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So here's an interesting question: how are bank profits increasing when the economy and many of the loans written by the banks are in worse shape then ever? Don't believe the numbers.

We've long been "taught" that buy and hold is the best way to maximize return. But the data shows that buying and holding equities over long periods of time is often a losing strategy.

Palm Beach has been using a non-competitive process to issue bonds over the last 16 years, a practice condoned by most finance experts and one that has cost taxpayers an estimates $800,000 per year.

If we were smart, we would fully discount what the Gurus are saying. They are about as clueless as the paper boy, but far more irritating. They continue to pretend they know what they are talking about, even when they change their projections weekly if not daily.

The Wojtowicz are a family that have been dubbed economic survivalists. To simplify their life and cut expenses they have torn up credit cards, canceled satellite tv, planted a garden, and more.

Credit card issuers now seem to be placing more emphasis on offering insurance or payment protection plans for people that carry a balance on their credit card. In this time of uncertainty about one's employment and finances, these offers with their appealing advertising may seem like good financial protection, but the benefits are not worth the cost.

Recent data shows that investors are piling into the tax-free yields and relative safety of municipal bonds.

Citibank is offering a competitive 12-month CD that pays 2.70% APY. It must be opened in a branch and as far as I know it's only for Massachusetts customers.

The latest batch of data shows that longer-term CD rate averages are moving up while shorter term CDs as well as savings and money market rates continue to fall. Are we near a bottom?

State Bank of India, New York is offering a 36-month (3 year) CD paying 3.55% APY. That's the highest 36 month CD rate since early February.

When Silver Falls Bank in Oregon failed,the acquiring bank, Citizens Bank of Corvallis lowered depositor CD rates from 4% to 1%. That's the hazard of going with a less sound bank.

The tale of the economy over the next couple of years is really a test of the theories of John Maynard Keynes, the father of deficit spending, or Milton Friedman, the Novel Laureatee, who believed that inflation was a monetary phenomenon. Bernanke has thrown his lost with Keynes.

John Bogle, founder of Vanguard, is one of the few smart people in the investment world. He always tells it like it is, even when he strikes close to home. In an interview recently, Bogle pointed his finger at mutual fund managers, retirement account managers, pension managers, money market managers, institutional money managers and the like -- people who charge or make large fees for their work and who together control some 70% of the shares of large public companies today.