The time to save is now. When a dog gets a bone he doesn't go out and make a down payment on a bigger bone. He buries the one he's got.

At its most basic the democratic contract is a simple one: the right to vote comes with a responsibility to society through tax payments and citizenship.

When I was in Philadelphia during the Depression in 1930 or '31 I got a very sad job as a night watchman in a garage. The cars in the garage had been abandoned by their owners since they had lost their jobs and couldn't keep up the payments.

If our nation goes over a financial Niagara we won't have much strength and eventually we won't have peace. We are currently borrowing the entire defense budget from foreign investors. Within a few years we will be spending more on interest payments than on national security. That is not as our military friends say a 'robust strategy.'

But if our nation goes over a financial Niagara we won't have much strength and eventually we won't have peace. We are currently borrowing the entire defense budget from foreign investors. Within a few years we will be spending more on interest payments than on national security. That is not as our military friends say a 'robust strategy.'

Those carrying a credit card balance should scale back to making the minimum payment each month so they have more money to put into savings.

The sort of thinking at the time was 'Well we're giving you access to medical care which you wouldn't otherwise be able to get so your payment is that we get to use you in research.'

I get so frustrated when people tell me it's unrealistic to create an eight-month emergency savings fund or have money saved for a home down payment or pay off their $5 000 credit card balance.

One state retiree 49 years old paid over the course of his entire career a total of $124 000 towards his retirement pension and health benefits. What will we pay him? $3.3 million in pension payments over his life and nearly $500 000 for health care benefits - a total of $3.8m on a $120 000 investment.

Every year the Federal Government wastes billions of dollars as a result of overpayments of government agencies misuse of government credit cards abuse of the Federal entitlement programs and the mismanagement of the Federal bureaucracy.

Conventional wisdom on government's role in inequality often has it backwards. Tax reforms have resulted in a more progressive federal income tax government transfer payments have become less progressive.

It all comes down to interest rates. As an investor all you're doing is putting up a lump-sump payment for a future cash flow.

Don't forget what I discovered that over ninety percent of all national deficits from 1921 to 1939 were caused by payments for past present and future wars.

I'm still very connected to my family to the world I grew up in. I understand what it means to be afraid that you can't pay a doctor's bill. Or to have to make the choice between buying a band uniform for a seventh-grader and making the insurance payment on time. That will never leave me. It was how I lived until I was well into my adult years.

Without in any way minimising the economic and psychological blow that people experience when they lose their jobs the unemployed in affluent countries still have a safety net in the form of social security payments and usually free healthcare and free education for their children. They also have sanitation and safe drinking water.

What charitable 1 percenters can't do is assume responsibility - America's national responsibilities: the care of its sick and its poor the education of its young the repair of its failing infrastructure the repayment of its staggering war debts.

When you're nearing 35 going 'Hey Dad I can't make these payments ' just isn't cool.