Personal Finance Advice and Commentary

More than 30 years after Linda Brice borrowed money for college, attorneys representing the DOE drained her bank account and garnished her pay.

What will happen to Social Security if the country defaults? One answer: “We don’t really know for sure. We’ve never done this before and I hope we don’t,” says Timothy McBride associate dean for public health at Washington University in St. Louis, and one of the nation’s experts on Social Security and Medicare. McBride thinks

Investments that keep a retirement nest egg safe are tough to find these days. Even municipal bonds, which have been the bedrock of many people’s portfolio for years, are looking shaky these days. I wrote this week about the threat that governments won’t be able to cover their deficits or meet their pension obligations. This

If only jazz-age author F. Scott Fitzgerald could have foreseen the long and varied life of his now-famous observation, “the rich are different.” Here’s another, less favorable, differentiator of the wealthy: They’re defaulting on their mortgages in greater numbers than the rest of the underwater-mortgage population. A study for The New York Times by CoreLogic