Your $tock Mom

New rules take effect today that are meant to avoid sticker shock when booking flights online. Airlines are now required to compensate customers who are bumped, promptly notify passengers of delays or cancelations, and give customers 24 hours to cancel a reservation without penalty.
Tom Costello reports on NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams. – January 26, 2012
 
(video 2:10)

Before the problems with our economy can be resolved, it is essential to comprehend how our economic system is structured and how it functions.
It is the correlation of jobs to consumption, consumption to capitalism, and capitalism to our economy that needs clear definition and understanding.
Once we understand the symbiotic relationship of jobs and business to the middle-income consumer – who is responsible for the majority of consumption of goods and services that, in turn, fuels the success and maintains the sustainability of businesses that ultimately create jobs that provide prosperity …

Supply and demand drive price, right? Or is the price of oil, and consequently gasoline, being driven by politics?
Could it be that we are merely at the mercy of the social upheaval plaguing the oil-rich states; are we simply financing their bloated budgets created from their record-level spending on subsidies and the pumping of money into the salaries of their citizenry “to suppress any popular discontent”?
CNN’s Fareed Zakaria examines why oil prices remain high. The reasons, and the facts, might surprise you.
“What in the world – The politics of …

Private equity firms want to go out and buy up foreclosed properties, REOs (real-estate owned or bank-owned) properties. There are millions of foreclosed properties that need to be resolved, and investors want to buy them in bulk and rent them. The government is talking about selling them in bulk; although no plan is out yet, the talk is that it’s coming.
Investors want to come in and buy these homes nationwide, rent them, and manage them.
“We look at managing it through sort of a distributed apartment-building model; and we’ve built …

It is imperative to understand how the marketing and advertising in the (retirement fund, mutual fund) industry works, so that your money is invested in the best investment vehicle for your particular individual profile:  your financial situation, your risk tolerance, your time horizon, your investment objectives, to name a few concerns.
Equally important is the consideration as to whether your money is best invested in an actively-managed fund vs. an index fund, especially while taking into account the fund fees that are charged, often obscurely, that can make a huge difference …

House for Sale Auction
 
When is the last time you saw a corporation waiting in line at a polling place to cast his … her … uhhh … its vote?
Seriously?  Corporations are people?
John Bonifaz of Free Speech for People joins The Dylan Ratigan Show to discuss with the panel the momentum that is beginning to build nationwide to get money out of politics as the New York City Council, inspired by the resolution passed in Los Angeles last month, passes its own resolution, declaring corporations are not people.
(video 8:26)

UPDATE:
June 25, 2012 – The Supreme …

From that cup o’ joe or spot o’ tea,
To the gas in your car and any import fee,
The prices we pay are a result, you see,
Of the global economic interactivity.
– $tock Mom
You might be tempted to dismiss this information thinking it remote and unimportant to directly affect your personal finances, but that line of thought can be very costly.
Europe, China, Japan, Russia, Brazil, India, Israel, Egypt, Iran, Syria, North Korea all depend on the same economic resources that we depend on. How well we all get along together and share …

“The housing market has become less bad than it was,” says Barry Habib, RPM Mortgage chief strategy officer; but is this really the case? This is one man’s viewpoint, and it is our responsibility to draw our own conclusions. The following two videos offer some current information and insight into the status of the housing market plus some predictions of what the housing situation might be in the year(s) ahead. Remember, predictions are merely forecasts, not any guarantee!
(video 10:22)

(video 1:48)