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...Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. On Friday, Mubarak claimed that Hamas had agreed to release Shalit, but Shalit's captors demanded the release of 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, which Israel refused. Haniya's spokesman, Ghazi Hamad, told TIME that was the militants' demand, not the government's. "We want to avoid further escalation and end this problem very quickly." But the Israeli intelligence officer says even if a deal were brokered, the kidnappers might have gone so far underground that they would have had no way of hearing about it. Hamas' record is sobering: of the dozen soldiers it has kidnapped...
Given what's coming, we all need to do very careful financial planning. For starters, avoid those simplistic financial calculators on the Net. Relying on them can lead to huge financial mistakes. TIAA-CREF, for example, asks just five questions in its online Simple Life-Insurance Needs Calculator. Fidelity's Retirement Quick Check saving calculator is equally primitive. Next, think twice about using financial planners. Their software isn't much better. Most programs make you set your own future spending targets. Doing so correctly is terribly difficult given all the interconnected variables. And small targeting mistakes can lead to horrendous...
...addition to planning better, you can also make smarter investments. Given the U.S. fiscal mess, investing abroad is a good idea. Try to avoid inflation-sensitive investments, like long-term bonds, and other potential traps, including waiting to withdraw your 401(k) balances until after tax rates have risen. You may also want to purchase real estate, commodities and collectibles that should retain their purchasing power over time. Borrowing at what are still very low long-term interest rates and investing in U.S. inflation-protected bonds may also make sense...
Younger sibs may avoid tobacco for much the same reason. Three years ago, Joseph Rodgers, a psychologist at the University of Oklahoma, published a study of more than 9,500 young smokers. He found that while older brothers and sisters often do introduce younger ones to the habit, the closer they are in age, the more likely the younger one is to resist. Apparently, their proximity in years has already made them too similar. One conspicuous way for a baby brother to set himself apart is to look at the older sibling's smoking habits and then do the opposite...
Americans buy everything from burgers to coffee to karate lessons at franchises. They're convenient, predictable and often cheap. So why not try franchising a service most of us avoid like a trip to the dentist? Actually, it is a trip to the dentist. Meet Vital Dent, purveyors of franchise dentistry...