Retail sales beat inflation for the fourth straight month the Commerce Department reported in April. The gleeful report is wishing thinking at best, misleads at worse and misinforms at worst. Sure retail sales are higher than last year, but why they are makes for a worrisome picture. For example, Walmart reported that customers favor lower-cost […]

“There’s a sucker born every minute,” PT Barnum didn’t say it, and we might be suckers for believing that he did say it. Ryo Mac wrote, “It seems that everyone believes things a little too eagerly, especially if they want to believe it.” It was likely a banker named David Hannum from Syracuse, New York […]

Fraught with possibilities for fraud is information on the rental application of a gig worker, especially one type of gig worker. With their inability to provide much credible information, it can be difficult for us to be confident about their qualifications. Many exist in a kind of an employment shadow world on the edge of […]

Amy got rejected. The screener took one look at her Facebook page and said “no way.” Her page displayed a video of a wild party complete with trashing an apartment, people passed out, noise complaints, and police coming. Trouble was, Amy wasn’t even at that party and only knew a couple of people who were. […]

Americans are “hoarding money,” reported the Wall Street Journal January 13. “Worried about their health, their jobs and the prospect of a deep recession,” they socked away money and “amassed record savings levels.” I’m not certain what Americans the Journal was describing, but it certainly was not the average person. Meet Joe. Joe couldn’t be […]

Financial disaster looms reports Susan Tampor in a Dec. 22, 2021 article in the Detroit Free Press. Two senators and a representative in a Dec. 8 letter to President Joe Biden called it “alarming new information.” Another senator, Joe Manchin, warned of “a big hole in financial safety.” And the Detroit Free Press in the […]

His father warned him, but Josh thought nobody could fool him. As reported by a Better Business Bureau study, when Josh Reiss, 20, got an offer to join an internship program he applied for, he was eager to get going on it. The company sent him a $7,000 check and instructed him to buy a […]

It’s a wonder anyone answers the phone anymore, but people do. Scammers stole $13.5 billion from those people last year reports the Federal Trade Commission. That’s just actual scams that people fell for and doesn’t include the FCC-estimated $3 billion in time lost to time businesses wasted dealing the calls. To stem the scammer tide, […]

Millions of Americans face financial difficulties because they just “don’t get it,” their financial health on a knife’s edge. On a basic five-question financial literacy quiz, 80 percent couldn’t answer four of the five questions correctly. The world runs on money, but they don’t “get” how money works. Because of their ignorance, their illiteracy, they […]

As evictions begin in earnest with delinquent renters looking for a new place to live, Fannie Mae (the organization that underwrites mortgage loans for millions of people around the country) is making it easier for renters to buy a home. Of course, renters with an eviction aren’t likely to be candidates for Fannie’s new program, […]