Trump Cannot Make America Govern Itself Again

My Comments: There is far more at stake here than making Trump become relevant again. Apart from my personal, visceral fear that we’ll find ourselves in another brutal and painful war, the standard of living across these United States is eroding. Unfortunately, that erosion is like watching a car rust. It can sit in your …

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I Inherited a Roth IRA. Now what?

My Comments: More and more people have Roth IRA accounts. A common question about retirement is whether to draw money from their Roth IRA first or take money from their non-Roth retirement accounts first. It depends. Any money not yet taxed is going to get taxed. Period. The Roth IRA money comes out tax free; …

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Rates Won’t Skyrocket, So Ignore the Cassandra Chorus

My Comments: The last time interest rates started moving upward in a long term up trend was 1946. This lasted until 1981. Then they started moving down again. Now, 36 years later, they have once again started upward. The central bank, known as the FED, started moving them back up about a year ago. Granted, …

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Social Security “Facts” Or Myths

My Comments: It’s clear from the questions I get that people starting the transition to ‘retirement’ are easily confused by Social Security. They know it’s there; they’ve been paying into it for years. But there are enough variables to paralyze you if you let them. Todd Campbell \ Jun 26, 2017 There's a lot of …

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Where To Invest

My Comments: There is a lot of fear these days about money. We all know that from time to time the markets experience a correction. Depending on how old you are and when you expect to use the funds you have, this fear is normal. So how do you deal with it? Again, depending on …

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How Republics End

My Comments: We are now six months into the Trump presidency. I somehow knew it was going to be a challenge because the values that surround him are so very different from mine. What I didn’t expect was the utter fecklessness, wrapped inside a veneer of patriotism. I now have many more unresolved fears about …

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Retirement For Workaholics

My Comments: I’m NOT a workaholic. But I’ve learned that ‘retirement’ means very different things to people. For many of us, it’s an ugly word. For me it just means doing what I’ve done for decades, but with a recognition that today it takes me two hours to do what I used to do in …

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The Forces Behind Income Inequality in America

My Comments: Followers of my posts have heard me say that income inequality is the greatest existential threat to our society. It ranks up there with global warming. The path we appear to be on right now, both here in the States and across the planet, will not change until this issue is addressed. It …

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Is Social Security Going Broke?

My Comments: In 1983, when Social Security was on the verge of going broke, Congress made some changes to keep it alive and well. It’s again on the verge of going broke and there are ways to fix it. But were not yet close enough to the edge of the cliff for there to be …

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A 60-40 Portfolio Could Return Less Than A Savings Account

My Comments: How fast will your money grow? An expectation of growing money at an annual rate of 7% to 10% going forward is probably unrealistic. Interest rates and inflation rates are relatively low, and global economic growth rates are likely to slow down over the next two decades. See my earlier posts to understand …

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