The 2nd annual personal finance bloggers conference, FinCon, is going on in Denver, Colorado.

All your favorite bloggers [GC edit: most, I couldn't make FINCON this year] are rubbing elbows, listening to panels, and learning more about how to make their blogs even more impactful for their readers.

I was able to attend FinCon last year and helped record some of the sessions.  I wasn’t able to attend this year, but was still inspired to learn that FinCon participants helped plant trees in a local park in Denver.

When’s the last time you went to a professional conference and did a service project?

Even though they’re all in Denver, here are some great articles from the personal finance community this week:

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The Republican National Convention went off without a hitch in Tampa this week despite tropical storm/hurricane Isaac.

Romney formally accepted the nomination, Clint Eastwood gave a controversial speech, and pundits everywhere found fodder for articles for weeks to come.

An interesting election is headed our way: two styles of government, two different types of (likely to be broken) political promises, and lots of negative ads.  There’s really one winner every four years — the television and radio markets that get all of that political spending thrown their way.

How would you deal with a surge of income every 4 years that had to cover the remaining 3 years of expenses? Here are some articles to help you manage your finances:

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The jury in the Apple vs. Samsung patent lawsuit came out with a stunning verdict this week that awards Apple over $1 billion in damages from Samsung.

This will be boasted about for the weeks to come as a crushing blow to both Samsung and the Android platform in general.

While it is true that it is a bad day for Samsung, it isn’t quite a crushing blow for several reasons.  First, Samsung will appeal.  There are many more court cases to go likely spanning over many, many years.  (Tech legal blogs have something to write about for the next decade, hooray!)  Second, both sides won’t be happy with the result and the Judge’s conduct throughout the case will likely mean they will press to start over.  (Yes, Apple is probably unhappy with $1 billion since they asked for well over $2 billion.)

Thankfully, none of us have done anything that warrants paying someone $1 billion. Here are some articles to help you manage the money you do have:

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The State of New York accepted a $340 million payment from Standard Chartered bank to settle charges it laundered money for Iran.

This surprisingly big news has already been moved to “old news” in the financial press.

Here is why this is a big deal: first, the state of New York has almost a $1 billion budget shortfall this year.  A big payment of $340 million will definitely help fill part of that gap.

Second, it goes to show how impossible it is to monitor every single transaction and track every last cent even from countries under economic sanctions from the United States.

Third, is shows that — at least for now — leadership at this bank can do something incredibly wrong and pay a fee, only to live another day.  (I say at least for now because only the state of New York has settled.  The FBI, SEC, Federal Reserve, and many other government agencies have not, so they aren’t out of the clear yet.)

I never thought a state could solve part of its budget problem by settling charges from people who have done something wrong.  It’s brilliant (and also ticked off the other agencies that were likely still negotiating settlements of their own).

Unfortunately you and I probably can’t settle our budget problems this way, so here are some articles to help you do it the old fashioned way:

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Mitt Romney announced Paul Ryan as his Vice Presidential candidate in the run for the White House this year.

The move is a savvy one — Paul is popular with the tea party, Romney is more mainline Republican.  It is sizing up to be quite the race and as always, quite the nasty one with Super PACs spending millions of dollars on misleading advertising.

There is one guaranteed winner this fall: media outlets like radio stations and TV networks.  They’ll bring in a ton of revenue this year thanks to the election.

Not running a media outlet but still want to get ahead financially this fall?  Here are some articles to help you on your way:

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