When the great recession struck in 2008, many companies desperate for help turned to Warren Buffett, the world's only well-liked rich guy. He spent the next few years spreading around tens of billions of dollars of investments in distressed companies. How's that working out for him?

There has been a growing movement of late to push colleges and universities to get rid of all their investments in fossil fuels, in the same way they were pushed to divest from holdings in apartheid South Africa a generation ago. Harvard has answered: no thx.

Tomorrow is the 100th anniversary of the federal income tax. Thank you, federal income tax, for all the things you have bought this country, except the wars! On this auspicious anniversary, here are five tax ideas to make the next 100 years even better.

A spinoff group from the Occupy movement is seeking to launch its own prepaid debit card, as a prelude to offering a more complete set of financial services. Ridiculous? Not at all. In fact, taking over some of Wall Street's business could be the most useful thing Occupy Wall Street could do.

Terry Duffy is the president of a financial exchange. Prototypical finance dude, right? That's where you're wrong. Terry Duffy must be a comedian. I mean, just look at this shit he wrote in the Wall Street Journal Op-ed/ Comedy section today.

The American way of retirement is crumbling. Private pensions are disappearing. Public pensions are crumbling. Instead of clawing and fighting to save them as they slip away, populists and progressives should just let them die. No one needs pensions. Everyone needs a pension.

Harvard, a school in Boston that your boss's boss went to, made Fortune 500 money last year. More profit than Target, and just less than AIG. Just how rich is Harvard?

Here is a fact: paying people money to give you investment advice is a waste of your money. It will not make you money. DO NOT HIRE INVESTMENT ADVISORS, STOP NOW.

As we do periodically, we will now remind you that you will probably never save enough money to retire successfully. What makes us so sure of ourselves? Well, try this simple quiz: are you an American?

As sure as we know the economy is going up, we know that the economy shall also, sooner or later, come back down. Whence shall the next poisonous economic tumor begin? Today we turn our alert gaze to the predictions of a dude who should know.

As of 2011, the average CEO was paid 230 times the salary of an average worker at his company. Today, the SEC proposed a rule to require companies to report that ratio every year. What should it be? A modest proposal: 100-1.

Baby Boomers, "The Generation Where Each Individual Takes Personal Credit for Bob Dylan," are now entering retirement age. They have a lot of time on their hands, and all of America's disposable income. Now, the slavish catering to their every whim really begins.

Five years ago today, the front pages were just a catalog of panicky headlines about the meltdown of America's finances. Today, things have changed: headlines note that only some groups of Americans are financially doomed.

In a new poll, the vast majority of Americans say that in the five years since the recession, the government has "done not much or nothing at all to help poor people [and] middle-class people." Guess what? They're right!

Five years ago, the world economy melted down. About four and a half years ago, an outcry began in earnest for the SEC to track down and bring cases against the people and institutions responsible for the meltdown. How's that going?

Four members of the Walton family, heirs to Sam Walton's Wal-Mart fortune, are collectively worth more than $100 billion— more wealth than the entire bottom 40% of Americans. They are doing everything in their power not to give up a penny more than they have to.

William Peace University in North Carolina plans to invest two-thirds of its entire endowment in a single shopping center development. What could go wrong?

Five years ago this week, the storied Wall Street firm Lehman Brothers collapsed, heralding the true onslaught of the Great Recession. Has the system been "fixed" since then?

Price buster alert: hedge fund fees are declining slightly. One expert gushes, "'We're seeing the ability to get better fees, especially if you can commit more than $100 million' to a fund." Don't miss this opportunity to save.

Alarming news for music lovers: the New York City Opera, which has performed in the city for generations, will have to cancel the rest of its season and all of next year's season if it doesn't raise $20 million soon. A tragedy, for the arts. Still, no one should give the opera $20 million.