Asset Management Tips

I don't mean to trivialize our economic difficulties, but we have to face a disconcerting fact: For years, that strange stimulus-crazed beast, the economy, has been going its own way, increasingly disconnected from the toils and troubles of ordinary Americans.

The economy has been expanding, at least until now, and growth is supposed to guarantee general well-being. As long as the gross domestic product grows, World Money Watch's Web site assures us, so will business, jobs and personal income.

But hellooo, we've had brisk growth for the past few years, as the president tirelessly has reminded us, only without those promised increases in personal income, at least not for the poor and the middle class. According to the Economic Policy Institute, real wages actually fell last year. read more

Another subprime-mortgage-meltdown-sized risk could be looming for investors: global warming.

That alarm was sounded at an investor summit at the United Nations headquarters in New York, at which 480 investors, pension fund leaders and corporate executives from around the globe were warned that the vast majority of companies are ill-prepared for the Earth's changing climate.

Many oil producers, utilities and manufacturing plants have yet to factor in the added expense if the United States -- as is expected in the next few years -- imposes caps on carbon-dioxide emissions. Similarly, many companies with big real-estate holdings in U.S. coastal regions haven't calculated their exposure to increased tropical storms and rising seas.

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