George Graham Rice? Never heard of him. Who is he? A century ago, though, he was a famous flamboyant scammer, a pied-piper of stock manipulation.

While incarcerated for the third or fourth time, he wrote a series of periodical articles that eventually coalesced into a book. As with other scammers, Rice was brazen, even boastful about his felonious escapades. He wryly entitled his book My Adventures with Your Money.

Most of my readers are familiar with small towns in Iowa that have longstanding family-owned businesses, such as family eateries. Grandparents, parents, and children may own and work in these restaurants. They often have loyal employees that are “part of the family.” These owners may be unable to afford to pay their workers much more than $10 per hour, to say nothing of the proposed $15 per hour minimum wage.

After months of dreary experimentation in her basement, Dr. von Frankenstein, PhD, has concocted an effective antidote and vaccine for a deadly virus sweeping the United States. She files and receives a patent for her discovery.

There’s a new way marketers are getting young people to fork over their money. The new tactic revolves around consumers making four payments of one-quarter the retail price of an item (Amanda Mull, “Jeans Now, Pay Later,” Atlantic, January/February 2021, 18-20). This is just the old come-on--“Buy now, pay later”—in a new guise.

By anyone’s estimation, the recently deceased Vernon Jordan was a “mover and shaker.” A commentary on his life referred to him as, “a civil-rights leader, Washington insider, Wise Man, power broker, deal maker, rainmaker, Wall Street banker and, as an interviewer put it a few years ago in the Financial Times, ‘the most connected man in America (Peggy Noonan, “America Loses a Wise Man,” Wall Street Journal, March 6-7, 2021, A13).’” Whew!

Understanding personal finance is a luxury where Sharnae Lamar (Finance and Economics, ’16) grew up. On the east side of Des Moines, Lamar says there aren’t many people who know how to manage money, invest, grow income — so when she had the opportunity to go to college, business was of interest.