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Can we save the retirement dream?

It looks like the end of the American retirement dream as we know it. The 77 million baby boomers who are heading into their golden years with shattered nest eggs may prove to be the first generation in modern U.S. history to have less retirement security than their predecessors.

The numbers tell the story. For older workers, those ages 55-64, nearly 30% had no personal retirement savings — zip, nada — MORE

S&P 500 approaches 1,000 -- (Yawn)

If you're an investor, mispriced assets should make you happy. When stocks are too low, it's exciting (Buy!). When stocks are too high, it's exciting (Sell! or Sell short!). But when an asset is priced just right, you're left twiddling your thumbs or, worse, trying to find reasons to buy or sell anyway.

On Thursday, the S&P 500 marched tantalizingly close to 1,000 for the first time since November. But to MORE

Bernanke and Geithner clash over consumer protection

When the Obama administration proposed a new government agency solely devoted to protecting consumers who buy financial products, government officials knew they'd be facing opposition from Wall Street, banks and the financial services industry. But who knew that some of their most vocal opponents would come from the government itself?

That opposition became crystal clear when Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Chief Sheila Bair and several other MORE

Grandparents are drowning in credit card debt

Older nonwealthy Americans are racking up credit card debt at a rate that outpaces other groups.

People age 65 and up carried an average of $10,235 credit card debt in 2008, according to a study released Tuesday by  Demos, a public policy research group. That's an increase of 26% since the organization's last survey of low- and middle-income borrowers in 2005. The average debt for all borrowers in the survey rose MORE

Fight economic misery with an order of hot wings

Is the recession killing the American culture of dining out? Recent numbers from the NPD Group research firm indicate that total restaurant industry traffic in the quarter ending in May fell 2.6% from the prior year, the steepest decline in consumer visits since 1981.

But a breakdown of the numbers reveals that many of us visit restaurants just as frequently; we're actually spending 2% more on our bills each time. The MORE

Telemarketers: Can't live with them, can't threaten to kill them

Nobody likes telemarketers. Heck, most telemarketers probably don't even like themselves. But no matter how much they annoy you, it's probably not a good idea to threaten to burn down their offices and kill them.

One Ohio man was arrested and charged with making a "terrorist threat" for apparently doing just that.

The story is a little complicated, but what evidently happened was this: The man, Charles Papenfus, got an allegedly deceptive MORE

Real estate appraisers take it on the chin

Real estate appraisers must be feeling pretty picked on. A new Center for Public Integrity report takes on crooked appraisers who, after being banished from their own business, continue suckering unwitting homeowners as real estate agents and as bosses of unregulated appraisal contract firms.

The Realtors and homebuilders are on their case too, claiming appraisers are costing them business by lowballing valuations. (Our readers' comments on that post make for a MORE

Are MDs diagnosing us into the poorhouse?

There's no question about it: When you go to a doctor nowadays, you're more likely to be diagnosed with something, and sent home with a prescription, than you were a generation ago. A much tougher question to answer is whether or not these new diagnoses, and new tests and treatments that come along with them, are actually worth all the money they cost you and/or your insurance company.

As Darshak Sanghavi MORE

The upside of your tiny pay raise

If you're employed, you're probably happy just to be hanging onto a job nowadays. Employers, striving to cut costs, took advantage of that this year, giving workers a median raise that was the smallest they'd seen in 29 years, according to separate surveys by Hay Group and Watson Wyatt.

According to the surveys, the median raise was between 2% and 3%, On the margins, Watson Wyatt estimates that top performers received MORE

Living with an ex, sharing the bills

Question:  My husband and I are divorced (no kids), but we've been unable to sell our house, so we're both still living in it. Since I'm away a lot on business, shouldn't he be paying more than half of the utility bills?

Answer:  But what if you take longer showers?

We're not kidding. There are countless ways you and your ex consume water and energy unequally. Perhaps one of you likes to MORE

Battle rages over Obama's consumer-finance watchdog

This is a critical time for the Obama Administration's proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency, a centerpiece of its financial market reforms.

The CFPA, officially proposed in June, is under fierce attack by the financial services industry, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a growing number of business groups. Those forces scored a few points Tuesday when House Financial Services Committee chairman Barney Frank announced that his committee is delaying consideration of MORE

Realtors cry foul over low-ball appraisals

Real estate appraisers are the latest villains in the continuing saga of the bursting of the real estate bubble. Industry groups including the National Association of Realtors and the National Association of Home Builders are howling that new appraisal guidelines that went into effect on May 1 are producing below-market appraisals that are killing sales and adding yet another tough hurdle to refinancing.

The NAR reports that 17% of its members MORE

The commercial real estate time bomb

There's a new main character moving to center stage in the great real estate meltdown. Underwater homeowners vying to refinance or score a loan modification have grabbed much of the headlines (and bailout attention) to date. But now commercial real estate is moving into the spotlight as the next potential body slam for the economy.

Last week The Washington Post reported that the U.S. Treasury department has begun to contemplate what MORE

Morgan Stanley trumpets teen's Twitter tutorial

Peter Lynch famously told investors to "buy what you know" -- that is, to invest in the companies that made what they personally used and liked. But Lynch wasn't afraid to rely on the intuition of people he knew and trusted when they found something in the marketplace that they simply loved: It was Lynch's wife who clued him in to the appeal of L'Eggs pantyhose. (Or at MORE

Obama's financial reforms: Too much or too little?

Ever since President Barack Obama proposed his wide-ranging financial reforms last month,  investors have been wondering how hard he will push for his plans. So far the White House has kept up the pressure, but opposition is mounting. And it's far from clear that Obama is prepared to fight what increasingly looks to be a two-front battle.

First, the progress update. On July 10 the Treasury Department sent legislation to Congress MORE