Uneven Erosion You’re routinely told that inflation is your worst long-term enemy to your financial health. Inflation gradually, slowly reduces the value of your retirement dollars, which is why, if your money sits in your mattress, it will buy less when you take it out than it did when you put it in. But inflation […]
IRMAA’s Rise Higher income retirees cannot be faulted for thinking that Washington has a hand in their pocket. In 2018, the Medicare Access And CHIP Reauthorization Act lowered the threshold on which Medicare recipients pay an income-related monthly adjustment amount (IRMAA) to their Medicare Part B premiums. Previous to this year, the highest premium kicked […]
Sunny Weather Forecast Economists and traders pay a lot of attention to something that probably doesn’t keep you up at night: the FOMC Minutes, or, in English, the summary of the discussion among decision-makers on the Federal Reserve Board, known as the Federal Open Market Committee. What do they discuss? The health of the U.S. […]
How To Get More Sleep Chances are, you don’t get enough sleep at night. According to Matthew Walker, of UC Berkeley’s Sleep and Neuroimaging Lab, most of us get about four to six hours of actual sleep, which is not the seven to nine hours we need. What to do? Walker says that […]
Medicare’s Future Several items that everybody seems to be overlooking in the recent budget deal signed by President Trump are potentially-significant changes to how Medicare is administered. First on the list is the elimination of Medicare’s independent payment advisory board, authorized under the Affordable Care Act to serve as a check on higher […]
Global Optimism Most people tend to be optimistic about the future, and 2018 is apparently no exception. An online survey conducted by the Ipsos organization in 28 different countries found that 76% of global citizens think 2018 will be a better year than 2017. Overall, Latin Americans are the most optimistic this year and Europeans […]
Perspective on Today’s Market Events It looks like the U.S. stock market will finally get something that happens, on average, about once a year: a 10+% percent drop—the definition of a market correction. The last time this happened was a whopper—the Great Recession drop that caused U.S. stocks to drop more than 50%–so most people […]
Should We Be Alarmed? Suppose somebody came up to you and shouted: “I have terrible news about the economy. I think you should sell your stocks!” Alarmed, you say: “Oh, my God. Tell me more!” And this mysterious stranger shouts: “Run for the hills! The American economy just added 200,000 more jobs—more than expectations—and the […]
Worker Wealth Decline You hear a lot about the so-called “trickle-down effect” that lower corporate taxes will trigger, and also a lot about the decline in wealth of the middle class of American workers over the years. A recent Harvard Business School report suggests that there HAS been an erosion in the income of American […]
Your Spying Phone You like your privacy, don’t you? But do you own a cell phone? A recent article in Science News magazine suggests that there are so many sensory features built into today’s smartphones that we’re all in danger of prying eyes, ears and other senses watching our every move. Does this actually happen? […]
