“Rich Dad Poor Dad” was a smash self-help hit book a few years back, selling more than 32 million copies. One of its major premises is that the odds for accelerating wealth creation are shortened for children of “rich dads” who grow up learning the difference between those who “go to work to make money” and those who “make money work for them.”

As yet, there is no best-selling non-fiction book titled “Good Debt Bad Debt”—but that phrase could make a fitting companion to Robert Kiyosaki’s hit. The concept behind it would be simple enough—but a distinction that’s increasingly valuable as worries proliferate about continuing inflation and possible recession.

It’s a distinction that can be lost in the clamor. For instance, CBSnews.com declared last…

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It’s a phrase that would-be home buyers had been hearing ever since seller’s market conditions had begun. But when “Submit your best and final bid” was recently advised by one Chicago area listing agent, the words were jolting, according to last week’s NPR Newswire report describing a new kind of bidding war.

The ‘best and final’ bid being solicited wasn’t from an eager homebuyer who’d be competing with others for their dream home. It was for a rental apartment. The bid under discussion was for the amount above the asking rent. The couple had lost out on another apartment, so they agreed to offer more.

The situation is now becoming routine—and not just in big cities, where historically scarce vacancies have pushed rents to new heights. Low…

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Summer finally becomes a reality on Tuesday—as opposed to Memorial Day weekend, which eager beavers in the media like to pretend was the kickoff to summer. Realists don’t agree—they believe that falling for the "unofficial start of summer" line means giving in to one of those unsavory impulses Mother warned us about (like shaking hidden birthday presents to guess what we're going to get, or eating cookie dough raw). Grownups learn to be patient, to wait our turn, take a number at the deli line, etc.

But Tuesday's arrival of true summer does raise the philosophical question, "What really makes summer summer?" This isn't some abstract mystical speculation now that research has clarified what really makes summer summer. Science has been at work,…

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For those who keep a close watch on the outlook for Costa Mesa real estate, finding the upside amidst last week’s raft of less-than-cheery economic news was a tall order. Let’s face it: after years of buoyant tidings and record-setting Costa Mesa real estate advances, few had doubted the certainty that some retrenching was certain to come about at some point—the storm warnings had been there.
Even so, nestled among the worrisome economic dispatches, there actually were some bright spots:

  • Finally: the long-constricted supply of homes for sale began to stage a turnaround. The record inventory shortfall had been frequently cited for sluggish U.S. home sales volumes—but a turnaround was in progress. For the week ended June 4, the number of active…

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In Costa Mesa, Father’s Day is theoretically supposed to be as important as Mother’s Day, but the reality can differ significantly. Even historically, the June celebration has always struggled to catch up with its mid-May precursor.

History has it that beginning in 1905, Mother’s Day’s originator Anna Jarvis started campaigning for a holiday honoring Moms. If there were many naysayers, they haven’t been heard from since, possibly because of Anna’s persuasive argument that mothers are “the person who has done more for you than anyone in the world.”

Four years later, in Spokane, Washington, Sonora Smart Dodd was listening to an early Mother’s Day sermon when inspiration struck: Dads should be feted, too! Despite the fact that her argument was…

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