GERRY KRAMER

• Money Smarts: Body mass? You'll have to know your BMI Published 07/24/2010 at 9:53 a.m.

  What’s your BMI (body mass index)? Buried in the 1,000-page stimulus and 2,800-page health care bills are little known provisions. The specific rules adjoining them have yet to be written by the thousands of new government regulators being hired for ...

• Money Smarts: The risk of politicizing insurance Published 07/18/2010 at 8:29 a.m.

  Basically, the insurance business is one of pricing risk. To do this, analysts (called actuaries) review the history of relevant events, current trends and potential changes in the future.

• Money Smarts: Today as yesterday ... greenhouse gas monitor is coming Published 07/01/2010 at 1:56 p.m.

  This column is an update of a July 2008 article. Write to gerryk3001@yahoo.com

• Money Smarts: Obama the punisher Published 06/10/2010 at 2:43 p.m.

  In the US, there are three million people in jail punished for breaking the behavioral rules of society. That’s about one percent of the population. We don’t assume from these “bad apples” that the other 99 percent of citizens are ...

• Money Smarts: Credit scores and credit Published 06/03/2010 at 3:26 p.m.

  Historically, when it comes to obtaining credit, the pendulum always swings back and forth between easy and difficult. When flush with cheap money and an expanding economy, banks will make more loans (mortgages, credit cards, car purchases, home equity, etc.) ...

• Money Smarts: Absorbing energy smarts Published 05/27/2010 at 1:12 p.m.

  Debates about energy often get testy. That’s because the arguments are usually clouded by emotions. The number one reason people buy mileage efficient hybrid cars, for example, is that it makes them feel good about themselves; the purchase provides for ...

• Money $marts: Three strikes and you're out! Published 05/15/2013 at 12:46 p.m.

  "Parental Guidance" is a movie starring Billy Crystal as a recently fired 30-year play-by-play announcer for a minor league baseball team.

• Money $marts: The party may be over Published 05/08/2013 at 10:30 a.m.

  While a college degree costs a bundle, when viewed as an investment it has a high present value return that exceeds its cost, by as much as a million dollars over an assumed 40-year working lifetime.

• Money $marts: Of the people, by the people, against the people Published 05/01/2013 at 2 p.m.

  Abraham Lincoln's 1863 "Gettysburg Address" ends with "this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

• Money $marts: The happiest people in the world? Published 04/24/2013 at 10:47 a.m.

  Who are the happiest people in the world and what makes them so? The U.S. Declaration of Independence speaks of the right of the people to pursue happiness but not how to catch it. Modern social scientists, however, believe they ...

• Money $marts: When there's no shame… Published 04/10/2013 at 4:13 p.m.

  Some Thesaurus synonyms for "shame": disgrace, embarrassment, dishonor, humiliation, indignity.

• Money $marts: The good, the bad and the ugly Published 04/03/2013 at 3:34 p.m.

  First, the good news. The stock market is in full bull charge. The Dow Jones Industrial Average surpassed its 2007 record high three weeks ago and continued to new levels — above 14,500 this week.

• Money $marts: Wreaking havoc in all the wrong places Published 03/27/2013 at 1:19 p.m.

  Efficiency experts (EE) have been plot catalysts in many a movie in which they are usually depicted as heartless robots unnecessarily wreaking havoc on workers' lives.

• Money $marts: The age of 'doublethink' Published 03/20/2013 at 3:24 p.m.

  In a 1946 essay, "Politics and the English Language," George Orwell wrote "political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable."

• Money $marts: Surely, you jest? No, unfortunately, I'm serious Published 03/13/2013 at 1:57 p.m.

  In medieval times when absolute monarchies ruled, court jesters provided kings, queens and courtiers with distractions from waging wars, collecting taxes, punishing rivals, political intrigue, governing the people and other stressful royal duties.

• Money $marts: 'I owe my soul to the federal government' Published 03/06/2013 at 3:36 p.m.

  The singer Tennessee Ernie Ford's 1955 number one hit, "Sixteen Tons," has a verse that goes: "You load sixteen tons, what do you get/Another day older and deeper in debt/Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go/I owe ...

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