Read
Al Gore was in Chicago last week, but without his PowerPoint deck. He was part of the Speaker Series, the post-Obama political craze. Gore talked about the role of carbon…
Jon Cummings
1 Min Read
Those clunky translation earpieces were nowhere to be found last Thursday night in the United Nations General Assembly, as a multinational assemblage of talent and star power filled the great…
Ann Logue
1 Min Read
Do you deserve a raise? Of course you do. Everyone thinks that he or she is underpaid. ThatÁ¢€â„¢s just the nature of the working world. Teachers think that they are…
Jon Cummings
2 Min Read
The original, furiously populist theme of this column, as I envisioned it last weekend, was Á¢€Å“Nationalize the Banks, Now!Á¢€ Well, as of Monday that was taken care of, so, moving…
Dw. Dunphy
2 Min Read
I may have to change my radio habits. As a general habit, my car is tuned to the local public radio station out of New York. I like it, it…
Robert Cass
8 Min Read
Actor Bruce Willis turned 54 on March 19, the same day famous friend David Letterman married Regina Lasko, his girlfriend of 23 years. Two days later Willis married Emma Heming,…
Ann Logue
1 Min Read
One of my friends had a complaint about the personal financial press: why is it, she wondered, that they are telling people now about raising emergency funds and living below…
Jon Cummings
3 Min Read
Tonight Japan and Korea will face off in a grudge match at Dodger Stadium Á¢€” having already split four games over the last two weeks — in the finale of…
Jon Cummings
2 Min Read
In Rod LurieÁ¢€â„¢s first political potboiler, Deterrence, a U.S. president audaciously entered a nuclear confrontation with a newly aggressive (and surprisingly well-armed) Saddam Hussein. While hardly an original concept in…
Ann Logue
2 Min Read
Rick Santelli of CNBC has called for a Chicago Tea Party, a revolt by taxpayers against a government stimulus package that may reward some irresponsible folks for their behavior. Jon…
Jon Cummings
1 Min Read
ItÁ¢€™s been a giggle this week watching Democrats paint Rush Limbaugh as the Á¢€Å“bloated, drug-addledÁ¢€ head of the Republican Party, as Paul Begala put it the other day. ItÁ¢€™s been…
Ann Logue
2 Min Read
I have a lot of thoughts about the quasi-nationalization of Citigroup, because I am a Citibank shareholder. Some of those shares were acquired in the traditional capitalist manner; my husband…
Ann Logue
1 Min Read
Because I’m geeky that way, I’ve been working through Robert Skidelsky’s biography of John Maynard Keynes. In some circles, Keynes is just as bad as Darwin, a godless heathen taking…
Jon Cummings
3 Min Read
If the tallest tree in the forest cracks at the base, and everyone in the country hears it, do we have an obligation to prop it back up? Or can…