Posted: 6:54 PM Tax refund loans (also called refund anticipation loans) are in a class of financial products marketed primarily to poor people.

Posted: 2:35 PM A recent battle in my home state of Kentucky gives a good preview of how the national battle to implement health care reform is going to go.

Posted: 11:01 PM Abraham Shakespeare should have been on top of the world. In 2006, he won $16.9 million in the Florida lottery.

Posted: 11:32 PM In 1980, David Broder wrote Changing of the Guard, an influential book about the upcoming generation of leaders in Washington.

Posted: 10:45 PM When New York Times columnist Joe Nocera told me that he was taking an extended leave to write a book (with Bethany McLean) about the financial crisis, I wished my friend well.

Posted: 2:13 PM I've often compared being financially secure to being physically in shape - fiscally fit and physically fit. Most of us want to be physically fit, but very few of us are. The same holds true with financial security.

Posted: 2:11 PM After the recent election, we are going to have a bunch of new people running the show. I wonder if they will encourage consumers to focus on saving.

Posted: 2:09 PM Before he played in his first major league baseball game in 2007, I wrote a column about an unknown player named Josh Hamilton. The same Josh Hamilton who was just named Most Valuable Player in this year's American League Championship Series. Josh is on his way to the World Series.

Posted: 2:07 PM I was in Louisville last week and saw Arianna Huffington and Howard Fineman tape a segment of the Kentucky Authors Series. Arianna was discussing her book, Third World America, and referred to her recent appearance on The Daily Show in which Jon Stewart asked her, "Isn't living a normal, stable life a political statement?"

Posted: 12:55 AM I've always been an "early adapter" in the technology world. I had a personal computer long before any of my friends did. Same with the cell phone, fax machine, email, website and PDA. I got an iPad the first day they hit the market, just like I did with the iPhone.

Posted: 12:52 AM I could be the last person in America to read Eat, Pray, Love, but the movie got me interested in the book. There is a segment in the book that keeps running through my mind.

Posted: 5:48 PM Since the collapse of the economy in 2008, economists and politicians keep talking in term of "recovery." One television commentator kept bleating about "mustard shoots". He was inventing positive signs in his head.

Posted: 5:39 PM I stumbled upon a fascinating academic article, entitled The Ticket to Easy Street? The Financial Consequences of Winning the Lottery.

Posted: 12:25 AM One of my favorite writers is Fletcher Knebel. Knebel was a writer in the 1960's who mastered the art of political fiction. Knebel wrote 15 books (all which I read) and many were best sellers. Seven Days in May went to number one and became a major motion picture starring Burt Lancaster and Kurt Douglas.

Posted: 9:52 PM Let's face it, we screwed up. In the decade before 2008, the financial world was like a presidential inauguration ball.

Posted: 12:56 AM One of my favorite writers is Fletcher Knebel. Knebel was a writer in the 1960s who mastered the art of political fiction.

Posted: 12:55 AM I've been driving through small towns in Kentucky and I keep seeing the same thing. Businesses that have suddenly closed or are holding "going out of business" sales.

Posted: 11:25 PM I was talking to a person in the medical profession who said, "It seems like some patients are looking for a magic pill that will solve all their problems." I said "welcome to my business." The same analogy holds true in finance.

Posted: 11:23 PM A Bank of America call center "tantalized" its employees. Management offered Burger King Whoppers to call center workers as a reward for hitting a quota set for peddling Bank of America products.

Posted: 8:40 PM Under the alleged "financial reform," banking services for lower income people is only going to get worse.

Posted: 2:26 AM Desperate people want to believe it's true. They want to believe that there are companies that can easily get rid of their credit card debt.

Posted: 10:37 PM The headline on the Rural Blog, for the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues,based at the University of Kentucky, said "NY Times misses point in story on Main Street versus Wall Street in regulatory battle."

Posted: 10:42 PM I walked by a car in a parking lot that had a sticker on it that read, "Drug Courts Work." They don't work in Kentucky, anymore. At least, not for juveniles. The state has shut down the juvenile drug court program.

Posted: 10:51 PM I met Harry Moberly in 1979, the day before my 20th birthday. It was the first meeting I had in my new capacity as president of the Eastern Kentucky University Young Democrats. Harry was a 29 year-old lawyer, running against an establishment incumbent for a seat as state representative.

Posted: 6:14 PM People often ask me how to improve their credit score. My usual response is why?