Nigeria ? Land of the Free and home of the greatest scam artists and bribing officials in Africa? That place which gave us the ubiquitous e-mails offering certain riches for just a small contributions towards the cost of the transfer of funds? The birthplace of all those check-changers ? Say it isn't so. Tell me they'v...more

When I was a kid, only the Mafia ran a lottery ("Numbers") or loaned money at extortionate rates of 20% or even (gasp) 25%. The War on Crime has sure been a success. Now the Governmint runs the numbers racket and the banks charge usurious rates with politicians (Our Rulers) giving their blessing. They pay admittedly br...more

No investor should pay more than passing attention to this fluff. Remember those great brands now in limbo thanks to bone-headed management. "Brands" like Woolworths, Gimbels, Sears, Xerox, Kodak, Enron, Wang, A&P, Good Humor, Levi Strauss, Circuit City, Pan Am - all have sunk or are in the process of sinking into the ...more

You need to remember that most of the articles on MSN are mere advertising vehicles for other companies. On MSN Money, 90% of the "News" items are just leaders - you have to buy (e.g. Wall Street Journal) to get the real deal. You get what you pay for in America - through the  nose. Kind regards,

It's even worse than the non-numerate reporter writes. If the repayment is made 45 days after the $35 overdraft fee, about the longest it could possibly be,  the interest rate is 1970%. If the poor cardholder's paycheck is deposited the day after the overdraft, it is a whopping 360,000%. The Mafia would approve.

656,000 permanent employees ???? OF COURSE THEY LOSE MONEY !!!!  But had they used a little foresight, they would be as efficient as FedEx or UPS, delivering a far larger portion of the express mail and packages than they do today, with fewer employees. Granted, they are stuck with the costs of having the parallel mana...more

Proof yet again that not all private equity firms have the skill sets to turn around a crumbling business model. Ripplewood now joins Cerberus as poster-boys for disastrous buys . Readers' Digest and Chrysler.