You’ll probably want to read Weakon 231: How the Mortgage Industry Works (or Worked!) first.
We stand here over a year after the sub-prime crises began.  The sub-prime crises lead to the credit crunch, the credit crunch lead to slowed growth, slowed growth killed the stock market, the down market sent people into commodities, which drove […]

You’re on the lawn of a 2,200 square foot house.  You’re sipping cold water from those tiny 8 oz bottles your Realtor gave you at the beginning of your venture.  You look at your spouse and smile, this is home.  ”I’ll take it!” you say with pride.  Your spouse shoves their elbow in your side […]

There’s a great debate going on in the various offices in Washington lately.  If Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac go down, should we bail them out?  You know me, I’m not one for opinions but I might include my two and a half cents.  Read on and see that advantages and disadvantages of bailing them […]

A better question might be: How does anything lose value?
No one has ever posed this question to me, but I do find myself explaining it every time I talk about the stock market.  If the Dow is down 300 points, then the market has lost value?  But what difference does it make really?  There is […]

The headline is in quotes because I stole it from Jeanne Sahadi’s article on CNN Money.  I read the first few paragraphs of the article and almost became enraged at how blind the author was to write such crap.  As I continued down the page though her point became more and more fundamentally true.  The […]

Never say never, but it will take a serious change in our culture to bring about an end to the use of money all together.  Let me explain how our society works.
Despite what you may have convinced yourself of, your primary quest in life is the accumulation of money.  Nothing else matters until you’ve accumulated […]

Before reading make sure you’ve read Part I and Part II of “Why We Have Money” from last week.
What does the future hold for me and my dollar?  Well that is actually two questions.  First we’ll look at the future of actual currency.

Take a moment and think about how often you use regular money.  My […]

Every 4 years the media tells us which Summer Olympics athlete we should fall in love with.  This year, as in 2004, we are to fall in love with Michael Phelps.  This is fine by me, as I was a swimmer myself at one point.  In high school I was a Varsity swimmer, and was […]

Part I of “Why Do We Have Money?” started with the question but went in another direction.  In order to figure out why we have money the author (that’s me) first explored a time when money wasn’t needed.  As efficiency and commerce entered into the game a barter society was created.  Through many generations the […]

I submitted this question to my parents after watching an episode of Star Trek as a lad.  The sci-fi show exists in the 24th century where after a massive war in the 21st century the human race finally came together after meeting their first aliens.  The culture of their 24th century does not have money. […]