Analysis Topic: Personal Finance
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Tuesday, April 29, 2014
Retirement Kitchen Table Economics / Personal_Finance / Pensions & Retirement
What is it about retirement that causes confident, successful businessmen and -women to lose that edge when they invest their own life savings? Many otherwise dynamic people become virtually impotent in the face of retirement investing. I have many friends who were very effective in business—folks who made sound decisions affecting how millions upon millions of dollars were spent. They would gather the facts, make a plan, and make the right call with confidence. Whywas it so taxing for these same friends to manage their personal retirement accounts?
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, April 28, 2014
The World's Biggest Pension Fund Just Made a Huge Bet / Personal_Finance / Pensions & Retirement
Peter Krauth writes: On numerous occasions, I've told you to remain on lookout for threats to your savings, including the proposed new MyRA account.
If you've been counting on your pension, whether from work or even Social Security, you may want to revise those plans, as most are way underfunded.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
Puerto Rico Is the Only Way to Escape US Taxes / Personal_Finance / Taxes
By Nick Giambruno, Senior Editor, International Man
When I hear about strategies that purport to legally allow US citizens to avoid having to pay income taxes, the first thing that usually comes to mind is that it is some sort of cockamamie scheme.
This is because the US government is no slouch when it comes to shaking down its citizens for every penny. The mind-boggling spending on welfare and warfare policies necessitates this. It would be dangerously foolish in the extreme to think you could slip one past them.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
Do Not Let The Next Economic Downturn Leave You Penniless / Personal_Finance / Investing 2014
Doug Casey is emphatic that a downturn will affect us all. When it comes, we want to minimize the damage. That’s particularly challenging for baby boomers and seniors who may be at, or past, the end of their careers.
In the past I’ve shared some experiences from speakers who had real world experience with hyperinflation. It is not pretty. They were quite candid that many previously wealthy seniors and savers ended up penniless before things got under control. That’s the ultimate catastrophic loss.
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, April 18, 2014
Tesco Profits Panic! Back to Back £5 Off £40 Shop Voucher Promotions / Personal_Finance / Shopping
Tesco, Britain's giant supermarket chain is once more reeling following its latest trading results that reveal another bad year with profits slumping by 7% as the discount chains such as Aldi and Lidl continue to consume King Tesco's market share that fell to a 10 year low of 28.6% that sows the seeds for the market leader ultimately to join the ranks of has been's such as Morrisons that has been floundering in the supermarket wilderness for over a decade now.
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, April 17, 2014
10 Ways to Screw up Your Retirement / Personal_Finance / Pensions & Retirement
There are many creative ways to screw up your retirement. Let me show you how it’s done.
Supporting adult children. My wife Jo and I have friends with an unmarried, unemployed daughter who had a child. Our friends adopted their grandchild and are now in their late sixties raising a kid in grade school. The same daughter had a second child, and they adopted that one too. When she announced she was pregnant a third time, they finally said, “Enough! It’s time for a third-party adoption.”
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, April 15, 2014
How I Intend to Survive the Meltdown of America / Personal_Finance / Social Issues
By Louis James, Chief Metals & Mining Investment Strategist
It is with a troubled heart that I look at the continued fighting in eastern Ukraine. I worry about my friends and students in the country who may well be in physical danger soon, if the conflict escalates. As an investment analyst, it’s the financial war the Russians seem quite willing to wage that has my attention.
It should have yours as well.
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, April 10, 2014
Escape the Toy Trap / Personal_Finance / Shopping
The toy trap: we all have friends who’ve fallen in. I received a wave of emails after publishing Debt: The Last Social Taboo?, all sharing similar sad stories. Author Dave Ramsey summed up the problem best: “We buy things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t like.”
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, April 10, 2014
Puerto Rico's Tax Benefits—More than 'The Better Florida' / Personal_Finance / Investing 2014
Puerto Rico promises to now do for Americans what Singapore and Hong Kong have done for bankers and businessmen from London. In this interview with The Gold Report, three experts with in-depth knowledge of the pros and cons of living and investing in Puerto Rico share what it is like on the ground for investors.InternationalMan.com Senior Editor Nick Giambruno and Casey Research Chief Technology Investor and Puerto Rico resident Alex Daley join Sterne Agee's Managing Director of Equity Research Todd Hagerman in clearing up some of the confusion about this "misunderstood" island and why the tax benefits for Americans make it "The Better Florida."
Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, March 30, 2014
Never Loan Money to Your Friends and Family / Personal_Finance / Debt & Loans
"Never loan money to your friends. It's a good way to lose your money... and your friend."
A friend of mine owed me a lot of money...
I gave my friend Jack a personal loan a few years ago, as he was starting his own business.
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Newcastle BS Pulls 2.9% Fixed Cash ISA, Coventry and Leeds Currently Offer Best ISA's / Personal_Finance / ISA's
Newcastle BS has pulled its market beating 2.9% 5 year fixed rate cash ISA that in my opinion amounted to the best cash account for some 18 months for the reason that it behaved more like a higher interest paying instant access rather than a typical fixed rate account.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
The Three Stooges Debunk myRA Retirement Plans / Personal_Finance / Pensions & Retirement
A little skit ran through my head the other day…
The house lights dimmed and the bright American flag glistened in the background. The crowd hushed as a tall man in a strange costume strode confidently onto the stage.
Curly turned to Larry and Moe and exclaimed, "Oh my, that's our favorite—Uncle Sam, our boyhood hero." Moe put his finger to his lips as if to say "Shhh!"
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, March 20, 2014
Pensions Annuity Freedom Prompts Vultures Stock Price Crash - Budget 2014 / Personal_Finance / Pensions & Retirement
George Osbourne announced "Let me be clear, no one will have to buy an annuity. People who have worked hard and saved hard all their lives, and done the right thing, should be trusted with their own finances.", and with that statement the annuities vultures stock prices crashed by as much as 55% as time is now up for all of the pension funds financial blood sucking vampires as illustrated by life time accumulated savings being forced to be converted (lost) into annuities in return for a pittance in annual payments, which was the reason why for so many retirees annuities have amounted to nothing more than a scam where the pensions industry sales pitch promises never materialise.
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
Budget 2014 Cash ISA Allowance Near Tripled to £15,000, Current Best ISA / Personal_Finance / ISA's
The Coalition government has finally acted to correct a huge disparity in the ISA market of savers being forced to split their annual ISA allowances between Cash and Shares ISA's by allowing savers now to use the whole of their annual allowance towards a cash ISA rather than the existing 50/50 split between cash and shares, as investing in shares has never been suitable for the vast majority of savers given that they are a high risk asset class that certainly never deserved a 50/50 portfolio allocation. Even for highly experienced stocks investors such as myself tend to experience sleepless nights when portfolio allocations approach 30% of assets let alone 50%. Therefore for most investors the stock market and floating bonds should never really go above an approx 15% allocation (including pension funds) with the bulk of the rest made up by property and cash (including fixed bonds).
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, March 13, 2014
Why Unemployment Rates Matter to Your Retirement / Personal_Finance / Pensions & Retirement
My biological clock is ticking—as is yours and everyone else's. With each passing day, you are either moving closer to or further past the day you quit working full time. Baby boomers are retiring at a rate of 10,000 per day and will continue to do so for the next 17 years. Whether you count yourself among that group or not, understanding where economic data—such as unemployment rates and inflation—come from will make you a better investor and savvier retiree.
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Newcastle BS 2.9% Best Current Fixed Rate Cash ISA March, April 2014 / Personal_Finance / ISA's
The zero interest rate catastrophe for savers including Cash ISA depositors continues to persist for as long as the Bank of England can get away with government debt monetization and support of the bankrupt banks (Co-op the current bank teetering on the brink of collapse) via unlimited funding scheme that is now approaching its 2nd full year of the collapse in savings interest rates that began in May 2012 and soon accelerated into sub inflation rates of systemic theft as illustrated by the table below which shows the cash ISA rates offered by apparently the often reported on best buy accounts of the Halifax mega-bank that in reality crashed in response to the Bank of England's Funding for Lending Scheme that started in July 2012.
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, March 06, 2014
Maximizing Your Retirement Planning IRA / Personal_Finance / Pensions & Retirement
As working folks get closer to hanging up their spurs, it is easy to become overwhelmed. When should you take Social Security? What type of insurance do you need? Should you buy an annuity? Do you need nursing home insurance? Should you roll over your 401(k) into an IRA? The list goes on and on.
Retirement planning requires many irreversible decisions. We each need to get it right; however, what is right for us is not always right for someone else. And, in addition to basic number-crunching, we each make assumptions about life and politics—sometimes without even realizing it.
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, February 27, 2014
The Ty Cobb Approach to Retirement Investing / Personal_Finance / Pensions & Retirement
When baseball fans talk about players from the early 1900s, Babe Ruth is normally the first person mentioned. He was a great home-run hitter with 714 career home runs, a record that stood for almost 40 years. Only two men have surpassed it. Ruth struck out 1,330 times—a record that also stood for several decades.
Most people think of Ty Cobb as a gritty player who held the career stolen-base record for many years. But let’s look a bit deeper. Ty Cobb broke into major-league baseball in 1905 at the age of 19 and hit .240 his first season. For the next 23 seasons, he hit over .300.
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, February 13, 2014
Are Your Bank Savings Safe From Bail-Ins? / Personal_Finance / Credit Crisis 2014
I know you thought you’d seen some crazy stuff, but it’s going to get better, promise!
On the one hand you have Greek politicians claiming their economy is doing so well, they’ll present the troika with a big feel good surprise. On the other, Greek unemployment reached a new high at 28%, with youth unemployment now at 61.4%. That’s almost 2/3 of young people. What is to become of them?
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Retirement Investing, Why 65 Is Not a Magic Number / Personal_Finance / Pensions & Retirement
Is retirement really all it's cracked up to be? The answer depends on where you find yourself financially, emotionally, and health-wise come age 65 or so.
When we're young, we trade time for money and hope to stash away enough of it to later reverse the process and trade money for time. Ideally, we'd each have a few decades of independence before the grim reaper—or assisted living facility—comes knocking.
Read full article... Read full article...