Help The Middle ClassNews and Information For The Heart Of America
Car Dealer Scams And How To Avoid Them (Forbes)
Buyer Beware: Here’s what to watch out for the next time you’re in the showroom.
Of the top 10 industries that received the most consumer complaints last year, three were auto related.
New-car dealers, used-car dealers and auto service and repair shops registered almost 54,000 complaints in North America, according to the Better Business Bureau. They were [...]
Growth of Unpaid Internships May Be Illegal, Officials Say (New York Times)
With job openings scarce for young people, the number of unpaid internships has climbed in recent years, leading federal and state regulators to worry that more employers are illegally using such internships for free labor.
Convinced that many unpaid internships violate minimum wage laws, officials in Oregon, California and other states have begun investigations and fined [...]
Transportation Department Sets New Fuel Efficiency Standards For Autos (The Washington Post)
Consumers will pay more for cars upfront but may save money in the long term under new rules finalized Thursday by the Obama administration that will increase fuel efficiency and for the first time set greenhouse gas emissions standards for cars and light trucks.
The new fuel efficiency standards, issued by the Transportation Department and the [...]
Fed’s Mortage Purchase Program Ends. What Now? (Los Angeles Times)
The government’s $1.25-trillion program to prop up the housing market by purchasing mortgages came to an end Wednesday — in a small, messy room at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York with four desks and a Nerf basketball hoop.
For the last year, a small team of traders has worked here to buy massive amounts [...]
Obama To O.K. Oil And Gas Drilling Off US Coast. The Dream Of George W. Bush Will Finally Come True (The Washington Post)
The Obama administration will approve significant oil and gas exploration off America’s coasts, including a possible sale two years from now of leases off the Virginia shore, administration officials said Wednesday.
The move, which President Obama will announce Wednesday morning with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar at Andrews Air Force Base, ends a long-standing moratorium on oil [...]
FDA Feeling The Heat To Fight Food Fraud (The Washington Post)
The expensive “sheep’s milk” cheese in a Manhattan market was really made from cow’s milk. And a jar of “Sturgeon caviar” was, in fact, Mississippi paddlefish.
Some honey makers dilute their honey with sugar beets or corn syrup, their competitors say, but still market it as 100 percent pure at a premium price.
And last year, a [...]
Car Dealers Are Cutting Deals For Drivers With Good Credit (Wall Street Journal)
Car dealers, auto finance companies and credit market analysts are seeing a decided spring thaw in the auto finance market—especially for drivers with good credit.
Today, “if you have a job, and there’s equity in the loan…that’s it,” says Ed Gorham, director of the finance department at Planet Honda, one of the biggest Honda dealers on [...]
15 Money Rules Your Children Should Know (The Wall Street Journal)
It’s a simple calculus, kids and money: From birth until college graduation, children consume dollars like they’re chicken nuggets.
For those of us who aren’t independently wealthy, that puts unrelenting pressure on the family pocketbook. The financial demands of raising a child require that money you otherwise might use to prepare for retirement, or to save [...]
Obama Signs Student Loan Reform Program (Huffington Post)
Finalizing two major pieces of his agenda, President Barack Obama on Tuesday sealed his health care overhaul and made the government the primary lender to students by cutting banks out of the process.
Both domestic priorities came in one bill, pushed through by Democrats in the House and Senate and signed into law by a beaming [...]
NOW THEY TELL US: Nonpartisan CBO Reports Deficit Will Be Much Worse Than Obama Says (MONEYNEWS.COM)
A new congressional report released Friday says the United States’ long-term fiscal woes are even worse than predicted by President Barack Obama’s grim budget submission last month.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicts that Obama’s budget plans would generate deficits over the upcoming decade that would total $9.8 trillion. That’s $1.2 trillion more than predicted by [...]
