Next time you hear an economist or denizen of Wall Street talk about how the "American economy" is doing these days, watch your wallet.
There are two American economies. One is on the mend. The other is still coming apart.
The one that's mending is America's Big Money economy. It's comprised of Wall Street traders, big investors, and top professionals and corporate executives.
The Big Money economy is doing well these days. That's partly thanks to Ben Bernanke, whose Fed is keeping interest rates near zero by printing money as fast as it dare. It's essentially free money to America's Big Money economy.
Free money can almost always be put to uses that create more of it. Big corporations are buying back their shares of stock, thereby boosting corporate earnings. They're merging and acquiring other companies.
And they're going abroad in search of customers.
Thanks to fast-growing China, India, and Brazil, giant American corporations are racking up sales. They're selling Asian and Latin American consumers everything from cars and cell phones to fancy Internet software and iPads. Forty percent of the S&P 500 biggest corporations are now doing more than 60 percent of their business abroad. And America's biggest investors are also going abroad to get a nice return on their money.
So don't worry about America's Big Money economy. According to a Wall Street Journal survey released Thursday, overall compensation in financial services will rise 5 percent this year, and employees in some businesses like asset management will get increases of 15 percent.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average is back to where it was before the Lehman bankruptcy filing triggered the financial collapse. And profits at America's largest corporations are heading upward.
But there's another American economy, and it's not on the mend. Call it the Average Worker economy.
Last Friday's jobs report showed 159,000 new private-sector jobs in October. That's better than previous months. But 125,000 net new jobs are needed just to keep up with the growth of the American labor force. So another way of expressing what happened to jobs in October is to say 24,000 were added over what we need just to stay even.
Yet the American economy has lost 15 million jobs since the start of the Great Recession. And if you add in the growth of the labor force -- including everyone too discouraged to look for a job -- we're down about 22 million.
Or to put it another way, we're still getting nowhere on jobs.
One out of eight breadwinners is still out of work. Most families in the Average Worker economy rely on two breadwinners. So if one out of eight isn't working, chances are high that family incomes are down compared to what they were three years ago.
And that means the bills aren't getting paid.
According to a recent Washington Post poll, more than half of all Americans -- 53 percent -- are worried about making their mortgage payments. This is many more than were worried two years ago, when the Great Recession hit bottom. Then, 37 percent expressed worry.
Delinquency rates on home loans are rising. Distressed sales are up as a percent of total sales.
Most people in the Average Worker economy own few shares of stock, if any. Their equity is in their homes. But with all the delinquencies and distressed sales, the housing market has a glut of homes for sale. As a result, home prices are still dropping. So the net worth of most Americans is still dropping.
And even though interest rates are falling, most people in the Average Worker economy can't refinance their homes. They can't get home equity loans. Banks don't want to lend to the Average Worker economy because people in it are considered bad credit risks. They still owe lots of money, their family incomes are down, and their net worth has fallen.
And according to the Reuters/University of Michigan survey of American consumers, expectations about personal finances are at an all time low.
Inhabitants of the Big Money economy are celebrating Republican wins last week. They figure financial regulations will be rolled back, environmental regulations will be canned, the Bush tax cut will be extended to the top 1 percent, and it will be harder for workers to form unions.
Inhabitants of the Average Worker economy aren't so sure. The economy has been so bad they're angry at politicians. They showed their anger at the ballot box. They took it out on incumbents.
But if nothing changes in the Average Worker economy, there will be hell to pay.
Robert Reich is the author of Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future, now in bookstores. This post originally appeared at RobertReich.org.
Some weeks, there’s just too much to write about. This is one of those weeks. [Notice that I've fixed the grievous typo; no need to tell me about it again!] Not only is my brain percolating with my own ideas for articles, but the internet is abuzz with interesting stories about personal finance. Pity the blogger with a ton of material!
Rather than waste time with a long intro, I’m going to jump right in. Here are some recent articles you folks have sent me, or that I’ve found through my own web surfing:
Earlier this week, I sang the praises of index funds. If you’re interested in index funds, but don’t know where to start, you may want to consider ETFs, or exchange-traded funds. Nearly all ETFs are index funds, but they’re traded like stocks. Confused? Kiplinger’s has an informative article on how to make ETFs work for you. This isn’t just a light-weight breezy piece; it contains solid info.
Elsewhere, that lovable curmudgeon Warren Buffett is at it again. He has a talent for making both liberals and conservatives angry. In this case, Buffett says that the rich should be paying higher taxes. “Taxes for the lower and middle class and maybe even the upper middle class should even probably be cut further,” Buffett told ABC News. “But I think that people at the high end — people like myself — should be paying a lot more in taxes. We have it better than we’ve ever had it.”
Next, GRS reader Brendan Quinn sent me a link to presentation he recently gave to fellow students at Boston College. In his talk entitled Your Money: Buy Anything You Want, Guilt-Free, Brendan covers what he calls the three rules of personal finance:
- Spend less than you earn.
- Make the money you have work for you.
- Prepare for the unexpected.
I think it’s great to see college students taking the initiative to teach each other about financial literacy. Great work, Brendan!
Last week, The New York Times published a story about Nick Martin, who inherited $14 million ($10 million after taxes) in 1998. “But as so often happens to those lucky enough to realize the American dream of sudden riches,” writes Geraldine Fabrikant, “the money slipped through the Martins’ fingers faster than they ever imagined.” I used to mock folks who squandered sudden riches like this (and there are countless similar tales), but lately I’m more sympathetic. As Flexo at Consumerism Commentary wrote about this story, “It’s easy to be judgmental. The internet is a place where armchair quarterbacks feel comfortable. Very few people know what would happen if the same situation — an unexpected windfall — occurs to them.”
Finally, here are two recent articles from USA Today. Cindy Perman has a long (and controversial) piece about Americans dying with debt. Many boomers have little saved for retirement. But more than that, the article reports that “nearly 40% of retired Americans said they’ve accumulated credit-card debt in their twilight years — and aren’t worried about paying it off in their lifetime”. In happier news, here’s a short piece about a homeless Arizona man who returned a backpack containing $3300 cash and a laptop. Now, that is an awesome story.
There are plenty of other great stories in my stack, but this is already one of the biggest “Spare Change” round-ups I’ve ever posted. We’ll call this good for now.
bench craft company rip off
This Week in Credit Card <b>News</b> - MoneyBuilder - making sense of <b>...</b>
Provided by LowCards.com More Than Eight Million People Drop Out of Credit Card Use More than eight million consumers stopped using credit cards over the past year, according to a new study by TransUnion. The use of general purpose ...
Light Can Generate Lift - Science <b>News</b>
Researchers create a lightfoil that can push small objects sideways.
Congo Siasa: <b>News</b> we missed last week
News I failed to blog on last week: The newly ordained cardinal of Kinshasa, Laurent Monsegwo, arrived in Kinshasa from Rome on Wednesday to huge acclaim. Monsengwo is usually considered to be opposed to Kabila, but rarely takes public ...
bench craft company rip off
This Week in Credit Card <b>News</b> - MoneyBuilder - making sense of <b>...</b>
Provided by LowCards.com More Than Eight Million People Drop Out of Credit Card Use More than eight million consumers stopped using credit cards over the past year, according to a new study by TransUnion. The use of general purpose ...
Light Can Generate Lift - Science <b>News</b>
Researchers create a lightfoil that can push small objects sideways.
Congo Siasa: <b>News</b> we missed last week
News I failed to blog on last week: The newly ordained cardinal of Kinshasa, Laurent Monsegwo, arrived in Kinshasa from Rome on Wednesday to huge acclaim. Monsengwo is usually considered to be opposed to Kabila, but rarely takes public ...
bench craft company rip off
This Week in Credit Card <b>News</b> - MoneyBuilder - making sense of <b>...</b>
Provided by LowCards.com More Than Eight Million People Drop Out of Credit Card Use More than eight million consumers stopped using credit cards over the past year, according to a new study by TransUnion. The use of general purpose ...
Light Can Generate Lift - Science <b>News</b>
Researchers create a lightfoil that can push small objects sideways.
Congo Siasa: <b>News</b> we missed last week
News I failed to blog on last week: The newly ordained cardinal of Kinshasa, Laurent Monsegwo, arrived in Kinshasa from Rome on Wednesday to huge acclaim. Monsengwo is usually considered to be opposed to Kabila, but rarely takes public ...
bench craft company rip off
Esta semana en la tarjeta de crédito <b> Noticias </ b> - MoneyBuilder - sentido de lo que <b> Siempre ...</ b> por LowCards.com más de ocho millones de personas abandonan la tarjeta de crédito utilizar más de ocho millones de consumidores dejaron de usar las tarjetas de crédito durante el año pasado, según un nuevo estudio de TransUnion. El uso de propósito general ...
La luz se puede generar el Levante - Ciencia <b> Noticias </ b> Los investigadores crear un lightfoil que introduzca objetos pequeños hacia los lados.
Congo Siasa: <b> Noticias </ b> que nos perdimos weekNews último que no blog la semana pasada: El recién ordenado cardenal de Kinshasa, Laurent Monsegwo, llegó a Kinshasa desde Roma el miércoles con gran éxito enorme. Monsengwo es generalmente considerado como oposición a Kabila, pero rara vez se toma pública ...
bench craft company rip off
This Week in Credit Card <b>News</b> - MoneyBuilder - making sense of <b>...</b>
Provided by LowCards.com More Than Eight Million People Drop Out of Credit Card Use More than eight million consumers stopped using credit cards over the past year, according to a new study by TransUnion. The use of general purpose ...
Light Can Generate Lift - Science <b>News</b>
Researchers create a lightfoil that can push small objects sideways.
Congo Siasa: <b>News</b> we missed last week
News I failed to blog on last week: The newly ordained cardinal of Kinshasa, Laurent Monsegwo, arrived in Kinshasa from Rome on Wednesday to huge acclaim. Monsengwo is usually considered to be opposed to Kabila, but rarely takes public ...
bench craft company rip off
Next time you hear an economist or denizen of Wall Street talk about how the "American economy" is doing these days, watch your wallet.
There are two American economies. One is on the mend. The other is still coming apart.
The one that's mending is America's Big Money economy. It's comprised of Wall Street traders, big investors, and top professionals and corporate executives.
The Big Money economy is doing well these days. That's partly thanks to Ben Bernanke, whose Fed is keeping interest rates near zero by printing money as fast as it dare. It's essentially free money to America's Big Money economy.
Free money can almost always be put to uses that create more of it. Big corporations are buying back their shares of stock, thereby boosting corporate earnings. They're merging and acquiring other companies.
And they're going abroad in search of customers.
Thanks to fast-growing China, India, and Brazil, giant American corporations are racking up sales. They're selling Asian and Latin American consumers everything from cars and cell phones to fancy Internet software and iPads. Forty percent of the S&P 500 biggest corporations are now doing more than 60 percent of their business abroad. And America's biggest investors are also going abroad to get a nice return on their money.
So don't worry about America's Big Money economy. According to a Wall Street Journal survey released Thursday, overall compensation in financial services will rise 5 percent this year, and employees in some businesses like asset management will get increases of 15 percent.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average is back to where it was before the Lehman bankruptcy filing triggered the financial collapse. And profits at America's largest corporations are heading upward.
But there's another American economy, and it's not on the mend. Call it the Average Worker economy.
Last Friday's jobs report showed 159,000 new private-sector jobs in October. That's better than previous months. But 125,000 net new jobs are needed just to keep up with the growth of the American labor force. So another way of expressing what happened to jobs in October is to say 24,000 were added over what we need just to stay even.
Yet the American economy has lost 15 million jobs since the start of the Great Recession. And if you add in the growth of the labor force -- including everyone too discouraged to look for a job -- we're down about 22 million.
Or to put it another way, we're still getting nowhere on jobs.
One out of eight breadwinners is still out of work. Most families in the Average Worker economy rely on two breadwinners. So if one out of eight isn't working, chances are high that family incomes are down compared to what they were three years ago.
And that means the bills aren't getting paid.
According to a recent Washington Post poll, more than half of all Americans -- 53 percent -- are worried about making their mortgage payments. This is many more than were worried two years ago, when the Great Recession hit bottom. Then, 37 percent expressed worry.
Delinquency rates on home loans are rising. Distressed sales are up as a percent of total sales.
Most people in the Average Worker economy own few shares of stock, if any. Their equity is in their homes. But with all the delinquencies and distressed sales, the housing market has a glut of homes for sale. As a result, home prices are still dropping. So the net worth of most Americans is still dropping.
And even though interest rates are falling, most people in the Average Worker economy can't refinance their homes. They can't get home equity loans. Banks don't want to lend to the Average Worker economy because people in it are considered bad credit risks. They still owe lots of money, their family incomes are down, and their net worth has fallen.
And according to the Reuters/University of Michigan survey of American consumers, expectations about personal finances are at an all time low.
Inhabitants of the Big Money economy are celebrating Republican wins last week. They figure financial regulations will be rolled back, environmental regulations will be canned, the Bush tax cut will be extended to the top 1 percent, and it will be harder for workers to form unions.
Inhabitants of the Average Worker economy aren't so sure. The economy has been so bad they're angry at politicians. They showed their anger at the ballot box. They took it out on incumbents.
But if nothing changes in the Average Worker economy, there will be hell to pay.
Robert Reich is the author of Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future, now in bookstores. This post originally appeared at RobertReich.org.
Some weeks, there’s just too much to write about. This is one of those weeks. [Notice that I've fixed the grievous typo; no need to tell me about it again!] Not only is my brain percolating with my own ideas for articles, but the internet is abuzz with interesting stories about personal finance. Pity the blogger with a ton of material!
Rather than waste time with a long intro, I’m going to jump right in. Here are some recent articles you folks have sent me, or that I’ve found through my own web surfing:
Earlier this week, I sang the praises of index funds. If you’re interested in index funds, but don’t know where to start, you may want to consider ETFs, or exchange-traded funds. Nearly all ETFs are index funds, but they’re traded like stocks. Confused? Kiplinger’s has an informative article on how to make ETFs work for you. This isn’t just a light-weight breezy piece; it contains solid info.
Elsewhere, that lovable curmudgeon Warren Buffett is at it again. He has a talent for making both liberals and conservatives angry. In this case, Buffett says that the rich should be paying higher taxes. “Taxes for the lower and middle class and maybe even the upper middle class should even probably be cut further,” Buffett told ABC News. “But I think that people at the high end — people like myself — should be paying a lot more in taxes. We have it better than we’ve ever had it.”
Next, GRS reader Brendan Quinn sent me a link to presentation he recently gave to fellow students at Boston College. In his talk entitled Your Money: Buy Anything You Want, Guilt-Free, Brendan covers what he calls the three rules of personal finance:
- Spend less than you earn.
- Make the money you have work for you.
- Prepare for the unexpected.
I think it’s great to see college students taking the initiative to teach each other about financial literacy. Great work, Brendan!
Last week, The New York Times published a story about Nick Martin, who inherited $14 million ($10 million after taxes) in 1998. “But as so often happens to those lucky enough to realize the American dream of sudden riches,” writes Geraldine Fabrikant, “the money slipped through the Martins’ fingers faster than they ever imagined.” I used to mock folks who squandered sudden riches like this (and there are countless similar tales), but lately I’m more sympathetic. As Flexo at Consumerism Commentary wrote about this story, “It’s easy to be judgmental. The internet is a place where armchair quarterbacks feel comfortable. Very few people know what would happen if the same situation — an unexpected windfall — occurs to them.”
Finally, here are two recent articles from USA Today. Cindy Perman has a long (and controversial) piece about Americans dying with debt. Many boomers have little saved for retirement. But more than that, the article reports that “nearly 40% of retired Americans said they’ve accumulated credit-card debt in their twilight years — and aren’t worried about paying it off in their lifetime”. In happier news, here’s a short piece about a homeless Arizona man who returned a backpack containing $3300 cash and a laptop. Now, that is an awesome story.
There are plenty of other great stories in my stack, but this is already one of the biggest “Spare Change” round-ups I’ve ever posted. We’ll call this good for now.
bench craft company rip off
This Week in Credit Card <b>News</b> - MoneyBuilder - making sense of <b>...</b>
Provided by LowCards.com More Than Eight Million People Drop Out of Credit Card Use More than eight million consumers stopped using credit cards over the past year, according to a new study by TransUnion. The use of general purpose ...
Light Can Generate Lift - Science <b>News</b>
Researchers create a lightfoil that can push small objects sideways.
Congo Siasa: <b>News</b> we missed last week
News I failed to blog on last week: The newly ordained cardinal of Kinshasa, Laurent Monsegwo, arrived in Kinshasa from Rome on Wednesday to huge acclaim. Monsengwo is usually considered to be opposed to Kabila, but rarely takes public ...
bench craft company rip off
This Week in Credit Card <b>News</b> - MoneyBuilder - making sense of <b>...</b>
Provided by LowCards.com More Than Eight Million People Drop Out of Credit Card Use More than eight million consumers stopped using credit cards over the past year, according to a new study by TransUnion. The use of general purpose ...
Light Can Generate Lift - Science <b>News</b>
Researchers create a lightfoil that can push small objects sideways.
Congo Siasa: <b>News</b> we missed last week
News I failed to blog on last week: The newly ordained cardinal of Kinshasa, Laurent Monsegwo, arrived in Kinshasa from Rome on Wednesday to huge acclaim. Monsengwo is usually considered to be opposed to Kabila, but rarely takes public ...
bench craft company rip off
This Week in Credit Card <b>News</b> - MoneyBuilder - making sense of <b>...</b>
Provided by LowCards.com More Than Eight Million People Drop Out of Credit Card Use More than eight million consumers stopped using credit cards over the past year, according to a new study by TransUnion. The use of general purpose ...
Light Can Generate Lift - Science <b>News</b>
Researchers create a lightfoil that can push small objects sideways.
Congo Siasa: <b>News</b> we missed last week
News I failed to blog on last week: The newly ordained cardinal of Kinshasa, Laurent Monsegwo, arrived in Kinshasa from Rome on Wednesday to huge acclaim. Monsengwo is usually considered to be opposed to Kabila, but rarely takes public ...
bench craft company rip off
This Week in Credit Card <b>News</b> - MoneyBuilder - making sense of <b>...</b>
Provided by LowCards.com More Than Eight Million People Drop Out of Credit Card Use More than eight million consumers stopped using credit cards over the past year, according to a new study by TransUnion. The use of general purpose ...
Light Can Generate Lift - Science <b>News</b>
Researchers create a lightfoil that can push small objects sideways.
Congo Siasa: <b>News</b> we missed last week
News I failed to blog on last week: The newly ordained cardinal of Kinshasa, Laurent Monsegwo, arrived in Kinshasa from Rome on Wednesday to huge acclaim. Monsengwo is usually considered to be opposed to Kabila, but rarely takes public ...
bench craft company rip off
This Week in Credit Card <b>News</b> - MoneyBuilder - making sense of <b>...</b>
Provided by LowCards.com More Than Eight Million People Drop Out of Credit Card Use More than eight million consumers stopped using credit cards over the past year, according to a new study by TransUnion. The use of general purpose ...
Light Can Generate Lift - Science <b>News</b>
Researchers create a lightfoil that can push small objects sideways.
Congo Siasa: <b>News</b> we missed last week
News I failed to blog on last week: The newly ordained cardinal of Kinshasa, Laurent Monsegwo, arrived in Kinshasa from Rome on Wednesday to huge acclaim. Monsengwo is usually considered to be opposed to Kabila, but rarely takes public ...
bench craft company rip off
This Week in Credit Card <b>News</b> - MoneyBuilder - making sense of <b>...</b>
Provided by LowCards.com More Than Eight Million People Drop Out of Credit Card Use More than eight million consumers stopped using credit cards over the past year, according to a new study by TransUnion. The use of general purpose ...
Light Can Generate Lift - Science <b>News</b>
Researchers create a lightfoil that can push small objects sideways.
Congo Siasa: <b>News</b> we missed last week
News I failed to blog on last week: The newly ordained cardinal of Kinshasa, Laurent Monsegwo, arrived in Kinshasa from Rome on Wednesday to huge acclaim. Monsengwo is usually considered to be opposed to Kabila, but rarely takes public ...
bench craft company rip off
Next time you hear an economist or denizen of Wall Street talk about how the "American economy" is doing these days, watch your wallet.
There are two American economies. One is on the mend. The other is still coming apart.
The one that's mending is America's Big Money economy. It's comprised of Wall Street traders, big investors, and top professionals and corporate executives.
The Big Money economy is doing well these days. That's partly thanks to Ben Bernanke, whose Fed is keeping interest rates near zero by printing money as fast as it dare. It's essentially free money to America's Big Money economy.
Free money can almost always be put to uses that create more of it. Big corporations are buying back their shares of stock, thereby boosting corporate earnings. They're merging and acquiring other companies.
And they're going abroad in search of customers.
Thanks to fast-growing China, India, and Brazil, giant American corporations are racking up sales. They're selling Asian and Latin American consumers everything from cars and cell phones to fancy Internet software and iPads. Forty percent of the S&P 500 biggest corporations are now doing more than 60 percent of their business abroad. And America's biggest investors are also going abroad to get a nice return on their money.
So don't worry about America's Big Money economy. According to a Wall Street Journal survey released Thursday, overall compensation in financial services will rise 5 percent this year, and employees in some businesses like asset management will get increases of 15 percent.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average is back to where it was before the Lehman bankruptcy filing triggered the financial collapse. And profits at America's largest corporations are heading upward.
But there's another American economy, and it's not on the mend. Call it the Average Worker economy.
Last Friday's jobs report showed 159,000 new private-sector jobs in October. That's better than previous months. But 125,000 net new jobs are needed just to keep up with the growth of the American labor force. So another way of expressing what happened to jobs in October is to say 24,000 were added over what we need just to stay even.
Yet the American economy has lost 15 million jobs since the start of the Great Recession. And if you add in the growth of the labor force -- including everyone too discouraged to look for a job -- we're down about 22 million.
Or to put it another way, we're still getting nowhere on jobs.
One out of eight breadwinners is still out of work. Most families in the Average Worker economy rely on two breadwinners. So if one out of eight isn't working, chances are high that family incomes are down compared to what they were three years ago.
And that means the bills aren't getting paid.
According to a recent Washington Post poll, more than half of all Americans -- 53 percent -- are worried about making their mortgage payments. This is many more than were worried two years ago, when the Great Recession hit bottom. Then, 37 percent expressed worry.
Delinquency rates on home loans are rising. Distressed sales are up as a percent of total sales.
Most people in the Average Worker economy own few shares of stock, if any. Their equity is in their homes. But with all the delinquencies and distressed sales, the housing market has a glut of homes for sale. As a result, home prices are still dropping. So the net worth of most Americans is still dropping.
And even though interest rates are falling, most people in the Average Worker economy can't refinance their homes. They can't get home equity loans. Banks don't want to lend to the Average Worker economy because people in it are considered bad credit risks. They still owe lots of money, their family incomes are down, and their net worth has fallen.
And according to the Reuters/University of Michigan survey of American consumers, expectations about personal finances are at an all time low.
Inhabitants of the Big Money economy are celebrating Republican wins last week. They figure financial regulations will be rolled back, environmental regulations will be canned, the Bush tax cut will be extended to the top 1 percent, and it will be harder for workers to form unions.
Inhabitants of the Average Worker economy aren't so sure. The economy has been so bad they're angry at politicians. They showed their anger at the ballot box. They took it out on incumbents.
But if nothing changes in the Average Worker economy, there will be hell to pay.
Robert Reich is the author of Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future, now in bookstores. This post originally appeared at RobertReich.org.
Some weeks, there’s just too much to write about. This is one of those weeks. [Notice that I've fixed the grievous typo; no need to tell me about it again!] Not only is my brain percolating with my own ideas for articles, but the internet is abuzz with interesting stories about personal finance. Pity the blogger with a ton of material!
Rather than waste time with a long intro, I’m going to jump right in. Here are some recent articles you folks have sent me, or that I’ve found through my own web surfing:
Earlier this week, I sang the praises of index funds. If you’re interested in index funds, but don’t know where to start, you may want to consider ETFs, or exchange-traded funds. Nearly all ETFs are index funds, but they’re traded like stocks. Confused? Kiplinger’s has an informative article on how to make ETFs work for you. This isn’t just a light-weight breezy piece; it contains solid info.
Elsewhere, that lovable curmudgeon Warren Buffett is at it again. He has a talent for making both liberals and conservatives angry. In this case, Buffett says that the rich should be paying higher taxes. “Taxes for the lower and middle class and maybe even the upper middle class should even probably be cut further,” Buffett told ABC News. “But I think that people at the high end — people like myself — should be paying a lot more in taxes. We have it better than we’ve ever had it.”
Next, GRS reader Brendan Quinn sent me a link to presentation he recently gave to fellow students at Boston College. In his talk entitled Your Money: Buy Anything You Want, Guilt-Free, Brendan covers what he calls the three rules of personal finance:
- Spend less than you earn.
- Make the money you have work for you.
- Prepare for the unexpected.
I think it’s great to see college students taking the initiative to teach each other about financial literacy. Great work, Brendan!
Last week, The New York Times published a story about Nick Martin, who inherited $14 million ($10 million after taxes) in 1998. “But as so often happens to those lucky enough to realize the American dream of sudden riches,” writes Geraldine Fabrikant, “the money slipped through the Martins’ fingers faster than they ever imagined.” I used to mock folks who squandered sudden riches like this (and there are countless similar tales), but lately I’m more sympathetic. As Flexo at Consumerism Commentary wrote about this story, “It’s easy to be judgmental. The internet is a place where armchair quarterbacks feel comfortable. Very few people know what would happen if the same situation — an unexpected windfall — occurs to them.”
Finally, here are two recent articles from USA Today. Cindy Perman has a long (and controversial) piece about Americans dying with debt. Many boomers have little saved for retirement. But more than that, the article reports that “nearly 40% of retired Americans said they’ve accumulated credit-card debt in their twilight years — and aren’t worried about paying it off in their lifetime”. In happier news, here’s a short piece about a homeless Arizona man who returned a backpack containing $3300 cash and a laptop. Now, that is an awesome story.
There are plenty of other great stories in my stack, but this is already one of the biggest “Spare Change” round-ups I’ve ever posted. We’ll call this good for now.
bench craft company rip off
This Week in Credit Card <b>News</b> - MoneyBuilder - making sense of <b>...</b>
Provided by LowCards.com More Than Eight Million People Drop Out of Credit Card Use More than eight million consumers stopped using credit cards over the past year, according to a new study by TransUnion. The use of general purpose ...
Light Can Generate Lift - Science <b>News</b>
Researchers create a lightfoil that can push small objects sideways.
Congo Siasa: <b>News</b> we missed last week
News I failed to blog on last week: The newly ordained cardinal of Kinshasa, Laurent Monsegwo, arrived in Kinshasa from Rome on Wednesday to huge acclaim. Monsengwo is usually considered to be opposed to Kabila, but rarely takes public ...
bench craft company rip off
This Week in Credit Card <b>News</b> - MoneyBuilder - making sense of <b>...</b>
Provided by LowCards.com More Than Eight Million People Drop Out of Credit Card Use More than eight million consumers stopped using credit cards over the past year, according to a new study by TransUnion. The use of general purpose ...
Light Can Generate Lift - Science <b>News</b>
Researchers create a lightfoil that can push small objects sideways.
Congo Siasa: <b>News</b> we missed last week
News I failed to blog on last week: The newly ordained cardinal of Kinshasa, Laurent Monsegwo, arrived in Kinshasa from Rome on Wednesday to huge acclaim. Monsengwo is usually considered to be opposed to Kabila, but rarely takes public ...
bench craft company rip off
This Week in Credit Card <b>News</b> - MoneyBuilder - making sense of <b>...</b>
Provided by LowCards.com More Than Eight Million People Drop Out of Credit Card Use More than eight million consumers stopped using credit cards over the past year, according to a new study by TransUnion. The use of general purpose ...
Light Can Generate Lift - Science <b>News</b>
Researchers create a lightfoil that can push small objects sideways.
Congo Siasa: <b>News</b> we missed last week
News I failed to blog on last week: The newly ordained cardinal of Kinshasa, Laurent Monsegwo, arrived in Kinshasa from Rome on Wednesday to huge acclaim. Monsengwo is usually considered to be opposed to Kabila, but rarely takes public ...
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This Week in Credit Card <b>News</b> - MoneyBuilder - making sense of <b>...</b>
Provided by LowCards.com More Than Eight Million People Drop Out of Credit Card Use More than eight million consumers stopped using credit cards over the past year, according to a new study by TransUnion. The use of general purpose ...
Light Can Generate Lift - Science <b>News</b>
Researchers create a lightfoil that can push small objects sideways.
Congo Siasa: <b>News</b> we missed last week
News I failed to blog on last week: The newly ordained cardinal of Kinshasa, Laurent Monsegwo, arrived in Kinshasa from Rome on Wednesday to huge acclaim. Monsengwo is usually considered to be opposed to Kabila, but rarely takes public ...
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