How to make your kids millionaires by Walter Updegrave:
Your first goal: Encourage them to contribute enough to get the employer match, without worrying about sorting through all the investment options. Just have them stick the money in a target retirement fund (or if that’s not an option, a stock-index fund).
You can talk to them later about boosting their contribution and fine-tuning their strategy.
Related: Saving for Retirement – Start Young with 401k and Roth IRA – what is a 401k? – articles on investing for retirement
The Great Wealth Transfer by Paul Krugman
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The share of income received by the top 0.1 percent of Americans is twice the share received by the corresponding group in Britain, and three times the share in France. These days, to find societies as unequal as the United States you have to look beyond the advanced world, to Latin America.
This article obviously is strongly against the rising inequality. The article can go perhaps too far in some claims but overall is a worthwhile read on an important topic. My opinion is that too much income inequality is a danger sign for an economy. I also strongly appose huge inherited wealth and obscene CEO pay. But people doing well for themselves is not necessarily bad. The USA is better off for having Warren Buffett, Larry Page, Micheal Dell, Sergey Brin, Jeff Bezos… and I see nothing wrong with them amassing large sums. See more articles on the topic:
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Rentometer is a cool interactive web site that maps rental prices near your rental (either as a renter or an investor). The site is new and expanding so the features are a bit limited now but still it is worthwhile and the new features will really make it great (active rental listings…).
Related: Real Estate Investing Articles
Google to Let Workers Sell Options Online:
A good idea that reduces friction in the marketplace. Options are transferable, the problem with employee granted options is there is no reasonable marketplace to exchange the options for cash (the friction is very high). Google’s engineers focus on reducing friction in many processes. Many others just accept that the level of friction is inevitable. Google realizes it is not. More on Google Management.
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The universities are good resources, producing numerous engineering graduates, and there are people here with advanced research skills suitable for research and development, Stephens said. Syn-Tech needs electrical engineers, software engineers and engineering technicians, he said, adding “we have had very good luck attracting (engineering technicians) locally.”
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Florida manufacturers employ more than 399,000 Floridians. The state Agency for Workforce Innovation reported that manufacturing employment was up to 394,700 in June 2005, a gain of 3,200 jobs over the previous year.
Related: Manufacturing Jobs Data: USA and China – Engineering the Future Economy – The Future is Engineering
Dairy Industry Crushed Innovator Who Bested Price-Control System by Dan Morgan, Sarah Cohen and Gilbert M. Gaul:
Last March, Congress passed a law reshaping the Western milk market and essentially ending Hettinga’s experiment — all without a single congressional hearing.
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Most U.S. dairy farmers work within a government system set up in the 1930s to give thousands of small dairies a guaranteed market for their milk and to even out prices for consumers. Farmers who participate in regional pools operated by the federal government or the states deliver raw milk to cooperatives or food processors. They get a guaranteed price, whether the milk ends up in a gallon jug, cheese, butter or ice cream. In Arizona and other federally regulated regions, the Agriculture Department uses a formula to set the price processors pay for raw milk, issuing “milk marketing orders.”
Developed for a bygone era of small dairies and decentralized milk plants, the system lives on when 3,000-cow dairies are not uncommon and huge cooperatives and food companies dominate the business. Business groups, fiscal conservatives and some dairy organizations have called for Congress to overhaul the complex system of protections and subsidies, which they say is costly to taxpayers and consumers. A recent USDA study acknowledged that “dairy programs raise the retail price” of milk. The watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste estimates that the programs cost U.S. consumers at least $1.5 billion a year.
These programs are effectively taxing everyone to pay special benefits to a few. Now perhaps you believe in this case milk production and purchase should not be part of the capitalist market system. That is a possible opinion. Somehow I doubt the politicians that take huge payments from huge dairy cartels to stop competitors from selling milk are doing so because they believe the market is incapable of delivering milk just as it delivers soda, water, hamburgers, cereal, pizzas, soup… Regulation is needed in various ways in the market. The problem is every special interest tries to claim the market needs to be regulated in a way that gives them benefits and the correlation to market needs and action seems to be very clouded by money received by politicians.
It just seems more likely they are willing to do what they are paid to do. But others can see it differently. Certainly the whole political system seems very beholden to special interests to pay rather than to making decisions that are best for the country. That could change if political leaders choice to lead but a majority doing that is unlikely. More likely it will continue until the voters don’t allow special interests to reap huge rewards on the backs of the general public through congressional action. Remember last year when Congress forbid the Medicare system (with a law) from negotiating for lower drug prices?
Related: Estate Tax Repeal – China and the Sugar Industry Tax Consumers – DC Paying Out Money it Doesn’t Have – Pork Sugar
Putting away some money is vital, even if you are young and in debt by John Waggoner:
Starting small – If you don’t have a 401(k) available, at least open a Roth IRA. You contribute after-tax money to a Roth, but you pay no taxes on your withdrawals at retirement.
More on Roth IRA’s.
Learning about the economy is not required to learn about investing but it helps to get the basics. One of those basics is that it is not easy to know what is actually going on today, or to predict what will happen in the future (other than the fairly accurate “close to what it was last year”). So when reading about the economy you have to accept that there often is plenty of room in the data to allow for differing opinions. Here is one opinion: Cracks widen in U.S. economy:
The weakness in manufacturing started with autos, was compounded by housing, and recently has spread to big-ticket capital goods such as technology and telecommunications equipment, Mr. Jester said. In addition, a broad array of manufacturers are cutting back because of an unexpected buildup of inventories this fall that has to be worked off, he said.
Retirement planning has some pretty straight forward aspects and some difficult to predict aspects. If you don’t save substantial amounts of money over a long period of time there is little hope for a good retirement nest egg (outside of things like winning the lottery or living off an inheritance). So consistent savings over a long period is normally a requirement. You can get decent estimates like saving 8% of your income from age 30 to age 65 (in a 401k, Roth IRA…) but how you investments perform during that period will have a large impact on your success (as will how much risk you want in retirement, the state of health care at that time, inflation, tax rates, your health insurance…).
This is a good article discussing some options as you close in on retirement and the financial picture become clearer: Two More Years for a Better Retirement. From Fidelity: Survey: One-Third of Americans Delaying Retirement.
One alternative to delaying retirement is to start saving more earlier but the overall data shows few are taking that option.
I do not believe we will have a huge decline in most housing markets see: Housing and the Economy. Still the article below is packed with great information. Definitely worth reading. Other related posts: 30 Year Fixed Rate Mortgage Rates – Europe and USA Housing Price Boom – How Not to Convert Equity – Beginning of the End of Housing Bubble?
The Coming Collapse in Housing November 17, 2006
by John Mauldin
I am convinced that the housing bubble is gigantic and will burst before long with massive implications here and abroad. In fact, it’s the key to the global economic outlook.
Setting the Scene
House prices in recent years have leaped well beyond their normal relationships to the CPI.
Even when the increasing size of houses–the McMansion effect–is excluded, inflation-adjusted house prices have jumped as never before in over a century.