Susan writes in: I feel so helpless as a taxpayer, watching the ridiculous directions the senate, house and president are taking my country. Being self-employed, in the medical field and living in NY I feel like I have three strikes against me. As Emma Goldman, the famous communist said,…

Each Monday, The Simple Dollar opens up the reader mailbags and answers ten to twenty simple questions offered up by the readers on personal finance topics and many other things. Got a question? Ask it in the comments. You might also enjoy the archive of earlier reader mailbags .…

Wise men said before “A rising tide lifts all boats” Not these submarines by Soylent Green is People From the FDIC: Stearns Bank, National Association, St. Cloud, Minnesota, Assumes All of the Deposits of First State Bank, Sarasota, Florida First State Bank, Sarasota, Florida, was closed today by the…

Yesterday, I stumbled across a brilliant presentation on Netflix’s corporate culture, via Jason Kottke’s website . The presentation did a brilliant job of outlining how Netflix has used an atypical corporate culture to build a very successful business. Here’s that presentation: Culture View more presentations from reed2001 . In…

I’ve been a Cubs fan all my life and I’ve never seen anything like this season. The team has been an utter train wreck all season long, massively underperforming and losing boatloads of games they should have won. Their reward? As August rolls around, they’re right in the mix…

Mutual Failure Our oversight, their ethics We should demand more by Soylent Green is People From the FDIC : Mutual Bank, Harvey, Illinois, was closed today by the Illinois Department of Financial Professional Regulation – Division of Banking, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver. ……

Bair’s Cash for Clunkers Hasn’t run out of money Four traded so far. by Soylent Green is People From the FDIC : Herring Bank, Amarillo, Texas, Assumes All of the Deposits of First State Bank of Altus, Altus, Oklahoma First State Bank of Altus, Altus, Oklahoma, was closed today…

One thing that has puzzled me is that some of the countries that have — implicitly at least — been most critical of the expansion of the Fed’s balance sheet during the crisis long have had much larger balance sheets than the US Federal Reserve. Before the crisis, the…

Many newer readers of The Simple Dollar haven’t been exposed to the hundreds of great articles in the archives of the site, so this is a weekly series that highlights the five best posts from one year ago this week, as well as the five best posts from two…

A reader asked me if I could break down my ideas into a handful of principles. After some careful thought, I came up with a list of fourteen basic “rules” that summarize my money and life philosophy. I’ll be presenting these as a weekly series. The book Your Money…