Personal finance: How to save, spend, and think rationally about money

Finances can be a stressor, regardless of tax bracket. Here are tips for making better money decisions.

  • Whether you have a lot of money or a lot of debt, it matters how you handle your personal finances. A crucial step when it comes to saving is to reassess your relationship with money and to learn to adopt a broader, more logical point of view.
  • In this video, social innovator and activist Vicki Robin, psychologist Daniel Kahneman, Harvard Business School professor Michael Norton, and author Bruce Feiler offer advice on achieving financial independence, learning to control your emotions, spending smarter, and teaching children about money.
  • It all starts with education and understanding. The more you know about how money works, the better you will be at avoiding mistakes and the easier it will be to take control of your financial circumstances.
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Is this the end of the myth of American exceptionalism?

In his new book, "American Rule," Jared Yates Sexton hopes to overturn a centuries-long myth.

Photo: Mike Focus / Shutterstock
  • In "American Rule," Jared Yates Sexton wants to eradicate the myth of American exceptionalism.
  • Since its founding, Sexton writes that America has been constructed to protect the wealthy elite.
  • In this interview, the writer suggests that facing up to our tragic history affords us an opportunity to build something new.
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Is a capitalist-socialist economy inevitable?

The American economy may be locked into an unhealthy cycle that only benefits a select few. Is it too late to fix it?

  • What will the economy of the future look like? To answer that we must first consider the current trajectory and the ways in which modern capitalism operates, who it benefits, and if it is sustainable.
  • In this video, historians, economists, and authors discuss income and wealth inequality, how the American economy grew into the machine that it is today, the pillars of capitalism and how the concept has changed over time, and ways in which the status quo can, and maybe even should, change.
  • "It's not that hierarchy is bad," says John Fullerton, founder of Capital Institute, "it's that hierarchy where the top extracts from below is definitely bad and unsustainable." He says that the modern capitalist system works this way, and that it perpetuates the cycle of growing inequality.
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Want a company that lasts? Start a bank or a brewery

Maps show the oldest company in (nearly) every country – and a few interesting corporate trends.

Image: Business Finance, CC BY-SA 4.0
  • A Japanese company has been building Buddhist temples for almost a millennium and a half.
  • It's the oldest continuously operating company in the world, but quite atypical.
  • If you want to build a business that lasts, banks, breweries, and postal services are a good bet – but there are intriguing exceptions.
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The world on a billionaire’s budget

Who needs student loans, health care and mortgages?

Mark Wilson/Getty Images

The world's wealthiest are prospering. As of February 2017, there were about 2,000 billionaires in the world. This micro-elite controls over US$7.6 trillion, an increase of 18 percent from 2016.

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