Archive for March, 2011
« Previous Entries Next Entries »Meet Mr. Shah…
Friday, March 11th, 2011I wanted to highlight this story that was included in the article I mentioned in my previous post. Morari Shah, a 59-year-old Miami entrepreneur and real-estate investor, is among those taking a radical approach to reducing debts. Since late 2008, he and his wife have slashed their total debt from nearly $1 million to zero [...]
Household Debt Dropped in 2010. Too Bad A Big Portion of It Was Due to Defaults
Friday, March 11th, 2011From today’s WSJ: U.S. families—by defaulting on their loans and scrimping on expenses—shouldered a smaller debt burden in 2010 than at any point in the previous six years, putting them in position to start spending more. Total U.S. household debt, including mortgages and credit cards, fell for the second straight year in 2010 to $13.4 [...]
From the WSJ: Helping Kids Learn to Set Goals
Thursday, March 10th, 2011I like stories like this: Making Kids Work on Goals (And Not Just In Soccer) A student’s ability to set and achieve realistic goals is linked to higher grades, lower college-dropout rates and greater well-being in adulthood. In a recent study in the Journal of Applied Psychology, college students who completed an intensive written exercise [...]
An Idea I Don’t Like: Variable Annuities Inside a 401(k)
Wednesday, March 9th, 2011Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal had a special retirement planning section. One of the articles was about using annuities during retirement to boost income and decrease volatility. One of the stable annuities for doing that is a fixed immediate annuity. I don’t have a problem with fixed immediate annuities because they are usually inexpensive, easy to [...]
Hourly Wages 1979 – 2009
Wednesday, March 9th, 2011From the Congressional Budget Office’s report, Changes in the Distribution of Workers’ Hourly Wages Between 1979 and 2009, comes this wage chart: This really shouldn’t surprise anyone. Wages are largely due to supply and demand. Since the population has increased over the years, the supply of labor has increased too. Regarding the slope of the [...]
The 50 Richest People in America and Their Political Contributions
Tuesday, March 8th, 2011I went through the 50 richest people in the Forbes 400 Richest People in America list and tracked their political donations just to see how they stack up. Here is what I found out: NOTE: Some political contributions spanned several years. I used the total amounts given and ignored the years in which they were [...]
How to Spot a Shoplifter
Monday, March 7th, 2011I took my boys to the mall this Saturday to get haircuts. While I was waiting, I walked down to Books-A-Million to look around. I spent a few minutes looking around and then as I was about to leave the store, I noticed two kids. They weren’t really doing anythign suspicious but I still had [...]
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