While heading my teachers’ union in the 1970s, I was appointed to the Mayor’s Economic Advisory Council.  I had no background in economic development but I satisfied a necessary profile to round out the committee.  I was a woman and I was a union leader.  I soon learned my role

Sometimes financial advice sounds like science fiction. Saving for retirement with IRAs and 401(K) plans aren’t going to make anyone rich.  The market is too choppy.  What’s more, since the 2008 debacle, employees are saving less and dipping into their retirement accounts more t

As an author, I get several invitations a month from my publisher to participate in library and book conventions.  They all come with a price tag, some of them reasonable and some of them out of this world.  None of my previous publishers presented me with this “opportunity,” so

As the political season heats up, several candidates are vowing to end economic disparity by taxing the rich and giving the spillover to the poor.  So, now seems a good time to refresh our memories about the ways the superrich hide their assets. Today we review free ports.  Free por

The daughter of a friend came down with strep throat, recently, and her temperature rose to 104 degrees.  Naturally, her parents were worried, so they scooped her off to the doctor.  There, she received a dose of antibiotics and a prescription before returning home.  Happily, she c

I have no idea what generation would claim me. I’m not a baby boomer and the alphabet soup that follows – Xers, Ys, Zs, — are far too young.  Egads!  Some of these youth have never seen a landline.  Never mind, I don’t know the difference between emails and text mes

The rich don’t think like us.  For example, some of the early blue-blooded dynasties like the Rockefellers, Carnegies and Morgans, obtained their wealth by questionable means and sometimes on the backs of the American worker.  Today, not much has changed.  Three billionaires, Ber

Earnest Hemmingway observed, “I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I’m awake, you know?”   Yes, I do know.  Who hasn’t had a time in his or her life when sleep was more welcome than coping with daily challenges?  But sleep — too much or too l

I don’t click on Amazon much.  Their sales strategy bothers me. For example, why I should pay almost $200 a year for the benefit of “free” shipping.  Do I detect an oxymoron here?  No matter.  I’m a bricks-and-mortar person.   The last item I purchased was an electric to

About the superrich and taxes, Leona Helmsley, deceased New York real estate tycoon, was candid.   “We don’t pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes.” Donald Trump, our 45th President and a real estate mogul of a later generation, admits the same.  What’s more, the newe