How should NASCAR rev up its popularity during a recession? Maybe Bruton Smith has the answer. Smith, the chairman and CEO of Speedway Motorsports, which owns seven racetracks on the Sprint Cup circuit, recently ruminated about three-time defending champ Jimmie Johnson at a media event. "Great guy," he said. "He's a neighbor. I like him a lot. I like his wife. But if Jimmie would just get out of his car and go over and slap somebody one time, that ...

You can tell right away when a magician loses his touch. Even if the tricks work, you see the effort involved. Barack Obama was traveling the US this week, trying to pull more than $800 billion out of his hat to boost the economy. It worked and the Congress is preparing to give him the money for an enormous stimulus plan that has become a test of his new administration. But for the first time in months, Obama lost his ...

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has unveiled a new plan to combat the financial crisis: convincing private financial institutions to buy up "toxic assets" with the government's backing. While this is a step up from former Secretary Henry Paulson's original bailout plan—in which the government itself would buy up the bad securities—it is still not the right approach. Instead, there is a better, cheaper, less risky, more direct way to improve banks' balance sheets and restore confidence. Here's how: ...

Casino gambling is part of the American Dream. "The World Series of Poker" gets better ratings than the Super Bowl. But, even the gaming industry is in trouble. The people who have visions of making millions on one roll of the dice are out of work Dow Jones reports that the overall take on the Las Vegas Strip was down 23% to $474 million in December. The madness of gambling is based on the belief that either the player ...

Author Beth Teitell has decided to take on the malady that often afflicts American women: "Fear of looking our age." Teitell, who is 47 and writes regularly for the Boston Globe, spent a year exploring the American obsession with youth — the Botox Industrial Complex — for her new book, Drinking Problems at the Fountain of Youth . TIME Reporter Andrea Sachs caught up with Teitell by phone at her home in Boston. Why did you decide to ...

Luis Caplan served the poor of the South Bronx for decades out of a small medical office. His leg was amputated after a bout with cancer in 1990, yet he continued to work for another five years. Now, his savings has nearly been wiped out because of the economic crisis. At the age of 71, he faces losing his apartment if things don't change soon. The government bailed out the big institutions, but "what happens to the little people," ...

Pedro Pablo slowly folds up his American flag blanket and stuffs it in his duffel bag. With it goes his American dream. "I left my family and lost four years with them. I will ask them to forgive me," he said. Pablo is an illegal immigrant from Guatemala who came to the United States to support his wife and five sons back home. When he arrived, construction jobs were plentiful. Over the last year, he says, he's worked three days. ...