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By and large, I think Suze Orman is great. She provides a great service in telling people with little in way of assets how to preserve them. But, I watched her recent presentation on PBS as part of their fundraising effort, and she was giving one piece of advice that is just dead wrong in the current rate environment.

One of the principal reasons for many to hold an Amex card is going away.

Chase is now offering 60,000 points to those who open the Ink Plus card and charge $5,000 within 3 months. While this offer is shy of its recent 70,000 point offer, Chase is now waiving its $95 annual fee for the first year for those opening the card in a branch location.

Capital One is currently offering a 6 month promotional rate of 1.25% on new savings accounts opened at branches in New York, New Jersey, the District of Columbia, Virginia, Maryland and Texas with balances between $10,000 and $1 million.

TD Ameritrade is currently syndicating a 6 year callable step-up CD issued by JP Morgan Chase. The CD represents perhaps the most transparent "heads I win, tails you lose" offering available, and should be avoided.

BestCashCow.com, the most comprehensive bank rates website on the internet, unveils its Best Bets for 2015.

CDs, in particular many online five year CDs, are a safe option in the current interest rate environment.

For a limited time, Chase has raised the sign-up bonus for its Ink Plus card, giving 70,000 bonus points when you spend $5,000 in the first 3 months.

Until October 15, EverBank is offering a 3 year product that gives investors the opportunity to participate in the upside of a basket of 5 currencies (Russia, India, China, Brazil and South Africa) in what it calls a "Marketsafe CD". This product really is not a CD, but rather is an inappropriate investment for most.

Earnest is a Silicon Valley start-up that has launched to offer consumers unsecured loans with rates as low as 4.25% APR. Loans are up to $30,000.

Historically, the wealthy and near wealthy have been prompted by brokerages like Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch to eschew CDs in favor of high grade municipal bonds. While the advice of the major brokerages has a self-serving function (they generate commissions on their clients’ municipal bond trades, but lose assets under management when a client withdraws cash to purchase a CD), it has also been very sound advice. The competitive market in CDs and rapid decline in long term interest rates has now made intermediate term CDs much more attractive.

Cardinal Bank is offering a special 3-year CD that pays 1.67% APY. That's higher than any of the online CDs and one of the highest CD rates for that term anywhere in the country.

Can variable annuities make sense even if you are not in the highest tax bracket? This article is going to focus on non-qualified annuities, and in particular whether the cost of the annuity is justified based on the insurance company guarantees and tax-deferral, as well as some potential emotional advantages of annuities.