Welcome to the Curious Cat Investing, Economics and Personal Finance Carnival: find useful recent personal finance, investing and economics blog posts and articles. The carnival is published twice each month. This carnival is different than other carnival: I select posts from the blogs I read (instead of just posting those that submit to the carnival as many carnivals do). If you would like to host the carnival add a comment below.
- Why the April Jobs Report Could Be a Disaster – “the one-two punch of a warmer winter and unusual seasonal adjustment factors stemming from the financial crisis could combine to create something of a disaster for those writing the labor market headlines in early-May when the April jobs data is reported.” [it also may not turn out to be an issue, but it is an interesting post and the type of thing you need to consider when looking at economic data – John]
- Evaluating Your Auto Insurance Policy – “many companies offer defensive driver discounts if you take a course or install a device in your car to monitor your habits. You can also get good student discounts for students on your policy, low mileage discounts for cars you don’t drive much, accident-free discounts when you haven’t been in an accident lately, and loyalty discounts for sticking with the company.”
- Buyting Foreclosed Homes as Rental Investments – “Since 2007, investors have been trolling the cratered suburbs stretching from California to Florida for cheap houses to flip. And firms such as PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust have sought value in subprime-mortgage-backed securities. Waypoint, which owns 1,100 houses and is buying five more a day, is betting that converting foreclosures into rentals is a better way to make a profit.”
- How Long Can We Finance the Debt? by James Kwak – “Since the Federal Reserve is expected to reduce its balance sheet as the economy recovers, if foreign holdings of U.S. government debt simply remain at current levels (as a share of GDP), they expect that 10-year yields would climb to 7.9 percent by 2020—rather than 5.4 percent as forecast in the CBO’s baseline.”
- The Case for Raising Top Tax Rates – “In 1980, the top marginal rate was 70 percent for families making more than $215,400 — about $587,000 in current dollars. And these families pocketed a much smaller share of the nation’s income than they do now. Today, people earning over $200,000 a year capture more than a third of national income.”