If you've been socking away money into a regular Individual Retirement Account, you're probably staring at a sizable stash. Which leads to a very important question: When can you get your hands on it?

The short answer is: Whenever you want.

The smart answer is: Hold off as long as you can.

There are two critical ages with a regular IRA. At 59 1/2, the government allows account owners to make withdrawals without penalties. You can take as much or as little as you like -- whenever you like. At the end of the year, you

At the age of 70 1/2 (defined in government speak as the April 1 following the year you turn 70 1/2), you must start taking money out of your regular IRA. That's because the government doesn't get its money -- income tax -- until you make withdrawals from your account, and it wants to give you plenty of time to spend every dime.

If you have a Roth IRA -- in which the tax was paid before the money went into the account -- no such rules apply. You can keep building a Roth for as long as you like.

Before 59 1/2

Many people don't realize that the government also will allow you to take money out of a regular IRA

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The number of new people signing up for unemployment benefits last week shot up to the highest level in more than two years, fresh evidence of the damage to a national economy clobbered by housing, credit and financial crises.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that new applications filed for unemployment insurance jumped by a seasonally adjusted 38,000 to 407,000 for the week ending March 29. The increase left claims at their highest point since Sept. 17, 2005, following the blows of the devastating Gulf Coast hurricanes.

"This report supports the view that the jobs market is deteriorating toward recessionary conditions," said T.J. Marta, a fixed-income strategist at RBC Capital Markets.

The latest snapshot of labor activity was worse than economists had anticipated. They had predicted claims would be much lower, around 365,000.

In other economic news, the Institute for Supply Management said the nation's service sector -- including retailers, hotels, insurance companies and other firms -- contracted in March but not as much as the month before. The institute's index registered 49.6 last month, compared to 49.3 in February. A reading below 50 indicates contraction, while a reading above 50 indicates growth.

On Wall Street, investors took the latest batch of economic news in stride. The Dow Jones industrials

This is just my opinion... so don't be mad at me.

Alan Schwartz is full of it. There is no way, shape or form Bear Stearns can and would go out of business just because of rumors. Give me a break. You cannot go out of business unless you put yourself in the position to go out of business. Bear Stearns made HUGE BAD BETS. Case closed!

The latest pin cushions are the short sellers. Lehman is full of it. Cramer is full of it. One is just making an excuse. The other is just making an excuse for horrible stock picking and horrible market timing. Bottom line...SHORT SELLERS are a small lot. SHORT SELLERS do not cause stocks to go down. In fact, it is the opposite. If a stock wants to go up it goes up in spite of the shorts and squeezes the short sellers. If I owned a public company and I knew things were going well, I would welcome all the shorts. They cannot drive prices down like these people say. So blame the short sellers for your stock price. Don't blame:

Funds leveraging up - some over 30-1.

Lenders actually enabling these funds by giving them the money to leverage.

Lenders giving money to people who couldn't make the first payment.

Borrowers who took the money even though they knew they could not make the first payment.