By KATHLEEN PENDER, San Francisco Chronicle

It would seem inconceivable if it didn't happen so often: highly paid celebrities and athletes going broke.

Despite having one of the most lucrative careers in show business, Michael Jackson reportedly died $400 million in debt. Ed McMahon narrowly avoided foreclosure on his home before he died last week.

Consumer groups are exhilarated by President Obama's proposal to create a strong, independent agency that would regulate virtually all consumer credit, savings and payment products offered by U.S. banks and non-bank financial institutions.

Ally Bank, formerly GMAC Bank, has chopped the rates it offers on certificates of deposit since the American Bankers Association complained to regulators in late May that the government-controlled bank was paying too much.

When I was growing up, my parents insisted that we not talk about our vacation plans in public, lest someone overhear and break into our house while we were gone.

Congratulations: You've graduated from college.

Now for a real-world test: finding health insurance.

Unless you have a job with health insurance lined up, you need to get your own coverage.

The federal government and some banks are trying to make it easier for stressed homeowners to sell their home for less than they owe, a transaction known as a short sale.

This month the Treasury Department said it is creating a streamlined, industry-wide process for short sales and will pay bonuses to certain borrowers, loan servicers and second-lien holders to do them.

Now more than ever, everything's negotiable.

Thanks to the slow economy, Americans are asking for -- and usually getting -- lower prices on a wide variety of goods and services.

A new poll by Consumer Reports found that more than 66 percent of Americans have tried to negotiate a better deal in the past six months, usually with great success.

Thanks to the recession, swine flu, lower fuel prices and a stronger dollar, this summer will be the cheapest in years to take a domestic or foreign vacation.

"I see bargains almost everywhere," says travel writer Ed Perkins. "It's really a buyer's smorgasbord out there."

Will Chrysler's bankruptcy and a possible bankruptcy filing by General Motors help or hurt Ford, the only U.S. automaker that has not accepted a government bailout?

Congress is working on a compromise to the estate tax that would eliminate the incentive to keep dying people on respirators until next year.

Under current law, the estate tax will disappear in 2010, then rise from the dead in 2011 in a gruesome state: Estates of more than $1 million per person would be taxed at rates as high as 55 percent.