Blog Posts by CNBC

By Jessica Wilkins, CNBC.com

Lizzy Playford was running the payroll department of a now defunct production company when the 2008 recession forced her to rethink her career plans.

"It really kicked my confidence and I did not know what to do with myself," 28-year-old Playford told CNBC.

An enterprise grant from the U.K. Prince's Trust helped Lizzy turn her unusual hobbies - fire dancing and stilt walking - into a successful business.

Gender was not a factor when securing financial backing, she said, but running a small or medium-sized enterprise (SME) as a woman nevertheless posed several challenges.

Research by the U.K. government has shown that gender is one of the most likely factors to dictate growth and the success of an SME.

A report by Britain's Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) into ambition among the SME sector found gender to be one of the most powerful "explanatory variables" when it came to an entrepreneur's vision. Women may be "less driven by

By Cadie Thompson, CNBC.com

. Americans were searching for some insight as to just what Mitt Romney meant when he said he went through "binders full of women," during the second presidential debate.

According to Google, the phrase "binders full of women" was one of the top rising searches during Tuesday night's debate.

The Republican's "binder" comment was in reference to a question about equal pay for men and women. He was explaining that while he was assembling his Cabinet as governor of Massachusetts, he went through "whole binders full of women" who were qualified for government positions. Ultimately, he said, Massachusetts had more women in senior leadership than any other state.

While Romney's comment was well intentioned, it has become somewhat of an Internet sensation for all the wrong reasons.

Tumblr and Facebook pages have been created and named after the comment, and the hashtag 'bindersfullofwomen' was a top trend in the U.S. on Twitter.

Barack Obama's Twitter account,

By Katy Barnato, CNBC.com

Declining marriage rates may be harming the U.S. economy, according to a report by brokerage firm ConvergEx, which draws a correlation between fewer couples tying the knot and falling personal income growth.

In a report on Monday, ConvergEx said personal income growth in the U.S. stood at 2.9 percent per year in 2010, under half the 50-year average of 5.9 percent.

The report's authors Nicholas Colas, Beth Reed and Sarah Millar noted marriage rates among the general population have fallen sharply during the same time period, with only 56 percent of American adults currently married, versus 72 percent in 1970.

As a result, fewer men are benefiting from the "marriage wage premium" - the term coined by labor economists to describe the phenomenon whereby married men earn between 10 and 50 percent more than those who are single (the same does not apply for women). Economists disagree as to the reasons why, but some suggest marriage results in lifestyle changes

By Holly Ellyatt, CNBC.com

They say it is a man's world, but perhaps not for much longer as up to one billion women are expected to enter the workplace in the next decade, according to the latest survey from Booz and Co. on women in the workplace.

The report from the global management and strategy consultancy said the surge in women employees, employers, producers, and entrepreneurs in the next 10 years would improve not only gender equality, but global economic growth - however, it also warned that governments could miss out on this potential.

"As the world economy grows and develops, countries cannot afford to ignore over 50 percent of their talent pool," Penney Frohling, business strategist and partner at Booz and Co., told CNBC. "There is a view that countries that are able to tap into that talent pool are going to see higher growth. There is a very clear correlation between empowering women and GDP growth, literacy rates, infant mortality rates."

[More from CNBC: Biggest

By Cindy Perman, CNBC.com

Life moves pretty fast, Cameron. Let's just take your dad's car out for a little spin, OK? (Ferris Bueller's Day Off) In grade school, they called it "playing hooky." As adults, it's referred to as "taking a mental health day." But any way you slice it, there are fibbers among us who call in sick when they're not - three out of 10 to be exact.

I knew it! You weren't really sick, were you?!

Thirty percent of workers admitted to calling in sick in the past year when they were not actually sick, according to a new survey from job site CareerBuilder.com.

CareerBuilder took the research very seriously: They had Harris Interactive conduct the survey, calling on nearly 2,500 hiring managers and HR professionals and nearly 4,000 workers across a range of industries and companies, all in the name of finding out who was sick and who was not. Most of us just make a snide comment at the water cooler or morning meeting and leave it at that.

Nope, not on CareerBuilder's watch. That's dedication!

[More from CNBC: 12 Most Overrated Jobs]

The most interesting part about people calling

By Sharon Epperson, CNBC.com

Markets are increasingly volatile and many investors are more risk averse. But they also may need more guidance.

Financial security trumps investment growth as the most important goal for many investors. Who should you turn to for help in achieving that goal? Securities broker? Investment adviser? Insurance agent?

Accountant?

Finding the right financial professional requires you to focus on your short-term financial needs and long-term financial goals. There is no cookie-cutter approach.

"This is a very personal decision," said Lori Schock, Director of the Office of Investor Education and Advocacy at the Securities and Exchange Commission. "Do you need someone to do your taxes and help you plan for retirement? Do you need a one-time financial plan? Do you like to do your own research and let someone else just validate and give you a second opinion?"

Advice, however, comes at a price.

"You're going to pay fees for all of these services, so you want to

By Dinah Wisenbreg Brin, CNBC.com

On sunny days, Dr. Brad Merritt has watched on the sidelines of his son's sporting events from the shade of his umbrella. The 37-year-old dermatologist, who already has had basal cell skin cancer on his face, is determined to protect himself from the sun.

"Is there any such thing as a safe tan?" asked Merritt, assistant professor of dermatology at the University of North Carolina. "The answer is, `There is not.'"

Despite piles of research on the skin cancer risks of sun exposure and tanning beds, dermatologists and cancer groups struggle to persuade people to protect their skin from ultraviolet rays.

Encouraged by media images and tanning industry marketing showing tans as sexy and healthy, many people - especially teens and young adults - head to the beach, backyard or tanning bed to get that look, notwithstanding warnings and public service announcements about cancer, premature wrinkling and blotchy skin.

Skin cancer is now the most common form

By Robert Frank, CNBC.com



We tend to think of Hermes scarves as being designed by European masters - the giants of Old World painting whose works have been resurrected from the 19th century and splashed onto three-foot slivers of silk.

But many of those scarves, in turns out, are designed by a postal worker near Waco, Tex.
According to a fascinating profile in Texas Monthly by Jason Sheeler, the only American designer of Hermes scarves is a man named Kermit Oliver.

For the past 30 years he has sorted mail on the night shift of the Waco post office. He paints after work, in a 10-foot by 10-foot room he calls his "monk's quarters." (Read more: $1 Million Most Offered as Reward for Missing Art)

His work - which features exotic animals, fruit and surreal scenes of the Old West - was discovered by Hermes in the 1980. Since then, Oliver has designed 16 scarves. His most famous and best selling is the Faune et Flore du Texas, painted in 1987.

Hermes scarf designed by Kermit Oliver. He spends six