Welcome to the Curious Cat Investing and Economics Carnival, we hope you enjoy the following posts we share here.

• Does Earning More Trump Frugality? – “Which way is better? I think there’s a different answer for each person, actually. For some people, the bird in the hand is better – if you have a career that isn’t helped by such networking, for example. For others, building your presence might be more valuable than a frugality task.”
• Existing Home Sales Far Worse Than Advertised by Barry Ritholtz – “While the very worst of housing trouble may be behind us, we are still looking at falling prices and increasing foreclosures. The Housing getting worse more slowly camp is ignoring the massive Federal subsidies required to get worse more slowly.”
• Loan Default Rates Increased Dramatically in the 2nd Quarter by John Hunter – “Default rates on commercial (up another 151 basis points) and residential (up 93 basis points) real estate continued to increase dramatically in the second quarter. Credit card default rates increased but only by 20 basis points.”
• Don’t Bet On A V-shaped Economy Recovery – “Banks’ restrictive lending, unemployment, stagnant wages and falling home values resulted in reluctance of households to borrow money for spending. With debt weary US consumers (which accounts for 70% US GDP), the US economy and export markets will not be in a hurry to rush into a V-shaped recovery even as the recession eases.”
• Tips for Managing Your 401k Plan by Patrick – “Max out company match. If your company offers matching contributions, then you should contribute at least the amount of the full company match if you can afford it. The company match is part of your benefits package and is essentially free money.”
• Deciphering the GDP Numbers by Philip – “Federal Spending: Federal Spending grew 10.9%, as compared with a drop of 3% in the previous quarter. This number tells you what a big cushion the economy got from the various stimulus programs that the government ran. Without the stimulus, the numbers would have been much worse than they were”
• The Myth of Stable Employment by Steve – “Stability is a thing of the past in the work world. The only stability is the creation of multiple streams of income, elimination of personal debt and spending less than you earn”
• The Federal Budget’s Pre-Existing Health… by ScottBittle – “you’d need to raise the Medicare tax 134 percent or cut benefits by 53 percent. Medicare’s revenues already don’t cover its costs, and the program is drawing down on its ‘trust fund,’ which will run out in eight years.”
• 50% of Americans Have Less than 1 Month of Income Saved by Jordan – “Only 1 out of 5 Americans is properly secure in their financial condition, able to weather a fiscal storm first with 6 months of unemployment benefits followed by 6 additional months of savings.”

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