LP:Media figures like Suze Orman, David Bach and David Ramsey tell us, "Follow my advice and everything will be OK." Why is this promise a lie?

HO: All of these people are in the business of selling simplistic solutions to complex problems. Should we live below our means? Of course. Is it always possible to do so? No. It’s not easy to live within your means if your means are a $300-a-week unemployment check. As if that were not enough, some of the advice they are purveying is flat-out wrong. Our financial woes are not the result of spending our funds on lattes and other small luxuries, like David Bach says. You can’t choose not to participate in a recession, despite what Dave Ramsey thinks. Personal finance can’t do it all for us.

LP:You write about the financial literacy movement, which, on first glance, looks like a helpful educational crusade. How has it conspired to make us poorer? What does it mean that big banks like Capital One promote it?

HO: Financial literacy classes sure sound good. But students who take the classes don’t seem to retain much of the knowledge. And, when you think about it for a moment, that makes sense. The idea that taking a class on how finance works at the age of 17 can save someone from a predatory 100-page small-print mortgage when they are 40 is just preposterous. Don’t believe me? Tell me how the French and Indian War contributed to the American Revolution. See what I mean? I swear that was taught in your high school history class.

This week, it was Cleveland wide receiver Andrew Hawkins, who wore a T-shirt reading "Justice for Tamir Rice and John Crawford III" during pregame warmups and introductions:



Tamir Rice, age 12, died last month after Cleveland police shot him while he was waving a pellet gun. John Crawford III was shot in an Ohio Wal-Mart earlier this year while holding an air rifle. Both cases have drawn scrutiny because of the uncertain and questionable reasons behind the shootings.

The message didn't go over so well with the Cleveland police department. "It's pretty pathetic when athletes think they know the law," said Cleveland police union head Jeff Follmer, per a local Cleveland journalist. "They should stick to what they know best on the field. The Cleveland police protect and serve the Browns stadium, and the Browns organization owes us an apology."

If the Browns follow the same path as other teams whose players have taken public stands on social issues, there will be no apology.

Federal authorities are investigating whether casino operator Wynn Resorts Ltd. violated money-laundering laws, according to people familiar with the matter.

The criminal probe comes as U.S. authorities step up their scrutiny of casinos’ efforts to prevent money laundering. Regulators have long been concerned about vulnerabilities at casinos, which are complex financial institutions that conduct a large amount of cross-border and cash transactions. Wynn, which is run by casino entrepreneur Steve Wynn, is the third major Las Vegas casino company in recent years known to be investigated for possible violations of money-laundering laws.

Liberal economist Paul Krugman is chief spokesman for the "income inequality" crowd. In his column "Ostentation, your ship has come in thanks to changed economic times" (Forum, Sept. 28), he presses his theme that the super-rich have fattened up at the expense of the middle class. But he disproves his own thesis by harking back to the 1950's, when, he says, because of higher taxes, tycoons had more modest lifestyles than today's nabobs.

The fact is the middle class lives infinitely better today than in the 50's, even though that was a decade of unprecedented prosperity. I was there. If my father, who died in 1959, could come back, he would be astounded by our houses - mile after mile of homes that only rich people would have dreamed of then; our cars - an SUV and sedan in most garages; our restaurants; our vacations, summer cottages, winter homes and RVs; our clothing - one child's clothes would fill all the closets in our old house; our school-age children walking around with smart phones and so on.

Krugman highlights yachts. Have you seen a yacht in any of the Lake Erie marinas? I haven't, but thousands of pleasure craft. What plutocrats own those? What about golf courses?

Sure, he could give you statistics that incomes have stagnated, but what would you expect when the labor force has increased by the entry of so many women?
If our way of life is threatened, it is not because of income inequality, but because the next generation may think they have a constitutional right to start the day with a $4 cup of coffee.

John Duffy,

Avon Lake

I'm not sure when we became a nation of greedy, hateful pigs, but I do remember a time when a business took pride in not only their workmanship, but in the fact that they were creating jobs in their community. They gave people a purpose and a living wage. It allowed a person the dignity of being self-sufficient and the security of taking care of themselves and their family. In return the company got dedication, loyalty and a product or service that others wanted to buy. Henry Ford, one of the country's biggest manufacturing icons made a point of making sure that his employees earned enough to buy a car. Today, we have Walmart workers, who despite working full time are so poorly paid that they have to rely on taxpayer subsidized food stamps, welfare and Medicare totaling more than $1 million per store.


So, it's interesting that the recent news of job market 'improvement' doesn't mention that of the ten occupation categories projecting the greatest growth in the next eight years, only one pays a middle-class wage. Four pay barely above poverty level and five pay beneath it, including fast-food workers, retail sales staff, health aids and janitors. The job expected to have the highest number of openings is 'personal care aide'--taking care of aging baby boomers in their houses or in nursing homes. The median salary of an aid is under $20,000. They enjoy no benefits and about 40 percent of them must rely on food stamps and Medicaid to make ends meet, plus many are in the 'shadow economy,' vulnerable to being cheated on the already miserly wages.



That means the father or mother with a couple of kids, now looking at the degree they have from some university they probably still owe money to, is going to take whatever they can get to pay for the roof over their head and to put food on the table. They may even need to take two. It also means that the boomer couple who lost their pension, 401k, savings, and home value as a result of the felonious acts of the same corporations who are now opposing a living wage, isn't going to retire when they thought they would and will be looking into landing one of those jobs. That's who members of Congress are giving the finger to. People do what they need to do to survive. It's been that way since the beginning of time and this country has proven time and time again that when the going gets tough, the tough get going, but the argument and the opposition to allowing people a living wage for full time work is frankly embarrassing.

Still haven't meet a Laquisha or Shaniqua I would like to work with