Social Security
Found 257 Articles.
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Anticipating Future Stock Market Returns
Meb Faber summarizes a talk he recently gave about valuations and what they say about likely future returns. He doesn’t make forecasts. He looks at the probabilities of different scenarios and what the returns are likely to be in each of those scenarios. The outcomes aren’t very positive for investment positions taken today. Historical returns […]
Steve Eisman, A Big Short, Gives His Current Views on the Economy and the Stock Market
Steve Eisman is one of the people given credit for seeing the mortgage/housing crisis coming and benefiting from the collapse. He’s been quiet the last few years. But this post describes his latest speech, in which he describes what he thinks is likely to be a good short position and a possible source of a […]
Don’t Rely on the Social Security Administration to give you good Information
The Social Security Administration isn’t doing a good job of advising Americans on their options and how to make the best choices. That shouldn’t surprise any Retirement Watch readers, but it recently was confirmed in a study by the GAO. The government agency studied the information SSA gives to beneficiaries and potential beneficiaries and found […]
The Current State of Stock Rotation: Which Sectors are Hot?
Here’s another sign that the U.S. stock is resuming some normal historic patterns. In normal times, there are rolling bear markets and bull markets within the sectors of the indexes. Some sectors are doing well while others are doing poorly, regardless of what the market indexes are doing. That’s happened since 2014, when the Fed […]
Controversy About Social Security Replacement Rates
I wouldn’t have thought that replacement rates would be a controversial topic, but they’ve become one. Social Security routinely has reported that at median income levels, Social Security retirement benefits replace about 40% of pre-retirement income. The SSA invited criticism, however, when it dropped replacement rates from the latest annual trustees’ report. It turns out […]
Social Security Solvency Slides
The latest annual report from the Trustees of Social Security and Medicare is published, and it’s not positive. Because the economy and tax revenue have been lower than forecast, the trustee are forecasting the fund will “run out of money” in 2034, two years earlier than the previous forecast. These forecasts fluctuate like this from […]
Taxing Social Security Benefits
I call them the stealth taxes because people often don’t know about the taxes before getting bitten by them. One of the stealthiest taxes for retirees is the income tax on Social Security retirement benefits. Some aren’t aware of the tax when they retire. Others are exempt from the tax when they retire and don’t […]
The Long View of Investment Returns
Bill Gross, now of the Janus Funds, wrote in his latest monthly essay about long-term investment returns. First, he pointed out how strong and consistent returns have been during his 40-year career. Despite all the bad events during this period, a long-term chart of most basic investment indexes reflect steadily-rising returns to investors. Even a […]
