Retirement Watch Weekly
The European Crisis and Aging Populations
Many people argue that an aging population (one where older people are a higher percentage of the population) leads to lower economic growth. George Friedman of Stratfor.com disagrees. He says there’s no reason an aging or shrinking population has to lead to lower growth. As long as technology and capital are available to adjust, growth […]
Against Passive Investing
Martin Whitman of Third Avenue Funds and the rest of his team spend a lot of time in their 2014 Fourth Quarter shareholder letters explaining why deep value investing such as theirs is better for investors than passive index investing. They point out that passive investing becomes more popular after long bull runs, such as […]
Profiling a Successful Investor
Here’s a profile of a great investor most never heard of. He runs the investment portfolio for Travelers’ Insurance and has done a splendid job. The portfolio and profile are full of surprises. Investing for a conservative insurer is much like investing for a retiree, so many of you can learn a bit from the […]
Two Schools of Investing
Two hedge fund honchos had a conversation at a conference in New York recently, and Forbes reported on this conversation between Bill Ackman and Ray Dalio. The two contrasted their very different but successful investing approaches. The bottom line is that Dalio worries about a lot of things these days while Ackman is less worried. […]
Proposed Changes in Medicare
The President plans to change Medicare fairly dramatically over the next few years. Currently, about 20% of Medicare payments are made through one of the trial or experimental payments system. These system try something other then the traditional fee-for-service model under which there is an incentive for more treatment, tests, and other activity, none of […]
Teaching the Kids About Money
Americans in general are financially illiterate. Even people who are financially secure often arrived there by accident and make a lot of mistakes about finances. For years, the academic world’s been studying this situation and looking for better ways to teach youngsters about money. Here’s a story about one result. (Subscription might be required.) Their […]
February 2015
February 28, 2015 04:45 p.m. Your Retirement Finance Week in Review You still can attend my talk tomorrow to the local Washington, D.C. chapter of the AAII (American Association of Individual Investors) You can find details here. Greece finally was on the backburner this week. The country presented some reform proposals to European officials that […]
Estate Tax Tricks, Traps for Married Couples
Too many married couples are making a big mistake. They believe current estate tax law exempts them from having to plan or consider estate tax implications in their plans. That misunderstanding could lead to problems. While the estate tax law enacted in early 2013 has many benefits, you need to know how to maximize them. Two […]
