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With the unemployment rate slowly falling, many Americans are facing a healthier job market and trying to get their financial lives back on track. Based on findings of the FINRA Investor Education Foundation's National Financial Capability Study of more than 25,000 Americans, the FINRA Foundation has developed five tips to help you manage daily financial challenges and build a brighter financial future in 2014.

IT'S time to come clean about our dirty credit card habits and how we can avoid them eroding our wealth. While we've all been slowly reducing our outstanding credit card balances, with $34 billion still owing, they remain the scourge of most families. It's fair to say credit cards are the most potent weapon of mass financial destruction since the loan shark. Their convenience and flexibility means it's so easy for them to get out of hand and lead to serious financial distress. We need to be vigilant in ensuring our credit cards work for us and don't destroy our finances. To avoid getting into trouble in the first place, or get back in control of an existing debt, here are our five golden rules for using credit cards.

If you're like most Americans, you probably didn't make a new year's resolution to get started with long-term financial planning. A staggering 84 percent of respondents to a New Year's Resolution Survey from Allianz Life Insurance said that financial planning was not among their 2014 resolutions at all-the highest percentage ever to reveal that in the survey's history. What held them back? Well, 30 percent said they don't believe they make enough money to "worry" about financial planning. That's bizarre. Shouldn't having less money increase your need to manage what you have effectively? Regardless of your situation, I hope you'll engage in the planning process this year-and the sooner you get started, the better.

Singaporean corporations are more naive in their approach to anti-fraud and corruption practices in comparison to the Asia-Pacific average, a survey from global accountancy firm Ernst & Young has found. According to the "Building a more ethical business environment survey," only 17 percent of Singaporean respondents acknowledged that planned investments in new markets will expose the company to new risks, compared to an average of around 35 percent for the Asia-Pacific region. "Companies in Singapore don't necessarily lag behind in terms of anti-fraud and corruption practices; what we found is a disconnect between policies that companies already have in place and the enforcement of those policies," said John Tudorovic, fraud investigation and dispute services partner at Ernst & Young. More Economic News: http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-1023271 https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/forums/html/topic?id=2de7c127-290e-44c8-b929-e5c04fc7f16e&ps=10

Is there anything that big government does well? I mean sure, our military is really pretty practiced at breaking things and shooting people; which (I guess) explains why they are being sent to fight Ebola. (If that logic escapes you, don't worry… I think a lot of us feel that way.) And yeah, the IRS is pretty good at separating me from my hard-earned money; but, then again, so is liberals. We on the right have been asking it for decades… And we still haven't been able to solicit a single honest answer from defenders of of the state. In fact, satire, sarcasm, and a little incredulity, is the general response from our esteemed colleagues on the other side of the ideological divide.