NEW YORK - The cost of making phone calls has been dropping rapidly in the last few years. If you want take full advantage of that, you’ll need to try some new things, because the phone companies aren’t going to thrust savings on you. Here are 10 tips on how [ Read More → ]

WASHINGTON - Medicare is looking like a big fat piggy bank for health care overhaul. President Barack Obama and the Democrats want to pay for much of their plan to cover the uninsured by cutting hundreds of billions from the Medicare budget over the next 10 years. From its inception, the health [ Read More → ]

The New Zealand economy is better placed than many but is still at the mercy of an uncertain global economic recovery, according to credit reporting agency Dun & Bradstreet (D&B). Its quarterly Global Economic & Risk Outlook Report, released today, said a sustained improvement in the global economic outlook was not [ Read More → ]

SAN FRANCISCO - Social Security provides a majority of the retirement income for about two-thirds of Americans over age 65, but if you’re in your mid-50s or younger, it’s time to make alternate arrangements. The program’s dismal outlook has long been known, but the recent economic crisis further scarred the program’s [ Read More → ]

WASHINGTON - Big job losses and a spike in early retirement claims from laid-off seniors will force Social Security to pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes the next two years, the first time that’s happened since the 1980s. The deficits , $10 billion in 2010 and $9 [ Read More → ]

With housing prices still in the dumps, many Americans are finding themselves in the uncomfortable position of landlord. Some have been forced to relocate for a job and can’t sell their houses. Others have moved, but are holding on to their previous homes, hoping for prices to rebound before selling. Many [ Read More → ]

There was more pain at the pumps for drivers this week when fuel duty increased by 2p per litre; the third increase in petrol and diesel tax in nine months. Once VAT is included, this latest duty rise will total 2.3p per litre – pushing the average price [ Read More → ]

I recently stumbled onto a report I dubbed “Hotel Confidential: What Innkeepers Won’t Tell You About Pricing.” The report, in reality titled “Hotel Revenue Management in an Economic Downturn: Results of an International Study,” released this month by the prestigious Cornell University School of Hotel Administration, coaches hotel owners [ Read More → ]

You don’t have to own a Swiss bank account to evade taxes. Maybe you purposely underreport your income or have gone for years without filing a tax return. Or, you made a mistake significantly in your favor and never fixed it. Whatever the case, it’s not too late to make it [ Read More → ]

Ian Anderson: ‘Younger members of the band and crew learn quickly that this is a job, not a party’ Photo: EPA From early on in your career you took control of your own management – why? We did it from the 1970s. I don’t think it’s something everybody should do, only if [ Read More → ]