The middle class has disappeared. We have a highway to poverty and no roads coming out.

A pile of bills and statements - whether paid or not - is a sign that someone is clueless about what's coming in and going out.

You must recognize, embrace, and be honest about what is real for you today and allow that understanding to inform the choices you make. Only then will you be able to build the future of your dreams.

Remember: If the IRS suspects you haven't reported income, it can challenge returns from the past six years. So if you are self-employed or have multiple income sources, hold on to six years of files to be absolutely safe.

If you didn't have patents, no one would bother to spend money on research and development. But with patents, if someone has a good idea and a competitor can't copy it, then that competitor will have to think of their own way of doing it. So then, instead of just one innovator, you have two or three people trying to do something in a new way.

Online, you can become much more than a reactive donor - you can become a proactive, strategic, collaborative philanthropist, improving your giving every day by tapping into the wealth of philanthropic resources available at the tap of a keyboard or the click of a mouse.

Our American friends offer us money, arms, and advice. We take the money, we take the arms, and we decline the advice.

My relationship with money is that it's a tool to be self-sufficient, but it's not something that is a part of who I am.