Start your kids on the right financial foot by saving for retirement early with a Roth IRA. If your child has earned income, perhaps from a part-time job, they can contribute to a Roth IRA. Even better: the child or teen doesn’t have to part with their hard-earned cash. IRA contributions can come from a parent, grandparent, relative…anyone. While you could open a regular custodial IRA and make pre-tax contributions, since most minors don’t have meaningful taxable income, a Roth IRA is almost always a better savings vehicle. How A Custodial IRA Works A custodial Roth IRA is a regular…

Over the years, I have learned to focus on earnings, interest rates and other market factors when assessing the outlook for stocks, and to avoid letting the Washington DC political scene impact investment decisions. While I believe this has served me well for decades, perhaps the first time in my career I may rethink that philosophy. Wall Street prefers to know what the playing field looks like regarding, trade, taxes, policy, as well as the outlook for corporate earnings and interest rates. With so much uncertainty out of Washington DC these outlooks have become less visible. Even The Federal Reserve…

Student Loan Forgiveness Hoax A viral social media claim alleges that Hope Walz – the daughter of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and 2024 U.S. vice-presidential candidate – received $82,000 in student loan forgiveness and that her family is worth $138 million. This sensational claim has spread widely online, but it is entirely false​. The story originated from a satirical website and has no basis. Multiple fact-checkers, including Snopes, have debunked the rumor and confirmed that Hope Walz did not get $82,000 in student loan forgiveness. Moreover, as Forbes has reported, Tim Walz’s net worth is closer to $1 million, a…

More than eight million student loan borrowers appear increasingly likely to get kicked out of an affordable income-driven repayment plan in the coming months, jeopardizing their ability to have manageable payments and a pathway to eventual student loan forgiveness. The SAVE plan, a Biden-era income-driven repayment option, was created to provide borrowers with affordable payments (more affordable than other repayment options) and student loan forgiveness after 20 or 25 years, or in some cases, in as little as 10 years. The program was intended to benefit borrowers in other ways, as well, including by ending runaway interest accrual. The SAVE…

Tesla Stock Price Drop: Why TSLA Crashed 50% Since December And The Impact On Investors Tesla stock has plunged by over 50% since December, a dramatic collapse that has stunned shareholders and analysts alike. In mid-December 2024, Tesla traded near an all-time high of around $480 per share; by early March 2025, it had sunk to roughly $220. This wipeout erased over $800 billion in market value, the steepest drop Tesla has seen in years. Even Elon Musk’s Tesla shares have not been spared – Musk’s net worth has tumbled by more than $100 billion during the crash. Given that…

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) recently emailed over 2 million federal employees an offer to pay eight months of salary in exchange for resignation. Initiated by the newly launched “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE), roughly 75,000 employees accepted the deal. The change underscores a broader shift of large institutions curtailing their workforces. This trend could have significant implications for retirement planning for many Americans.­­ Other prominent examples of 2025 layoffs include: These recent cuts add more data points to what seems to be a pattern. In 2019, multinational industrial and technology company General Electric offered buyouts to nearly…

Hundreds of thousands of federal student loan borrowers may be impacted by President Donald Trump’s latest student loan forgiveness action, imperiling a popular program that, until fairly recently, had enjoyed bipartisan support. The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, often referred to as PSLF, provides a pathway to loan forgiveness for borrowers who commit to careers in the nonprofit or public sectors. Borrowers can qualify for complete federal student loan forgiveness after making 120 qualifying payments (the equivalent of 10 years) on eligible loans under a covered repayment plan while working full-time for certain organizations engaged in public service work. At…

The View From The Ground: A Federal Prison Crisis Federal prison camps are often portrayed as the safest and easiest to manage within theFederal Bureau of Prisons (BOP). Most inmates housed in these facilities are minimum security, pose little risk of violence, and have a low likelihood of reoffending. With fewer correctional officers than higher-security prisons and minimal threats of violence, these camps should be among the most manageable institutions in the system. However, prison camps are among the most expensive to operate (aside from high-security prisons), and both BOP officials and inmates report growing challenges in managing their populations.…

PSLF Executive Order And Student Loan Forgiveness Freeze Wreak Havoc On Student Loan Borrowers Ashley Morgan did everything right. She was among the first in her family to attend college, earning a debate scholarship to cover most of her undergraduate tuition at Baylor University. She worked multiple jobs in graduate school and took on student loans for law school, confident that her clear, well-paying career path would allow her to manage the debt. She wasn’t reckless—she followed the system, relied on the promises of income-driven repayment plans and student loan forgiveness, and planned for the long term. Yet now, still…

CEO William Lansing has burnished the credit score’s dominance and pushed through price hikes, making a bundle for long-term shareholders and himself an almost-billionaire. By Stephen Pastis, Forbes Staff In January 2012, the revenue, profit, stock price and reputation of credit scoring company FICO still hadn’t recovered from the hit they all took during the housing bust and financial crisis of 2007 and 2008. That’s when the board abruptly replaced the company’s chief executive, a Ph.D. econometrician, with one of their own members: William Lansing, a lawyer who had spent nearly a decade as a McKinsey consultant, done stints in…