Pensions assume an average rate of return of 7.5%. That’s not the future we’re going to be living in, especially with a diversified portfolio. Read what Mr. Kim has to say at the end of this article and you can see how clueless leadership is about the problem. Having a front row seat to the pension mess in Rhode Island, I can tell you it’s simply a game of chicken—no side is ever going to give an inch. There will be pain. Here’s the article from the Financial Times: The US public pension system has developed a $3.4tn funding hole that will pile pressure on cities and states to cut spending or … [Read more...]
As Good as Gold
Spot gold up 16.9% YTD. … [Read more...]
Taxes: How does Your State Stack Up?
The Tax Foundation releases a bunch of great reports each year on the differences in state taxation. Finding out where your state ranks can be encouraging, or depressing depending on your local politics. Recently, the Tax Foundation released a great compilation of many of its reports. The Facts & Figures 2016: How Does Your State Compare? report details a large number of different state tax policies, allowing you to do a deep dive on your state's rules, and to compare them to the other states in the country. Read the report here: [gview … [Read more...]
Gold/Silver Ratio Looks Good for Silver
The Fed has bailed out the market. For now that is. Which is why I’ve been spending more of my research time at the Blanchard and Company, Inc.’s websites. Dick Young has an account with Blanchard and knew the company's founder Jim Blanchard well. Compared to gold, silver hasn’t looked this good in a while. The price of an ounce of gold is at 81.6 times the price of an ounce of silver today. That follows one of the fastest divergences between the prices of the two metals in history. … [Read more...]
The Real POP in Investment Returns, Part II
You knew this was coming. Back in February 2010 I wrote to you about Putnam Investments’ full-page colored ad in the WSJ touting their new Absolute Return Funds. I viewed it as a money gathering scheme that would lag the market. Turns out I was right, as noted in this week’s follow-up in the WSJ. Putnam Investments took a bold step several years ago in naming each of its four “absolute return” mutual funds for a specific performance target. But the Boston asset manager hasn’t often delivered on the funds’ aims of beating the return on cash by one, three, five or seven percentage points a … [Read more...]
What I Have Learned from Dick Young
You’ve got mail. It’s always nice to get a gem of an email from a client. E.J. If there is anything I have learned from Dick Young, the most important thing is that it is all about compounding. Please note the attached advertisement from Taylor Cadillac which posted in the latest issue of the Self-Starter, the monthly magazine of the Cadillac-LaSalle Club. This classic example backs up everything Dick has always taught us in his writings. Please pass the article on to him. Regards to Becky and the kids. Happy Easter. … [Read more...]
$15 Minimum Wage California Scary
This is scary, and under-reported. California's governor Jerry Brown and legislators have given the state's unions what they want, with a promise to raise the state's minimum wage to $15/hour over six years. FoxBusiness.com reports: The deal, if passed in the state legislature and signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown, would add to a wave of minimum wage increases at the state level in the United States, where the federal minimum wage has remained at $7.25 an hour for more than six years. The agreement, as reported by the Los Angeles Times and the Sacramento Bee, would gradually raise the … [Read more...]
Your 8% Retirement Yield
In the March 2016 issue of Richard C. Young's Intelligence Report, Dick Young wrote that if you want to achieve an 8% long-term yield for your retirement, you must start now. You indeed can achieve 8% as a long-term yield goal for your retirement years, but you need to get started now. There is little time to waste. I am going to show you how to construct an actual "Retirement Ark." You have not read about such a plan before because only a minority in the investment industry thinks long term for clients. For most, it is all about action, trading, breaking news, taking profits and hot stories. … [Read more...]
Recession and the Stock Market
Dick Young writes in the most recent issue of Richard C. Young's Intelligence Report: If you have been with me for a while, you've read two of my most recent issues—Embrace Russia, Ditch the Saudis and Turks and Crack! You're in Your Tomb (about the real threat of an EMP attack knocking out America's power grid). Well, there is more, much more, to be concerned about. Young Research subscribes to a $50,000/year European database that allows us to gauge the turning points in the economic and monetary cycles that underpin the financial markets. Many months ago, I concluded that the American … [Read more...]
This Fed Policy has cost Savers Billions
A study of Federal Reserve policy has shown that savers have lost billions thanks to misguided actions by the Fed. CNBC reports: Various academic studies have shown that the low interest rates have pushed even more money into mattresses as savers have sought to make up for not getting returns by putting away more money. The overall savings rate went from 3.3 percent in 2006 to 5.2 percent in 2016, according to research from NerdWallet, a personal finance information site. NerdWallet took those rates, then applied them to average disposable personal incomes and used as a baseline a $25,000 … [Read more...]
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