Nice article in NYTimes by Paul Sullivan.  He talks about some of the specific tax increases that are on their way to happening (unless Congress and the Prez do something about them), and what some folks are doing to deal with it. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/04/your-money/taxes/what-some-investors-are-doing-to-anticipate-a-tax-increase.html?pagewanted=all The tax increases addressed: 1. The 3.8% “surtax” on investment income for […]

<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303561504577494600278284104.html?mod=personal_fin_newsreel&gt; WSJ piece, not too much detail, but hints at a wealth of complexity and opportunity, regarding strategies for maximizing Social Security benefits. Mentions of Social Security Timing, a service to help folks figure out how to optimize. Great example: Consider a hypothetical situation. The husband, the higher earner, believes he’s going to die relatively […]

Per a USA Today article which references the Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Survey: Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac says the average on the 30-year loan was 3.66%. That’s unchanged from last week and the lowest since long-term mortgages began in the 1950s. The average rate on the 15-year mortgage, a popular refinancing option, slipped to 2.94%. That’s down […]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickferri/2012/06/11/star-fund-managers-and-flame-out-rates/ A nice quick read with some supporting numbers regarding the likelihood that active fund managers who have outperformed their indexes in the past will do so again. Not surprisingly, fewer continue to outperform than one would even expect from sheer dumb luck. This, of course, further strengthens the case for low-expense, passive, index or […]

Thanks to NPR: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/05/14/152671813/50-years-of-government-spending-in-1-graph Note that if inflation comes along, entitlements automatically go up more. And if interest rates go up to deal with the inflation, interest spending could easily double or triple pretty quickly. Of the $10.4 trillion in debt held by the public, $1.6 trillion is in T-bills (paying pretty much no interest […]

Some words of wisdom from Roger Nussbaum http://www.washingtonpost.com/the-mutual-funds-and-managers-to-avoid/2012/05/04/gIQAEfIc1T_story.html Note especially his mention, without spending much time on it, the issues of investment expenses.