Get your Black Friday boogie on with our report from Toys R Us and our exclusive interview on the frenzy of the day with none other than...Elmo! Read more!.

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Faded, baby: Las Vegas not doing enough to woo back tourists

Barbara Bartlein Nov 29th 2009 @ 4:00PM EST Filed Under: Extracurriculars, Travel

Leaving Las Vegas after a three day stay has me wondering if Tinsel Town has lost a bit of its glamor. Yes, the strip is still full of lights and mammoth hotels, but it looks tired and in many ways, outdated. It starts when you enter the airport and are bombarded with billboards announcing the exciting "new" shows like Bette Midler, Cher and Wayne Newton. I'm sure they are all enjoyable, but I would hardly call them new or cutting edge. It is more like a Geritol convention.

Checking into Mandeley Bay, I was surprised that we weren't offered some free gambling chips, a drink coupon, or, for that matter, anything FREE. As a city trying to lure customers back, I certainly didn't feel catered to. No one held a door, offered to help me with my luggage, or really even acknowledged me. Much of the help did not understand English, let alone great customer service. It goes without saying, there was no free paper outside my door in the morning.

We made our stop in the casino as you really can't help but make a stop at the gambling hall. All the hotels in Vegas are designed that you have to go through the casino to get anywhere in the complex. But our stop was a disappointment too. I don't mean that we just lost money (we did) but the games were hardly anything new or trendy. As I played a game with Dean Martin smiling and singing, I realized that my kids wouldn't even know who that was. John Wayne, Frank Sinatra, and Joey Bishop are relics that few people younger than me even know.

For Vegas to really come back as an entertainment capital, it needs to update and offer guest unique experiences and impeccable customer service. If I wanted to be ignored, I could have just stayed at home.

Barbara Bartlein is The People Pro. For her FREE e-mail newsletter, please visit: The People Pro.

Buyer beware: BBBcertifiedgifts site not part of the Better Business Bureau

Josh Smith Nov 29th 2009 @ 2:00PM EST Filed Under: Shopping, Charity, Fraud, Consumer Ally

The first tip-off that a company isn't on the up and up is when the product it's selling is offered at a price that really is too good to be true.

How exactly is BBBCertifiedGifts.com able to offer a $1,000 Walmart gift card for $79.95 -- with similar offers on other gift cards? The short answer: It can't .

Continue reading Buyer beware: BBBcertifiedgifts site not part of the Better Business Bureau

Top 10 tips for loan refinancing

Janean Chun Nov 29th 2009 @ 12:00PM EST Filed Under: 101 mortgages

Interest rates are once again falling to irresistible levels, which means two words are on the mind of millions of Americans: loan refinancing. But how do you get the best loan refinancing deal while avoiding some of the loan refinancing traps that plagued so many of the ill-advised refinancers of the housing crisis? Here are 10 ways to make sure you do your loan refinancing right.

Loan Refinancing Tip #1: Find the right rate. This is probably the most common motivation behind loan refinancing. Anyone who has a high fixed-rate mortgage and sees those rates dropping is naturally tempted to switch to a low fixed-rate loan. Or if you have an ARM, you might take advantage of the low interest rates to get a loan refinancing locked in to a low fixed rate for the life of the loan.

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Podcast: Downsizing warning signs and how to avoid them

Aaron Crowe Nov 29th 2009 @ 9:00AM EST Filed Under: Career, Recession

In this "Your Job Will Come" podcast, WalletPop's Aaron Crowe talks with John Rice, CEO and founder of Management Leadership for Tomorrow about the warning signs of downsizing and how to avoid them.

Among the tips are to find a "sponsor" on your first day of work who will promote you and your hardworking skills if the chopping block should ever fall.

Want happiness? Forget money - get therapy instead

Tom Barlow Nov 28th 2009 @ 5:00PM EST Filed Under: Health, Wealth

If money doesn't bring happiness, why do we devote so much of our energy chasing it? Perhaps the old adage is flawed, but not according to a study recently completed at the Universities of Warwick and Manchester, UK, which found that psychological therapy is 32 times more likely than money to bring you happiness.

The study compared the change in happiness of people who had gone through therapy to those who had received a windfall of money, such as lottery winnings. The results showed that people would have to receive over £25,000 ($40,000) in cash to bring as much happiness as they could get from four months of counseling, the cost of which was estimated at £800 ($1,320).

The results don't surprise me, given the sad tales of what happens to many lottery winners. What did surprise me, though, was another conclusion the study's authors, Chris Boyce and Alex Wood, drew from the results. Instead of giving big cash awards for pain and suffering to plaintiffs in civil suits, they speculated that courts might do more good by awarding the plaintiffs some couch time with a psychologist.

The idea surely won't please attorneys who specialize in injury suits. They, I suspect, still believe that more money brings more happiness.

Nightmare public hospital to be reborn as private hospital

Lita Epstein Nov 28th 2009 @ 3:00PM EST Filed Under: Health

You may remember the video reports of Edith Rodriguez, a 43-year-old woman seen dying in the emergency room of a hospital in Los Angeles. Well, that hospital was the Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital, which was closed in 2007 after the facility failed a make or break inspection that meant the loss of $200 million in federal funds.

Now a significantly smaller hospital may be opened in its place as the Martin Luther King Jr. medical facility, which will be a private non-profit facility run jointly by the county of Los Angeles and the University of California. The original hospital at one point had as many as 400 beds and the new hospital will be downsized to 120 beds. There will be an emergency room but no trauma center.

The county will contribute $50 million annually to cover expenses and operating costs and $13.3 million a year toward the care of uninsured patients. The university will provide 14 to 20 physicians and medical oversight for the in-patient hospital with a goal of eventually providing medical residents to train there.

Continue reading Nightmare public hospital to be reborn as private hospital

Why Dubai should matter to you; U.S. real estate could take big hit!

Charles Feldman Nov 28th 2009 @ 1:00PM EST Filed Under: Real Estate, Recession, Investing, Mortgages

Funny thing this globalization: Just when you think everything is starting to settle down and maybe, just maybe, the world's economic plight is finally on the mend, along comes news from a place such as Dubai that threatens to send everything into a tailspin all over again.

Stock markets have already felt the shock waves from the news that Dubai's state-owned investment arm--Dubai World--needs to restructure its debt...a fancy way of saying, it simply can't pay its bills. Bills, by the way, that come to some $59 billion. And, there is no app to download that can easily fix that!

Continue reading Why Dubai should matter to you; U.S. real estate could take big hit!

Showing this weekend at a movie theater near you: credit card advice

Geoff Williams Nov 28th 2009 @ 12:00PM EST Filed Under: Debt, Credit cards

In the midst of all your shopping on Black Friday and in the aftermath, are you planning on taking in a movie? Before you watch the latest Twilight movie, or Ninja Assassin or whatever you think will put you in the holiday spirit, the government has some advice for you on how to use your credit card.

The Federal Reserve announced Wednesday that it's sponsoring a 45-second ad that will appear before movie previews at 12 theaters in 12 cities from November 27 through December 3. The ad is a public service announcement, reminding people to use their credit cards wisely and to offer some advice on how to handle them.

If you don't go to the movies during that time or aren't in one of the theaters, and you'd like to see what you're missing, the ad can be viewed by clicking here.

Continue reading Showing this weekend at a movie theater near you: credit card advice

Mammogram madness costs major money

Barbara Bartlein Nov 28th 2009 @ 9:00AM EST Filed Under: Saving Money, Health

The latest guidelines from the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force now say that women don't need mammograms every year and don't need the first one until 50. Citing millions who have had "false positives," they report that the benefit is not worth the risk.

For some of us, this isn't surprising. I have long questioned whether a yearly mammogram is really necessary. After all, you are shooting radiation into sensitive breast tissue every year in a machine that flattens your breast like an automatic garage door opener. But for many women, that is only the beginning. Almost every woman I know, including me, has had a false positive with a mammogram that is a nightmare of anxiety.

Continue reading Mammogram madness costs major money

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