Business Options; Debt and personal finance.
Byline: Benel P. Lagua In the corporate setting, there is a running debate about what constitutes the optimal mix of debt and equity in considering the capital structure of the firm. It all starts with a realization that there are basic advantages to debt, primarily its interest...

A problem of riches: how the growing gap between the very wealthy and everyone else is destroying our society from within.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] SIXTY OF US GATHERED RECENTLY in a Chicago church basement for a program about the precarious U.S. economy. For almost two hours, we sat on clanky metal chairs discussing rising gas and food prices, home foreclosures, declining wages, increasing personal debt, and our fears for...

Americans' Personal Finance Resolutions for 2008; Debt reduction tops the list of likely measures for 73% of Americans.
Byline: Magali Rheault Synopsis: An Experian/Gallup poll shows that 73% of American adults plan to take steps to reduce their debt burden in 2008. But other aspects of personal finance, such as loan consolidation and credit card management, aren't on most Americans' to-do lists for this year....

Maxed out: the spiritual cost of personal debt.
Kym knows exactly what broke feels like. A few months ago she was out of work and low on hope. When it looked as though she and her two children would be evicted from their California apartment, Kym--a Catholic with multiple sclerosis and no car to get...

A culture of debt.
'Another day older and deeper in debt." In the old country song, that's what you got after you loaded "16 tons of number nine coal." That was back in the day when a hard-working man could still die singing, "I owe my soul to the company store." ...

NTCA's Finance & Accounting Conference delivers.
It was an action-packed, educationally focused two-and-a-half days, as more than 180 participants turned out for the 2007 Finance and Accounting Conference in Boston, Mass., September 5-7. Geared toward finance and accounting personnel, this annual conference provides an overview of important national telecom trends and regulations affecting...

Fiscal spiritually: serving God with your money, in boom times and bust.
The past several months have been marked by burgeoning financial anxiety in the U.S. and global markets, at the gas pump and grocery check-out, in corporate offices and at kitchen tables. As falling house prices and the have destabilized credit markets and stock markets, may financial experts seem as...

PM steps in to rescue Rao legacy.
NEW DELHI: The late PM Narsimha Rao had picked Manmohan Singh for the vital assignment of finance minister in 1991. Rao stood solidly by Singh even when the Harshad Mehta stocks scam led to a clamour for the then FM's resignation. In 1994, when the rout of...

Northern Rock customers pull out.
Byline: Sudeshna Sen LONDON: Northern Rock's troubles seem all set to blow up into a full scale panic, and put Britain's Labour Party on the back foot. Despite Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling going on TV to assure the public that troubled British bank Northern Rock...

The promise & limits of politics: what Gene McCarthy taught us.
How many Americans had their view of the world changed by a quietly passionate man whose campaign for the presidency in 1968 brought the battle over a mistaken war into the democratic process? There is no polling on the subject that I know of, but my hunch is that...