The Bernie Madoff scandal has investors newly terrified of money manager fraud. But fraud is actually not all that hard to avoid – the real lesson goes deeper than that. “Madoff with ya money.”

I assume that bond buyers are all drug addicts who are not aware of what they are doing, morons who are not aware of what they are doing, or grubby slicksters who are buying them on behalf of drug addicts and morons! Hahaha!

In the depths of a bear market that has carved between $500 billion and $2 trillion from U.S. retirement accounts so far this year, as many as two-thirds of all Americans have stopped contributing to their retirement plans, a new study shows.

And that’s precisely the wrong decision to make at the wrong time. No matter how poorly the financial markets are performing, saving for retirement has to remain a top priority.

“It’s not a time for people to stop contributing,” Diane Young, director of retirement and goal planning at TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. (AMTD), the Omaha, Neb.-based brokerage firm that conducted the retirement study, said in an interview with Bloomberg News. “Because time is money, it’s important to stay on track.”

According…

Gen X wonders if it can ever retire. As Wall Street waits for Citi and Merrill shoes to drop, Goldman issues gloomy forecast. As if write-downs weren’t enough, here comes another $250 billion problem. A 17% first-quarter loss…When hedge funds don’t hedge. Coal prices shoot skyward… The sector ideally positioned to benefit.