From This Collection

Education: Debt or Savings

Dec 18, 2007
Question: My husband is planning to start a two-year Master's degree program next fall (2008) which will cost about 24,000 total. We have enough...

Naming a beneficiary

Dec 17, 2007
Question: I listened with interest about your story of the military man who is investing in the Thrift Savings Plan and was happy to hear your high...

Payoff Mortgage?

Dec 14, 2007
Question: I now have saved $50,000 and my husband has saved $40,000 in the bank. We pay mortgage each month about $1,000 and we still have more...

A Trip to France

Dec 13, 2007
Question: My wife and I are planning on going to France next summer and have been saving money for the trip. But the exchange rate is making our...

Marketplace Money Mailbag

Sep 14, 2007
Economics editor Chris Farrell addresses listeners' questions about getting early retirement payments, separating tax payments from what a spouse owes, and staying with a fee-based financial planner.
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China crash would dwarf subprime crisis

Aug 23, 2007
When the U.S. subprime mortgage industry sputtered out, it sent world markets into a tailspin. But that's nothing compared to what a crash in China's financial market would do to the global economy, Chris Farrell tells us.

Inflation? No, it's the Bernanke Squeeze

Aug 9, 2007
Chris Farrell suspects all that Fed talk about inflation is just a cover, an excuse to keep interest rates at current levels because it doesn't want to bail Wall Street investment banks out of the mess they created... and heavily profited from.

For public good, not for profit.

Awash in corporate stock buybacks

Jul 12, 2007
In this huge wave of corporate profits, what you really want to see is a company spending its extra cash paying out dividends to shareholders, not buying back stock. Chris Farrell explains.

Inflation scare breeds opportunity

Jun 14, 2007
Chris Farrell says the inflation fears gripping the economic community are being addressed to such a degree that inflation is likely to just disappear. And they might actually be creating a buying opportunity for bonds.

Hedge funds 101

May 31, 2007
Now that anyone with a couple thousand bucks can get in on the hedge fund game, Chris Farrell explains some of the finer points — like how it's heavily stacked in favor of the hedge fund managers with little regard for investor risk.