This should really be a no-brainer. The key to making any business successful is sustainability. Having a successful launch and making a ton of money at the onset is great. But nothing lasts forever, except perhaps diamonds if you ask Sir Ian Fleming, who incidentally was never officially Knighted, a fact I just found out now while researching this article. Anyway, back on track. That initial run of business (and resulting...

Inflation has been in the news regularly lately, a consequence of the ongoing global recession. Inflation is an important metric for central banks and investors to measure, as it gives some insight into the actual value of an given currency. Because inflation impacts wages and prices at the same time, the biggest concern is not the purchasing power for average people on point-of-sale purchases (though that is what is often...

You would think that the demise of one competitor in an industry would leave the remaining companies in a better position – that, for example, Borders’ bankrupty would be good news for Barnes and Noble, or the collapse of Circuit City would strengthen Best Buy. But that’s not what’s happened in these cases – Barnes and Noble continues to struggle to transfer its once-mighty earnings potential to the Nook digital...

I find debt to be a terrifying word, and with good reason. To anyone who's in it for themselves to earn money their own way, the idea of owing a dime of it to someone else, be it a person or worse, a corporate entity, should be anathema. Abhorrent. Sickening. The worst thing about debt, is that few people realize just how unbelievably easy it is to get into it,...