Lita Epstein
Florida - http://www.litaepstein.com

Lita Epstein, who earned her MBA from Emory University’s Goizueta Business School, enjoys helping people develop good financial, investing and tax planning skills. While getting her MBA, Lita worked as a teaching assistant for the financial accounting department and ran the accounting lab. After completing her MBA, she managed finances for a small non-profit organization and for the facilities management section of a large medical clinic. She’s written over 20 books including "Trading for Dummies," "Reading Financial Reports for Dummies" and "Complete Idiot’s Guide to Improving Your Credit Score."

This post is part of our feature on Money Losers of 2008. See all 20.

Back in the early 2000s, Spitzer was the champion of investors battling evil on Wall Street, and he was much more aggressive than the SEC. The SEC finally got mad and asked that Spitzer coordinate his efforts with them. I doubt many of the investigations that Spitzer led in the early 2000s would ever have happened if he waited around for the SEC to act. He was even named "Crusader of the Year" in 2002 by Time magazine.

Spitzer used the points he won as a popular New York State Attorney General to win the governor's race, but things quickly went downhill. First there was the scandal involving his aides who attempted to embarrass Republican state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno because of the use of state aircraft. Then Spitzer lost more popularity when he made it easier for illegal immigrants to get driver's licenses.

But being named as Client 9 in a prostitution ring took him down. Investigators found out about the ring when they followed the money after seeing funds moving from his accounts in a suspicious manner. In the end it was reported that Spitzer spent $80,000 on prostitutes. A measly sum when you consider the other money losers in this year's nominations. But for Spitzer it's more about losing power than losing money.

Sadly, he proved his own words to the BBC is 2006, "Everyone is susceptible to the notion that when you begin to do well, you begin to see no boundary lines and forget the rules apply."

Be sure to check out more Money Losers of 2008.

This post is part of our feature on Money Winners of 2008. See all 20.

Think you could live comfortably on $23 billion? That's what each of the four Walton heirs live on today thanks to the company built by their father or father-in-law Sam Walton -- Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT). Walton heirs were beat out by only three other billionaires for the top spot on the Forbes 400 Richest Americans list in 2008 -- William Gates, Warren Buffett, and Lawrence Ellison.

Only two of the Walton heirs have anything to do with the company from which they get their riches. S. Robson Walton is chairman of the board and he has served on the Wal-Mart board since 1978. Jim Walton is a member of the board, which he joined in 2005. Alice and Christy Walton, who are not involved in the running of Wal-Mart, do get the richest women in America title thanks to their Wal-Mart holdings. The Walton heirs recovered from a rough spot in 2006 when their stock holdings dropped to $18 billion and they fell to 17 to 20 on the Forbes list.

So who are are Walton heirs?

Jim Walton ($23.4 billion and #4 on the Forbes list), son of Sam Walton, is 60 years old and married with four children (future Walton heirs). He lives in Bentonville, Ark., and chairs the Arvest Bank Group. He got his BA at the University of Arkansas. He joined the Wal-Mart board in 2005.

Companies that contributed millions to the Republican and Democratic conventions got a very quick payback this year -- billions in bailout money. Some of the major bailout beneficiaries that gave money for the conventions include AIG (NYSE: AIG), Ford (NYSE: F), Citigroup (NYSE: C), and Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS), according to USA Today.

More than $115 million were given to the nominating conventions for Barack Obama and John McCain according to reports released by the Campaign Finance Institute and the Center for Responsive Politics. Private financing of conventions is one of the few ways big corporations can give big bucks to influence political favors.

So who's benefiting and what do they get back:

• American International Group Inc. gave $750,000 to both the Democratic convention in Denver and the Republican convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul. Its payback: $150 billion financial-rescue package.
• Citigroup gave a total of $600,0000 in allowable donations with $250,000 of that going to the Democratic convention. Its payback: tens of billions in bailout funds.
• Goldman Sachs spent $505,000 on the conventions, including $255,000 for the Republicans. Its payback: $10 billion in bailout money.

This post is part of AOL Money & Finance's Best & Worst in Money 2008 feature.

The year 2008 brought the word "greed" to new levels with major companies going bankrupt thanks to the greed of their top execs, who were more worried about lining their own pockets than about the interests of their customers and shareholders. This greed also helped to fuel the housing bubble that burst and sent home prices falling in what seems like an unending downward spiral. As the financial news continues to worsen, it's hard to pick the biggest money story of the year. We've pulled together our top four picks, and it's up to you to vote on the biggest money story of the year.

Here are our top four picks in alphabetical order:

Collapse of Wall Street
The world hasn't seen so many Wall Street firms go bust since the Great Depression, and we seem to be teetering on the edge of another worldwide depression. Top Wall Street execs pocketed millions, and in some cases, billions of dollars thanks to sales of complex financial instruments that it appears no one truly understood (or if they did understand their toxic natures they perpetrated a huge fraud on the investors who bought them). Now these same executives pocket millions in golden parachutes as they leave the firms they destroyed. And, while they enjoy their millions, investors, customers and employees of these now defunct or badly bruised firms face destroyed careers and/or portfolios.

This post is part of AOL Money & Finance's Best & Worst in Money 2008 feature.

Consumers took it in the chin so many times this year, it's surprising many of us are still standing. Consumer credit for student loans, mortgages, car loans and just about everything else dried up completely by October. Oil prices soared, drained our pocketbooks, and then dropped like a stone after doing the damage. Food prices continue to soar as the prices for our homes and the value of our retirement funds plummet. So how does one decide, which is the most disturbing consumer trend? Let's look at our top four picks, presented in alphabetical order.

Americans with good credit struggling to get loans at favorable rates
While rates are starting to come down thanks to the latest bailout by the Fed, good deals are hard to find. Most banks are hoarding their cash and only lending it out to those with credit scores over 760. Even then, rates are not that favorable. You can only think about applying for a mortgage or equity line if you have at least 90 percent equity in a home that has probably lost value and, in most cases, you must have 80 percent equity to get a home loan. How can the U.S. stop the downward spiral in home values until credit is available for qualified buyers?

This post is part of AOL Money & Finance's Best & Worst in Money 2008 feature.

In a year of financial chaos, how can one even narrow the choice of most shocking financial collapse to just five candidates? Financial collapses took down venerable Wall Street firms and government enterprises. Even an entire country fell on the weight of this worldwide financial storm. There were so many financial casualties that the task to narrow this down to just five was difficult. We have chosen these five and placed them in alphabetical order.

Bear Stearns
Bear Stearns held a respected place on Wall Street dating back to before the Great Depression, but in March 2008, this once-respected Wall Street firm was bought by JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) for just $2 per share (or about $236 million). The stock price had been $36.75 on March 14, 2008 -- just two days before the JPMorgan deal was struck. Bear Stearns had been the most aggressive player in packaging and selling mortgage-backed securities, and their hedge funds were heavily loaded with the junk they sold. Many saw the fall of Bear Stearns as justice because it was the only major Wall Street bank that did not work with the Fed and participate in the $3 billion bailout of Long Term Capital Management in 1998. Payback is a bitch.

• Banks were warned exotic mortgages were often inappropriate for buyers with bad credit. Anyone surprised about that?
• Banks that bundled and sold mortgages were told to be sure investors know what they were buying. We know that's not true. AAA ratings were given to much of this debt that proved to be of much lower quality and much more risky.
• Regulators urged banks to help buyers make responsible decisions and clearly advise people that interest rates might skyrocket and huge payments might be due sooner than expected. Do you believe that mortgage brokers or banks clearly warned people about the dangers of the loans they were taking? I don't.