Update 7/20/2018: With news out today of a terrifying knife attack on a bus in Berlin, I want readers to revisit this post I wrote on May 15, 2018 about a knife attack in Paris. “Did you hear the gun shots?” a friend asked. “No,” I said. When the knife attack occurred, we, like many other families on a Saturday night in Paris, were out to dinner. In fact, we didn’t learn about the attack until much later. In retrospect, I’m surprised no one at our restaurant told us about it or warned us. Part of me believes they knew the situation was under control and didn’t want to ruin our night or … [Read more...]
Pensions are Still Hiding from the Truth
You can never save too much of your own money. As I wrote here on January 22, 2018, the pension funds many Americans are depending on are gambling with their money. For years I've been writing about how badly pension funds have been ignoring reality when it comes to return expectation (read a sample of these posts here, here, and here). Funds have a choice to make when they set their return expectations, they can: Shoot low, and require governments or companies to put more funding aside to fund the pensions, or Shoot high and gamble on having strong enough returns to make up for … [Read more...]
The Problem With Mutual Funds Today
One of the problems facing long-term, patient investors using mutual funds and ETFs is that many of their fellow investors are traders. It’s why we favor individual stocks where you call the shots. Asjylyn Loder reports in The Wall Street Journal on the volatile nature of fund flows, writing: BlackRock said Monday it received $20 billion in net inflows in the second quarter. While the sum is enormous, it was down from more than $100 billion a year ago. BlackRock is the world’s largest asset manager and a bellwether of low-cost index-based investing. BlackRock isn’t alone: For the first six … [Read more...]
Your Retirement Life: 1972 DeTomaso Pantera, A Coyote in Wolf’s Clothing
Here’s a wonderful story about my friend Marty Quadland and the rebirth of his 1972 DeTomaso Pantera: “A Coyote in Wolf’s Clothing,” featured this month in Hot Rod: Following retirement, Quadland realized a dream of his and moved west to the mountains of Wyoming. In preparation, he downsized considerably, selling his SCCA race cars, several motorcycles, and a late-model exotic, and, for the first time, he considered selling the Pantera. His son intervened, however. “I saw the look on my son’s face when I told him I might sell it,” he recalls. “He thought the Pantera would be his someday. I … [Read more...]
RAGE Gauge July: America the Satisfied?
Over the last month, Americans’ perception of risk hasn’t changed much. One factor of their perceived risk is at a very low level though, their dissatisfaction with their country. For over a decade now Gallup’s poll of American dissatisfaction with the country has been 61% or higher. Not since August of 2005 have only 60% of Americans been dissatisfied. That changed with this month’s survey results. For the first time in 13 years, dissatisfaction dropped down to 60%. Satisfaction is also the highest it has been since 2005, at 38%. Not since September of 2005 have Americans been so … [Read more...]
Your Retirement Life: How Do You Know Where to Live in Retirement?
If you are like many soon-to-be-retirees in America, you're looking forward to getting away from your cold, northern, probably-high-tax state and settling down in retirement in a southern locale with low taxes and warm winters. But, how can you know where you'll like it best in your Golden Years? (for information on choosing a low-tax state, see the Richardcyoung.com Liberty & Freedom Map here). Last month I encouraged you to do some A/B testing. Live short-term or spend a vacation in some of the places you'd potentially move to during retirement. Without actually staying there for a … [Read more...]
How do Millennials’ Finances Stack up Against Gen-X?
Researchers at the St. Louis Federal Reserve were tired of trying to decipher contradictory evidence on Millennial finances, so they decided to run their own study. The researchers compared Millennials' 2016 finances to (same age) Gen-Xer finances in 2001 to get an idea of their relative financial well-being. Here are the key takeaways from the study: Millennials and Generation X were the youngest working generations in 2016 and 2001, respectively. How do their balance sheets compare? Because of fewer assets and more debt, millennial households had an average net worth of about $90,000 … [Read more...]
Conagra to Buy Pinnacle Foods: Is this the Beginning of a Mega-Consolidation?
News broke yesterday that Conagra Brands will buy Pinnacle Foods, tying together two midsize American food brands. The big companies selling food in America have been having trouble, and it's worth considering if this may be the first step in what may be a necessary consolidation of the industry. The WSJ Logistics Report explains: Big Food is getting even bigger. Conagra Brands Inc. will pay $8.2 billion to buy Pinnacle Foods Inc., doubling down on frozen foods and taking a new step toward resetting food supply chains in a fast-changing market. The deal would create a conglomerate with about … [Read more...]
State Tax Update: Are Yours Going Up?
On this site, I regularly highlight the good and bad of states' tax structure (read here, here, here, here, and here for starters). I want business owners, investors and retirees to have the best information possible in order to make their decisions about where to operate, live, and retire. Now, The Tax Foundation has released an update on state tax changes set to take effect on July 1. Some of these changes could be consequential to your income, purchasing power, or business operation. Take a look and see if any of these changes will affect you. From Morgan Scarboro and David Raymond at … [Read more...]
RAGE Gauge June: The Trump Economy
We can thank President Trump for unleashing the animal spirits that have been key to this economic resurgence: Business Owners of America Unite! And we may be seeing just the beginning of the economic growth to come. But, from an investment standpoint, especially for those in or near retirement, it continues to be a sticky situation. Do you put more money into a bull market that is long in the tooth only to have it ripped in two with a nasty correction? Or, do you take the high road and suffer along with two percent rates, gritting your teeth, as your nephew talks about cryptos? Continue … [Read more...]
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