I’m Reading…Nice quick piece today in the Wall Street Journal about the proposed “Obama IRA”:
WSJ: Breaking Down the Obama IRA
It’s been a while since I’ve written a personal finance-related post, but this move towards fixing our retirement savings policies in the United States is the most promising since 2005.
Here are the basics of the Obama IRA, [...]
Filed under: Economics, Personal Finance | 2 Comments »
Of all the unexpected outcomes that have come out of my blogging experiment here on WordPress, one of the most surprising has been the amount of attention I received for a post on why I like investing in timber.
Why I love Timber as an Asset Class (November 10, 2006)
Since then, from time to time, the [...]
Filed under: Blogging, Economics, Personal Finance | Tagged: PCL, timber | Leave a Comment »
This is actually news from last week, but Google announced that they are repricing their employee stock options.
John Batelle has fairly representative coverage on his blog. His post cites coverage from Adam Lashinsky at Fortune (a personal favorite as a journalist) with a fairly typical dig on the issue. Here’s the actual quote:
One last item [...]
Filed under: Economics, Google, Personal Finance | 4 Comments »
I haven’t posted here to date on the Bernie Madoff scandal. No sense writing a huge amount on the topic at this point – it’s been well covered elsewhere. Let’s just summarize my feelings as:
We will never see an end to Ponzi schemes, because they work.
This exposes some of the flaws in the fund of [...]
Filed under: Entertainment, Personal Finance | Tagged: Bernard Madoff | 1 Comment »
Caught this article on Seeking Alpha on Wednesday on the problems with using inverse ETFs. It reminded me of a topic that I’ve debated quite a bit with Elliot Shmukler over the past two years, and have been meaning to write about here on the blog.
Since I haven’t commented much on personal finance topics lately, [...]
Filed under: Economics, Personal Finance | 1 Comment »
With rates plummeting these days, many people are choosing to refinance. My family falls into that bucket, as we refinanced our home almost five years ago (2004) at the low, low rate of 4.5% for a 5/1 mortgage. (In case you are curious, we ended up getting a 5/1 because while 30-year rates were also [...]
Filed under: Economics, Personal Finance, Silicon Valley | 3 Comments »
There wsa a good article in today’s WSJ (requires subscription) describing the unique point we hit today in the bond market. Some durations of US Treasury bonds are now actually paying negative interest, -0.01% in some cases.
Investors around the world are stuffing their money into a mattress — otherwise known as the U.S. Treasury-bond market.
Fund [...]
Filed under: Economics, Personal Finance | 2 Comments »
The price of gold has dropped below $700 an ounce, and that has a lot of people in the precious metals community puzzled.
After all, isn’t gold supposed to be a safe haven in times of financial depression and panic? And if these aren’t times of financial depression and panic, what are?
After all, every country in [...]
Filed under: Coins, Economics, Personal Finance | 10 Comments »
I have a special attachment to Saturday Night Live, since it debuted the same year I was born. This skit is genius, and summarizes the best financial advice you are going to get this year.
It’s called:
Don’t Buy Stuff You Can’t Afford
Scene: a typical American kitchen. A husband (Steve Martin) and wife (Amy Poehler) are puzzling [...]
Filed under: Economics, Entertainment, Personal Finance | 1 Comment »
Interesting timing on a post from Lifehacker today:
LifeHacker: How to Create Your Life Plan
The article points to a blog post by Michael Hyatt, CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers. The post from Michael is extremely detailed about the system he’s used for the past five years to guide his life (not just career, but life) on [...]
Filed under: Blogging, Personal Finance | Leave a Comment »
Vanguard had a funny announcement today that I had to comment on (from Vanguard.com):
Vanguard announces share split for three exchange-traded funds
June 04, 2008 – Vanguard announced today a two-for-one split of shares of Vanguard® Total Stock Market ETF (VTI), Vanguard Emerging Markets ETF (VWO), and Vanguard Extended Market ETF (VXF). The conventional shares of the [...]
Filed under: Economics, Personal Finance | 4 Comments »
OK, normally I stay away from posts that could be perceived as political. But it’s hard to comment on economic issues in the heat of this intense primary season without venturing into those dangerous waters.
I’m going to try to be careful here not be too specific about any candidate or their plans. I felt, however, [...]
Filed under: Economics, Personal Finance, Politics | 3 Comments »
Thank goodness, I was getting worried there.
For a while, Paul Krugman was making more and more sense to me. It had me worried, because I remember distinctly feeling more and more alienated by his commentary in the past 5+ years. But since I don’t follow him that closely, the reasons why were fading from memory.
This [...]
Filed under: Economics, Personal Finance | Leave a Comment »
There has been a lot of sensationalist talk in the past two weeks since the Bear Stearns acquisition by JP Morgan Chase. I’ve seen editorials slamming the Fed for doing too little, for doing too much, for not acting soon enough, and for acting at all.
However, I’ve seen pitifully few articles that actually explain the [...]
Filed under: Economics, Personal Finance | 2 Comments »
Caught this in yesterday’s news:
Morgan Stanley has teamed up with Van Eck Global to launch currency exchange-traded notes offering exposure to the Chinese renminbi and the Indian rupee. The Market Vectors – Chinese Renminbi/USD ETN (NYSE Arca: CNY) and Market Vectors – Indian Rupee/USD ETN (NYSE Arca: INR) are the first exchange-traded products to offer [...]
Filed under: Economics, Personal Finance | Leave a Comment »
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Adam Nash Sunnyvale, CA |
