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Americans are not rich, America is rich. Most of the people live in rural communities, not urban bubbles. One can drive for 500 miles in America and not hit a city with over 200,000 people. I set out on a 1500-mile trip this past week. Chicago to Wichita, Kansas and back. My goal was to talk with Middle America, take a pulse, find out if people are changing their lifestyle because of ... read more

The buzz of crickets on the prairie, the whisper of a breeze through my ears and the passing sound of a 40 story turbine cranking revolutions to the velocity of the earth’s wind….indeed, a Kansas wind farm. We have spent the day with Pete Ferrell, a fourth generation cattle rancher, 7 thousand acres he owns here in southeastern Kansas. Pete’s a tall man, 6’4, slender, wears a cowboy hat, ... read more

10:57 PM Definition of Money: Money is a good that acts as a medium of exchange in transactions. Classically it is said that money acts as a unit of account, a store of value, and a medium of exchange. Most authors find that the first two are nonessential properties that follow from the third. In fact, other goods are often better than money at being intertemporal stores of value, since most ... read more

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5:53pm  From covering natural disasters in the Midwest to advice on my 401(k) plan at the Morningstar investment conference it’s been a roller coaster two weeks. Gotta tell you, this business news stuff aint so boring after all. I mean who says that business is stodgy or blah? Well, I beg to differ because you see the American Economy and people’s money will never be boring because those ... read more

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The Jeddah Energy Meeting may not have generated any surprises, at least not the kind that woud cool down prices on the oil markets, but the city itself is surprising for a reporter who is visiting Saudi Arabia for the first time. To be honest it reminded me of Phoenix, there's certainly not as much fake greenery and swimming pools, but like Phoenix there's lots of desert brown, heat and ... read more

In the end the Jeddah energy meeting came down to just over three hours of discussion. It feels like a lot of hullabaloo for so little actual work. Representatives from 38 countries, the major oil companies and the majority of members belonging to OPEC descended on the Red Sea town amid cries for crude oil relief. I don't think anyone expected a major revelation to emerge on how to ... read more

Since arriving in Jeddah as part of the traveling media circus I have spent countless minutes, if not hours, waiting in line for one reason or another. On this day, the big day of the Jeddah Energy Meeting, all journalists were ordered to assemble at the Westin hotel where we would then be bussed to the Hilton, en masse, to the conference itself. I would call it a sea of humanity, although I ... read more

The day of the hurriedly assembled oil summit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia is upon us and for the hundreds of journalists from all over the world who are here to cover the event the big question remains... will it matter? We've already heard from U.S. Energy Secretary Sam Bodman who says OPEC has to open the taps to help relieve a tight market that has pushed crude oil prices as high as $140 a barrel. ... read more