Content on this page requires a newer version of Adobe Flash Player.

Get Adobe Flash player

Category Archives: Featured Posts

Are Black Friday’s Steep Discounts Worth It?

Black Friday is only a week away, and for avid bargain-hunters, it nearly ranks as a holiday in its own right. Retailers count on the Christmas shopping season to comprise the bulk of their sales for the year — and in 2009, when retail sales have been particularly dismal, Black Friday will be more important [...]

Jimmy Choo Meets Econ4U

The clothing company H&M has made a name for itself providing high-fashion clothing at prices that most people can afford. (BTW – I am not paid by H&M; this is what my wife has told me.)
On occasion, H&M enlists the services of an otherwise exclusive designer, to produce a line specifically for the store. The [...]

Econ4U Popular Post Roundup

In case you missed them, here are a few of our most popular recent posts.  Be sure to check out two of our new recurring themes, the Tuesday Top 5 and Famous Financial Flubs.
Why isn’t college LESS expensive during a recession?
Tuesday Top 5: How to Write a Will
Avoid the Freshman Financial Fifteen
Famous Financial Flubs: Pamela [...]

Natalie Cole’s Kidney Meets the Law of Supply

Why is there a kidney shortage? Nobel Prize-winning economist Gary Becker claims it’s because there’s no market for them, since the buying and selling of organs is illegal. Or put differently, when the maximum amount of money you can get in return for a kidney is $0, the demand is always going to be higher than the supply.

Dodd Credit Card Reform Bill Close To Passage

A credit card can be a convenient way to manage your expenses, or an expensive way to rack up debt and exorbitant fees. If the U.S. Senate passes the credit card reform bill it’s considering this week, that could change. The bill would overhaul a lot of the regulations governing credit card agreements, and has [...]

This Is Not a Post About Jessica Alba

April 15th has come and gone, but taxes are still very much in the news these days. The passage of a new $3.5 trillion budget (and the projected $1.75 trillion deficit) has a lot of people talking about the taxes we’ll need to pay all of this money back.  In that vein, I was checking [...]

The New Depression Generation

Are the kids of 2009 like the kids of 1929? It seems like in some ways they are.

Video: Do People Know How Big 1 Trillion Really Is?

This week Congress approved President Obama’s $3.5 TRILLION budget. So we wanted to know how many Americans grasp just how big a trillion really is.

The Potential Economic Consequences of Swine Flu

So whether it’s staying home from work, refusing to ride on mass transit, or avoiding retail spaces like restaurants and malls, a flu scare could have a devastating economic impact even if there don’t turn out to be very many deaths from swine flu in America.

Mortgage Scams Proliferate in Hard Times

When newspaper headlines focus on the mortgage crisis and foreclosure rates, crooks’ ears tend to perk up. And that means more and more people are getting sucked into mortgage scams.
Because government foreclosure documents are public record, many homeowners are receiving personalized letters filled with false promises of hope. The people who fall for these con [...]