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: The Hogwash School for Wizards Published 05/25/2012 at 3 a.m.

  Produced by Disney studios, “Fantasia” is an animated film with eight segments set to pieces of classical music. One segment, the “Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” has Mickey Mouse — the apprentice — cleaning up his master’s workplace.

• Money $marts: Getting the best credit scores requires careful spending Published 05/09/2012 at 2:21 p.m.

  Consumers seem to be getting back in the borrowing game. Coinciding with the advent of the recession and lasting through most of 2010, consumers shed household debt by the billions, paying down and closing credit card accounts, delaying big ticket ...

• Money $marts: That which never was will never be Published 05/02/2012 at 10:48 a.m.

  Recessions are officially defined as two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth; in other words, reported Gross Domestic Product (GDP) expressed as a dollar number, actually declines. Recovery, therefore, begins when the GDP number increases.

• Money $marts: The student loan albatross Published 04/25/2012 at 12:40 p.m.

  Fifty years ago I received my acceptance letter for admission to the City University of NY (CUNY), along with notice of the tuition due for the first semester — $24. Yes, that’s right, $24 per semester ($48 annually) was the ...

• Money $marts: Power and the art of the definition Published 04/18/2012 at 10:17 a.m.

  Words have explicit meanings, sometimes many. Look up the word “run” in the Oxford dictionary. There are 12 definitions of “run” as a verb and 13 as a noun. But even with 25 possibilities, the specific meaning is usually understood ...

• Money $marts: Ignorance of the law is no excuse Published 04/11/2012 at 11:51 a.m.

  There are many reasons to be upset with a federal government that has made a mess of just about everything — energy, healthcare, homeownership, taxation, immigration, deficits and debt, the economy, etc.

• Money $marts: These are indeed taxing times Published 04/04/2012 at 10:32 a.m.

  Unfortunately, it’s that time again. There’s less than two weeks left before you have to file 2011 tax returns. Of course, you can ask for an extension and it will be normally granted without any problem. But if you owe ...

• Money $marts: A slippery slope to…jail? Published 03/28/2012 at 10:56 a.m.

  The slippery slope metaphor is often used as an argument against a specific action because the action can lead to subsequent related actions, each with less similar facts until actions ultimately have little to do with the intent of the ...

• Money $marts: What the frack? Published 03/21/2012 at 11:56 a.m.

  Ever since the short lived 1974 Arab nation embargo on oil sales to the U.S. and the internal disruptions it caused — rationing, quadrupling of gas prices and long lines at the filling stations — every sitting president and candidate ...

• Money $marts: Jobs by the numbers Published 03/14/2012 at 11:27 a.m.

  Consider an auditorium with 1,000 people. On stage a speaker asks everyone in the audience to raise his hand if they are currently unemployed; 120 people (12 percent) raise their hands. Now the speaker asks those who are no longer ...

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