Heart disease and cancer took more lives in 2020 than COVID-19 With all the publicity surrounding the coronavirus pandemic, you might be surprised to learn that COVID-19 was only the third leading cause of death in the U.S. in 2020 (claiming an estimated 340,000 lives), behind cancer (599,000) and heart disease (691,000). But those statistics [...]
Good news on the soon to be post-COVID economy You already know that the U.S. stock markets are constantly testing all-time highs, and part of the euphoria is the idea that we may soon get our lives back. But is there any solid economic data to back it up? Recent Commerce Department data offers better [...]
Is your new car keeping you from reaching your retirement goals? It’s easy to emphasize the here-and-now over something that may not affect you for decades to come. But when that “something” is as significant as your retirement, this lifestyle shift calls for some level of planning early on. This phenomenon is a huge reason [...]
Every year the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) releases its list of tax scams, spotlighting the myriad ways that people try to separate you from your money. 12 Tax Scams to Watch For Identity Theft Using your personal information, an identity thief can file a fraudulent tax return and claim a refund. If you’ve been a [...]
Many of us have been locked down for more than a year. We’ve cancelled vacations, restaurant visits and in-person schooling. More than 500,000 of our loved ones across the country have passed away. Is there any good coming out of the COVID pandemic? Anything at all? Turns out, there is. The messenger RNA immunization technology [...]
You might wonder what you get in return for your tax dollars. The question isn’t so far-fetched; after all, the government collects those taxes—theoretically, at least—in order to give you back a comparable value in services like police protection, education, infrastructure and a social safety net. Are we getting what we pay for? A recent [...]
Retirement planning for women can look a little different than it does for men. Although stereotypes are changing, women are still more likely to serve as caretakers than men are, meaning they accumulate less income and benefits due to their time absent from the workforce. Research shows that 39% of women took a significant amount [...]
In this day and age, it seems like reading is becoming a thing of the past, what with podcasts, TED talks and YouTube videos becoming more popular vectors of information and entertainment. But a growing body of scientific literature suggests that the benefits of reading actual books may be more important than we realize for [...]
Someday, maybe before long, it will become normal again to get on a plane, and the more daring of us might even decide to travel outside the United States. But as we ease back into long-distance vacations, there is going to be an uneasy period where there are greater than normal numbers of cancellations, delays [...]
There may be an inflation driver hidden in one of the most interesting consequences of our year-long global pandemic. Americans stuck in their homes have sent off a surge of orders from factories all over the world, namely in China. These items are carried across the Pacific in intermodal shipping containers (think: the back of [...]
