Retirement Watch Weekly
The Waltons and the Estate Tax
The Walton family of Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart, continues to grow wealthier. This counters the history of most families. The usual path is for family wealth to shrink after the generation that earned it passes on. This post from Bloomberg.com details some of the ways the Waltons have avoided or reduced estate and gift […]
What’s Wrong with Stock Indexes and Index Investing
I’ve never been a fan of index investing or benchmarking a portfolio against an index. Passive investing is a different animal in my mind, and certain types of passive investing can be effective. Here’s another explanation of the problems with stock indexes, and it is consistent with views I expressed in the past. There are […]
Why the Government Didn’t Save Lehman Brothers
The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in 2008 triggered the worst of the financial crisis and almost caused a collapse of the financial system. I wrote a few months later that it was a major turning point, and the economy and markets were frozen until sometime after the Fed started quantitative easing in May 2009. People […]
Why Gold Prices Should Decline
The price of gold moves with supply and demand. There aren’t many fundamentals, because industrial demand for gold tends to be steady while demand from investors and households fluctuates. India and China tend to be big household buyers of gold, and expanding middle classes in those countries were given credit by some analysts for the […]
The Future of Retiree Medical Insurance
IBM shocked a lot of people when a late Friday report in The Wall Street Journal said the company was ending all retiree medical insurance once Obamacare kicks in. Instead of finding and paying for insurance coverage for its retirees, IBM will tell its retirees to seek their coverage on one of the new insurance […]
A Classic Failed Estate Plan
Louis Feil wasn’t widely-known, but he was a successful, prosperous real estate owner and developer in New York City. He expanded the operation, so the family owns properties well beyond New York. He died in 1999 with the intention of keeping the business in the family. One son, who already was running the business, was […]
September 2013
September 27, 2013 06:30 p.m. Your Retirement Finance Week in Review You can look for interest rates to decline in coming months. Most investors and analyst concluded from the Fed’s taper talk in May and June that interest rates were on an endless upward rise. Markets pushed rates substantially higher. The Fed didn’t have to […]
Discovering Discounts for My Readers
The easiest way to increase your standard of living or extend the life of your nest egg is to save money. Reducing the cost of anything keeps more money in your pockets. You can spend the savings on other things or keep it invested to generate more money for the future. Time put into creating […]
