Despite the fact that it is the second-wealthiest school in the United States and one of the most prestigious universities in the entire world, Yale University has not been spared by the recession. In order to help soften the impact of a shrinking endowment, the university has planned to cut back annual spending by $150 million until 2014.
In all, staff and non-salary spending will be cut back by 12.5 percent, according to President Richard Levin and Provost Peter Salovey in a recently released statement. Yale’s endowment shrunk 30 percent to around $16 billion in June, $1 billion less than the …read more

If you’re starting out as a freelancer, you may not have a lot of money. I sure as heck didn’t – I was a recent college grad who used most of her savings for the security deposit on a new apartment. I wouldn’t have even had a kitchen table if not for my dad deciding that he wanted to get me a housewarming present.
No matter how little money you have, though, as a freelancer, there are three expensive things that you show purchase as soon as possible, even if it means ringing up a little credit card debt.

1. A …read more

Timothy Geithner wants to increase government regulation of such investment vehicles as derivatives, money market mutual funds and hedge funds. The thinking is that deregulation and opacity in many financial instruments is one of the reasons we’re in the middle of a financial meltdown. Since it was impossible for regulators and evaluators to assess a value for some of these assets, and since transparency was not a priority, the heavy leveraging eventually led to insolvency.
But perhaps it’s time to take a look at all investment vehicles — not just those we think of as complicated. It’s nice to change the …read more

The Securities and Exchange Commission warned investors Monday about con-artists using the names of actual SEC employees to trick unwitting victims.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t know the names of any SEC employees, and if someone called me claiming to be from the SEC, I’d probably give them about as much credibility as a Nigerian prince.
But apparently investors in the U.S. and abroad have fallen prey to the tricksters, to the point of providing access to brokerage accounts and sent payment to the imposters.
It’s not just individuals who are at risk. Investment advisers have been contacted by fake …read more

Where can you get a 6% return on your cash? Probably not in a CD or a high-yield online savings account. Increasingly, the answer to going beyond mere capital preservation is to look local. Some regional and local banks and credit unions offer so-called rewards checking accounts that offer returns of between 3% and 6%. In this economy, where the big guys are offering cash yields of something closer to 2% for “high-yield” savings accounts, that’s nothing to sneeze at.
Of course, many of these rewards checking accounts limit your total yearly yield, and you will have to maintain a minimum …read more

Studies show that more Americans are stressed out about losing money in the stock market and other investments than losing their jobs.
More than 75% of those surveyed worries about losing money on investments; 73% worried about not saving enough for retirement and 50% were worried about losing their jobs.
What are you worried about?
(Source: Financial Industry Regulatory Authority)