ArcaMax

The Trump Administration has all but shuttered the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

In an email sent on Saturday February 8, the newly installed White House budget director, Russell Vought, who is also the acting director of the CFPB, instructed CFPB employees to stop investigating and processing consumer issues and to suspend any ...Read more

I am still surprised at how many partners in committed relationships have no idea what is going on in their financial lives. While I appreciate that many have clear divisions of labor to manage their busy lives, it is no longer acceptable to say, “Oh, my husband/wife handles that!”

With a nod towards Valentine’s Day, it’s time for my ...Read more

Here we go again. Earlier in the week, the Trump administration slapped a new round of 25 percent tariffs on Mexico and Canada, a 10% tariff on energy products from Canada, and an additional 10% tariff on goods from China, all of which were supposed to go into effect on February 4.

Within days, the tariffs on Mexico and Canada were put on ice ...Read more

The 2025 tax season has officially opened, so cue the groans...OK, that’s enough — let’s get busy!

The IRS expects more than 140 million individual tax returns to be filed for tax year 2024. Although there has not been a new sweeping overhaul to the code, there are some changes that could alter your tax filing approach this year.

For ...Read more

Victims of the California wildfires have a long and arduous road ahead of them.

As many return to piles of ash or water damaged structures, the emotional and physical recovery will be daunting. The added anxiety of rebuilding a financial foundation will only add to the burden. The process requires detail-oriented focus, combined with patience, ...Read more

Good news for the economy is sometimes not so good for investors.

It’s early in the year, so let’s start with the positive: Job creation was much better than expected in December. There were 256,000 new positions added and with minor revisions to the previous two months, the total number for 2024 was a solid 2.232 million.

That result ...Read more

2025 will be a year of change, as a new administration enacts policies that will ignite debate and conversations that could be confusing. To prepare, here’s a cheat sheet of five terms that you are likely to hear.

A tariff is a tax or duty imposed on a particular class of imports or exports. The exporting country does not pay for the tariff; ...Read more

It’s resolution time, another opportunity to quote Dan Pink, the bestselling author of numerous books about business, work, creativity, and behavior, including the excellent When.

Before you poo-poo resolutions (who, moi?), Pink says: “The first day of the year is what social scientists call a ‘temporal landmark,’” or a date that ...Read more

At this time of year, I like to reflect on larger trends and then highlight lessons that we can take to the following year. To sum up 2024, think of the letter I, as in i-nflation, i-nterest rates, and i-nvestments, which dominated headlines.

Although the rate of inflation retreated from the post-COVID peak of 9.1 percent annually, consumers ...Read more

Something interesting is emerging when it comes to the next chapter of the inflation story.

For context, in the decade before COVID-19, the annual inflation rate (as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI)) ran at about 2 percent. When the global economy shut down and commerce essentially halted due to the pandemic, the annual inflation rate...Read more

Recently, bitcoin crossed a major milestone: $100,000. This event caused me to take a walk down memory lane. The first bitcoin story that I covered for CBS News was in 2013, when it rose above $1,000...from $13 at the beginning of the year!

Back then, people like me were warning that crypto, which was largely unregulated, could be used for ...Read more

Warren Buffett made headlines recently when he released a letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders. The 94-year-old “Oracle of Omaha” didn’t highlight his multi-decade investing results, rather he used this communication to detail ongoing philanthropic plans for his vast fortune, now valued at almost $150 billion.

Buffett donated an ...Read more

The retail holiday season is well under way, and in the weeks ahead, we are going to learn whether or not consumers feel as glum about the economy as they said they did, prior to the election. (An October Gallup poll found that just over half of Americans said that they are worse off today than they were four years ago.)

Early estimates are for...Read more