It has become a truism to say that the American political system is suffering from dysfunction. But weirdly, even the insurgent candidates, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, don’t talk much about how they would fix it. This is a populist insurgency without a clear manifesto. So it’s refreshing to hear Rep. John Sarbanes present a detailed action plan to ...

  On April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl disaster left a trail of destruction. The worst nuclear accident was blamed on human error triggered by flawed Soviet reactor technology. Fukushima was another rude awakening in March 2011 when the world discovered similar challenges. Human error was again detected after the world felt it had drawn lessons from Chernobyl to avoid nuclear ...

  Barry Ritholtz Before the Great Recession, almost two-thirds of Americans owned stocks. That number has since fallen to a little more than half, as you can see from the chart below: This is an important development with ramifications for retirement planning, demographics and income inequality. First, a little history: Since late in the last century, one of the defining ...