Chances are that you know that the Social Security trust fund is due to run out of money or “deplete its reserves” by the year 2035. Fixing social security depends on some forecasts, including economic growth, number of workers who remain in the workforce and the number who retire. The clear point is that Congress […]
Luck or Skill? There’s an ancient question in the investment markets, which is affecting the marketplace in a variety of ways: is an active manager’s investment performance the result of luck or skill? The layperson’s answer would be obvious: anybody who has expertise and works hard at something should, eventually, produce results superior to what […]
Sometimes the popularity of a particular investment is driven by unexpected forces. One example, is the so-called SALT (state and local tax) limitation that was imposed in the recent tax legislation, which basically says that you can only deduct $10,000 on your federal tax return for state taxes, including state income and local property […]
We’ve been hearing for years that the Social Security trust fund will run out of money in 2034, and a close reading of the Social Security Administration’s Trustee Report projections ( https://www.ssa.gov/oact/TRSUM/ ) show what this would mean. The Estimates By that time, based on estimates of the number of people earning an income […]
Shifting Economic Balance Ever wonder how the balance of the world stock markets have changed over the last 120 years? Here’s a really interesting snapshot (see graphic), which shows the size of many countries’ stock markets at the beginning of the 1900s (as a percentage of the total), and as of the start of this […]
Work History When you hear that the workplace of the future is going to dramatically change (due to automation and artificial intelligence), do you ever wonder how the jobs picture has changed over the past 165 years? Recently, the McKinsey Global Institute pored over old records dating back to 1850 and thereafter, to […]
Skyrocketing Student Loans- While some are worried about the rapidly growing U.S. national debt, others are looking at a different debt bomb that is slowly ticking in American households. Debt by Americans age 19 to 29 years old exceeded an astonishing $1 trillion at the end of last year, the highest exposure for the group […]
Buried in a recent report by Fidelity Investments was some remarkable news. Last summer, the mutual fund and retirement plan provider noted that there were more than a million people with more than $1 million in their 401(k) accounts. Then December hit, wiping out almost 20% of the value of the S&P 500 index, with […]
Chances are, you already know it’s expensive to raise a family in this day and age. But exactly how much over the 20 years until your kids reach the age of maturity? A recent analysis by the EverQuote organization estimated various costs for two parents plus a son and daughter for normal costs like housing, […]
Virgin Group founder and self-made billionaire Richard Branson dropped out of school at the age of 16 to start Student Magazine, and later founded Virgin Records—and a few other businesses along the way. Over time and various blog posts, he has recorded some thoughts on how to be successful in business and in life, apparently […]
