Michelle Singletary, in her Washington Post/Bloomberg News column, argues that homeowners saddled with heavy debt helped drive the foreclosure glut in the black community.  “Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.” That’s the defining line in Langston Hughes’s poem “Mother to Son.” It’s about a mother advising her son to keep climbing, even when…

Michelle Singletary, in her Washington Post/Bloomberg News column, cites an important new study by the AARP that says if families caring for elderly relatives with chronic conditions or disabilities don’t receive financial support, taxpayers could end up bearing the costs. America is facing a crisis that will make the federal budget deficit look like a…

Washington Post/Bloomberg News columnist Michelle Singletary reviews a survey of men and women that, among other things, explored their attitudes about money. Here are some of the findings of the surveys, as reported by AOL: — Seventy-seven percent of men think women put too much value on a man’s financial worth, and 82 percent of women…

Washington Post/Bloomberg columnist Michelle Singletary tells individual investors to hang in there because history shows that the economic turmoil will end. It’s just a matter of when. I won’t tell you not to be frightened about the recent plunges in the stock market. The U.S. economy has a lot of problems. Unemployment, although showing some…

Michelle Singletary writes in her Washington Post/Bloomberg column that people facing retirement in these rocky economic times are faced with some tough decisions. At the beginning of the summer, at age 65, a friend was laid off from her job at a major corporation. She wisely sought the advice of a financial planner, but she’s…

Michelle Singletary writes in her Washington Post/Bloomberg column that students and parents are joining forces to pay for college in a variety of ways. Fidelity Investments just released its fifth annual College Savings Indicator study. The financial company looks at the percentage of projected college costs the typical American family is on track to cover,…

Michelle Singletary writes in her Washington Post/Bloomberg column that Murphy’s Law may soon hit the gold market, quoting experts who say it has reached the level of a speculative bubble.  Oh, gold prices may go up again, but investment advisers and regulators are warning investors to be careful about putting too much of their money…

Michelle Singletary, in her Washington Post/Bloomberg column, says that she is perturbed that no one is serious about GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry’s challenge to institutions of higher education to develop bachelor’s degrees that cost no more than $10,000. “I’m challenging our institutions of higher education to develop bachelor’s degrees that cost no more than…

Michelle Singletary, in her Washington Post/Bloomberg column, says that time is running out for troubled homeowners who want to take advantage of the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007. It was enacted by Congress to provide some consolation to folks who lost their homes, but it’s complicated. If you borrow money and the lender…

Michelle Singletary, in her Washington Post/Bloomberg column, asks if President Barack Obama really thinks that members of the Congressional Black Caucus and their constituents, many of whom are suffering in the economy, should just “shake it off.” Was Obama trying to appeal to the pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps crowd, which believes government should do less to help those…