Free Republic

Don't trust the banks... Don't trust the economy and the value of the US Dollar... Don't trust the gold market... What the hell should I save or bury in my yard in order to protect my investments? Sheesh.

From time immemorial proverbial wisdom has taught the virtues of saving, and warned against the consequences of prodigality and waste. This proverbial wisdom has reflected the common ethical as well as the merely prudential judgments of mankind. But there have always been squanderers, and there have apparently always been theorists to rationalize their squandering. The classical economists, refuting the fallacies of their own day, showed that the saving policy that was in the best interests of the individual was also in the best interests of the nation. They showed that the rational saver, in making provision for his future, was...

Since passing tort reform in 2004, Mississippi has seen the number of medical malpractice claims plummet by 91 percent from its peak. The state's largest medical liability insurer dropped its premiums by 42 percent, and has offered an additional 20 percent rebate each year since tort reform went into effect. That is the story that Mississippi's Republican, governor, Haley Barbour, offered on Friday, speaking at the Heritage Foundation. He also made an observation about President Obama's decision to offer only token "demonstration projects" on lawsuit abuse rather than address it meaningfully in his health care reform proposal.

"They rush about in disorder, anxious slaves of the three M's - the moment, the mode, and the mob. They see too well their want of dignity and fitness, and need a false elegance to hide their galloping consumption..." - Friedrich Nietzsche, Thoughts Out of Season II: The Use & Abuse of History (1874) NOW THE banking crisis is over - "Bernanke stays put, home prices up," as Fox News reports - the career academics who failed to spot and prevent it can get back to fretting about the most macro of tasks: How to rebalance the global economy? The...

I never posted a vanity before. Mods, please straighten out my post! I seem to remember a post by a freeper of an internal memo between Steny Hoyer to Boehner involving either potential confiscation of personal savings accounts or IRAs, 401ks, etc. I'm thinking this was in the first part of summer? Am I nuts?

There is just one problem with upbeat predictions that the recession is ending: Americans are still refusing to spend money. Retail spending is still far below that of a year ago in virtually every category, as figures reported yesterday showed. Major clothing chains including Macy's, Nordstrom, Liz Claiborne and Kohl's posted earnings declines this week. Even Walmart Stores, the nation's largest retailer and one of the hardiest survivors of this recession, reported lower sales yesterday. Taken together, the reports made clear that consumers were likely to continue hoarding their dollars into the usually robust back-to-school shopping season, a crucial time...

<p>Even as analysts debate whether the stock market's five-month rally is nearing its end, it's clear that consumers are more interested in paying down their own debts than they in betting on the market.</p> <p>June marked the fifth consecutive month in which consumers paid down credit cards and shaved other debt, according to the Federal Reserve. In a depressing economy, reducing debt is no surprise, but the Fed's big news was that the amount Americans put into debt reduction was twice as much as economists expected.</p>

Any reasonably intelligent person understands that if the demand for a product increases then (all things being equal, as the economist would say) its price will rise. The same holds in the case of borrowing, except for congressional Democrats. These people seem to think that economics laws are a vicious Republican plot. Poll figures are now showing that the American public is growing alarmed by the Democrats' utterly reckless fiscal policy. Unfortunately, few people understand just how grave the danger really is

Thus far, analysis the financial collapse has been framed almost entirely in terms of money. All the research I’ve seen has delved into lending standards, securitization, inflation, interest rates, housing and the like. Yet underneath this veneer lies one larger, mega-trend that has driven all of these themes to a greater or lesser degree. It created one of the largest stock bull markets we’ve ever seen from 1982-2001. It helped drive the Bubbles in Tech stocks AND Housing. And now it will guide the coming collapse in stocks and consumer spending. That trend is AGE: specifically the Boomer generation and...

There may be a silver lining in the black cloud hanging over our economy: America's abysmal personal savings rate has taken a turn for the better. Building on a steady increase in the personal savings rate — 2008's 1.8% increase, a 4.2% increase in 2009's first quarter and a 5.6% rise in April — the Commerce Department has reported that the U.S. personal savings rate climbed 6.9% in May. While still early, this could signal a dramatic return to a more normal personal savings rate. It could also have profound repercussions at home and abroad as both economies recalibrate away...

An Israeli woman mistakenly threw out a mattress with $1 million inside, setting off a frantic search through tons of garbage at a number of landfill sites. The woman told Army Radio that she bought her elderly mother a new mattress as a surprise on Monday and threw out the old one, only to discover that her mother had hidden her life savings inside. She was identified only as Anat, a resident of Tel Aviv.

... By 2007, only one state had a prevalence of obesity below 20%, 30 states were greater than 25%, and three states had a prevalence of obesity equal to or greater than 30%. By spending more than we had and indulging in unhealthy lifestyles, Americans, both individuals and corporations, traveled down a road of excess with the false promise of perpetual prosperity. ...

This week, with his pronouncement that “credit is the lifeblood of a healthy economy,� President Obama reiterated what has been one of his most common themes in diagnosing our economic problem. The president has relied on this bedrock belief to propose policies that place the restoration of credit as the highest priority. However, despite his seemingly earnest intentions, the president and his economic advisors have misdiagnosed the ailment. Savings, not credit, is the lifeblood of a healthy economy. When not used properly credit can be like a cancer that sickens an otherwise healthy economy. What everyone seems to have forgotten...

There are no fast solutions – either for the US economy or for individuals trying to rebuild retirement funds clobbered by the falling stock market. That was the message from Mark Zandi, one of the nation’s top economists. Mr. Zandi is co-founder and chief economist of Economy.Com, a firm that provides various kinds of research to individual, business, and corporate clients. He was the guest at a Monitor-sponsored breakfast for reporters on Thursday. How long will it take the stock market to recover? “It could be a decade,” Zandi said. “If I were an individual thinking about the size of...

In their zeal to oppose the lunacy of the so-called "stimulus" plan, many radio talk show hosts and other pundits have fallen into the Keynesian trap. Rather than the politicians spending nearly a trillion dollars, they argue, it would provide much more stimulus if the government gave massive tax cuts. This would "put money back in the pockets of average Americans" and they would go to the mall and "get that money into circulation and boost the economy." Although the instincts behind such arguments are sound, they often betray an underlying Keynesian mindset. By justifying tax cuts on the grounds...

The Government should remember it was debt, rather than sensible saving of money, that led to the banking crisis Lord Griffiths was an important economic adviser during the Thatcher years. He was a director of the Bank of England from 1984 to 1986 and head of the Prime Minister's Policy Unit from 1985 to 1990. In 2005 he was chairman of the Griffiths Report on personal debt in Britain, which gave a clear warning of the excessive debt that eventually led to the current global crisis. In an interview with the BBC's World This Weekend, Lord Griffiths said that “debt...

Summary Singapore’s Central Provident Fund is based on individual savings and building assets, unlike the American Social Security system. Singapore’s national philosophy, “nothing should be free,” has encouraged free-market strategies and individual responsibility, a good model for American social policy. Commentary In the U.S., government-run entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare and Unemployment Insurance are staggering under an ever-increasing price tag, while a parallel and struggling asset-building movement carefully tiptoes around the wide spread of government welfare programs, all the while repeating that asset-building for low-income Americans is only supplementary. Like the U.S., Singapore also has a compulsory social welfare...

The stock-market rout has ignited a crisis of confidence for millions of Americans who manage their own retirement savings through 401(k) plans. After watching her account drop 44% last year, Kristine Gardner, a 35-year-old information-technology project manager in Longview, Wash., feels no sense of security. "There's just no guarantee that when you're ready to retire you're going to have the money," she says. "You either put it in a money market which pays 1%, which isn't enough to retire, or you expose yourself to huge market risk and you can lose half your retirement in one year." Many retirement experts...

Millions of savers are braced for zero per cent accounts within days as the Bank of England is poised to cut interest rates to the lowest level in its 315-year history. Experts have warned the return on savings could plumb new depths with the Bank expected to take unprecedented steps to regain control over the economy. They widely believe the Bank will reduce borrowing costs to below their 2 per cent level - and possibly all the way down to 1 per cent - in its first meeting of the year next week. More than 7 million people have saving...

Monday, 10 November 2008 06:32 "Democrats in the U.S. House have been conducting hearings on proposals to confiscate workers’ personal retirement accounts — including 401(k)s and IRAs — and convert them to accounts managed by the Social Security Administration." That was the lead sentence in an article entitled, "Dems Target Private Retirement Accounts," published in the Carolina Journal on November 4th. With those alarming openers, the article has gone viral over the last week — at least among those who advocate less government interference in their economic lives. Unfortunately, the Carolina Journal is only telling half of the story —...

The rise and fall of the 401(k)Mike Ivey — 11/12/2008 5:36 am **SNIP** The State of Wisconsin Investment Board, for example, manages the retirement funds of more than 550,000 current and former government workers in the state. It is widely respected as one of the best public pension funds in the nation. In Wisconsin, monthly pension payouts to retirees are calculated based on five years of market returns, which helps to smooth out the inevitable ups and downs of Wall Street. Even with the unprecedented stock market decline of 2008, participants in the Wisconsin retirement system are likely only looking...

On paper, my wife and I are poor. How poor? In 2005 we made $4,303.84 combined; in 2004 we made half that. We’re in such a low tax bracket that I have trouble convincing the government of our tax return’s accuracy; they simply can’t believe Americans can live on that kind of money. Yet in many ways, we’re better off than a Wall Street banker: We’ve saved enough money to buy land without a mortgage, we have no credit cards or monthly bills, I work 20 flexible hours a week from home, and my daughter has two stay-at-home parents. Simply...

401(k) early casualty of downturnRecession would jeopardize match made by employers DAVID PITT Associated Press Published: November 9, 2008 6:00 a.m. DES MOINES, Iowa – Retirement accounts already battered by a steep market decline might get hit again as several companies suspend or reduce their 401(k) match to save cash. **SNIP** Matching contributions average about 11 percent of a company’s profits, according to a recent survey of more than 1,000 companies by the Profit Sharing/401k Council of America. **SNIP** “This is a recession-type of response. These employers are really up against it and they have to decide to cut somewhere...

As the implications of this election have sunk in and the future has, in so many ways, become so uncertain,many have suggested ways to fight back. One, an initial reaction to the confiscatory tax policies of the new regime, was to scale back where possible.Rush Limbaugh even mentioned that he was selling a long held and cherished condo in New York in response to their impending tax hikes. But there has been no organized approach to this "tightening of our conservative belts". I propose a new freep, call it "Operation Thrift".Operation Thrift will have several goals, first and foremost is...

Obama's retirement plan proposalsRetirees and workers with 401(k) savings may see changes. By DAVID PITT Associated Press Writer November 09. 2008 6:59AM The election is over and the message is clear — the economy is priority one. The big question now is how some of President-elect Barack Obama's campaign proposals will affect retirees and workers with 401(k) and other retirement accounts. Looking at them a bit closer may reveal some clues. What are some of the ideas Obama has proposed that could impact my retirement planning? One issue Obama has endorsed may get serious consideration before he takes the oath...

A wide range of sweeping changes to the 401(k) system were proposed Tuesday at a hearing on how the market crisis has devastated retirement savings plans. Chief among them was eliminating $80 billion in tax savings for higher-income people enrolled in 401(k) retirement savings plans. This was suggested by the chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor. “With respect to the 401(k), it appears to be a plan that is not really well-devised for the changes in the market,” Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., said.

Stocks face longer bear market as more tap nest eggs Thu Jul 24, 2008 7:46pm EDT By Jennifer Ablan - Analysis NEW YORK (Reuters) - Major U.S. stock indexes, already trapped in bear territory, face a tougher road to recovery, as more Americans crack into their nest eggs to withdraw cash to cope with rising economic pressures. The Dow Jones industrial average and the Standard & Poor's 500, which have fallen 20 percent or more from their closing highs of last October, qualifying them as bear markets, have taken big hits from the drastic slowdown in housing and credit as...

Series I Savings Bonds To Earn 4.84%, Series EE To Earn 1.40% Fixed Rate, When Bought From May Through October 2008 FOR RELEASE AT 10:00 AM May 1, 2008 The Bureau of the Public Debt today announced an earnings rate of 4.84% for Series I Savings Bonds, and a fixed rate of 1.40% for Series EE bonds, issued from May through October 2008. Earnings rates for I bonds and fixed rates for EE bonds are set each May 1 and November 1. Interest accrues monthly and compounds semiannually. Bonds held less than five years are subject to a three-month interest...

There's an old saying that the best time to fix a roof is when the sun is shining. Well, the storm clouds are on the horizon and time's a-wasting. At least, that's the case according to the findings of the 18th annual Retirement Confidence Survey by the Employee Benefit Research Institute. U.S. workers and retirees are losing confidence in their ability to afford a comfortable retirement -- and with good reason. Health-care costs are rising, home values are dropping, and savings are modest, according to the report. In fact, fewer than one-in-five workers (18% to be exact) are very confident...

Mr Prasad had saved up for his old age (Pictures: Prashant Ravi) A trader in the Indian state of Bihar has lost his life savings after termites infesting his bank's safe deposit boxes ate them up.Dwarika Prasad had deposited currency notes and investment papers worth hundreds of thousands of rupees in a bank safe in the state capital Patna. The bank says it put up a notice warning customers of the termites. Mr Prasad says he did not see it in time as he did not go to the bank for months after the notice went up. Bank officials...

Lisa Keister has scanned the Bible and found nearly 2,000 verses in the New Testament that touch on the topic of money. It's those very verses that may be keeping many conservative Protestants from building up long-term wealth, she says. Jesus warned his followers not to "store up for yourselves treasures on Earth," and later cautioned that it will be "hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven." Perhaps the best known is the admonition that "the love of money is the root of all evil." According to data analyzed by Keister, a Duke University sociologist, the...

Officials Question Value Of Daylight Savings TimeReport Says Changing The Clock Doesn't Save Energy UPDATED: 1:44 pm MST March 8, 2008 FORT COLLINS, Colo. -- It not only costs most people an hour of sleep, now officials and researchers are questioning the value of daylight savings time. Daylight savings time starts on Sunday at 2 a.m. Remember to set your clocks one hour ahead tonight. The concept was first put forward by Benjamin Franklin, as a satire, during a visit to Paris. He wrote that fewer candles would be used if people got up earlier and went to bed earlier....

The German government's purchase of data stolen from a Liechtenstein bank has reinvigorated longstanding debates about privacy, law enforcement and international relations. Much of the fallout has followed predictable patterns. Some argue that Germany's richest citizens should be brought to justice for failing to comply with the tax laws, while others point out that it is unseemly for a nation to spy on a peaceful neighbor. The conflict between Germany and Liechtenstein also has triggered a broader debate about tax competition and the role of so-called tax havens. The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is trying to use...

On February 10th The Devils Advocate Jr. came into the world as a healthy 9lb baby boy, the first child of his proud parents. He has been fortunate enough to have received a few hundred dollars in gifts from his friends and relatives. Now I'm wondering what is the best option for investing his little nest egg to provide the best return in about 18 years. Certainly there's something out there better than a savings account.

The title is an obvious and intentional exaggeration used by Ken Fisher in his book titled Three Questions That Count. Rather than try to summarize and comment on his excellent book I choose to examine those parts that have a public policy connotation. The first of these is the so called “savings rate.” The author points out this is a residual calculation not an actual measure of savings. What the government does take personal income and subtract from it personal consumption. Personal income is after tax income. Again, no one actually measures savings. There are problems with doing this and...

The phrase has long since entered the political lexicon, but it was former House Speaker and Massachusetts Representative Tip O'Neill who first christened Social Security the "third rail of American politics." The reasoning behind his snide dubbing is twofold: the high political mortality rate of those who suggest change to the program, and avoidance of the issue by even Washington's most forthcoming public officials. During the Oct. 9 GOP debate, presidential candidate Fred Thompson threw conventional wisdom to the wind and grabbed the rail. Hard. Thompson called Social Security's current trajectory "unsustainable" and proposed reducing the benefits of recipients to...

Given the options below, what would you recommend to help Americans save for retirement? (related article) Establish more government-run programs to encourage savings Focus on fixing Social Security Allow individuals to invest a portion of their Social Security taxes on their own Eliminate Social Security taxes altogether so individuals can invest that money

"The unifying principle of the Republican Party is that we should tax our citizens less, and as a result have a smaller government. I embrace that principle and have made tax relief one of the cornerstones of my presidential campaign. "Central to my pro-growth economic agenda is a belief that middle-class Americans should not be taxed as they save and invest for the future. We need a middle-class savings plan to provide critical tax relief to American families. We must cut taxes and make more Americans part of the investor class. I have proposed changing the rate of taxation on...

The new numbers on consumer confidence are out. They show American consumers very confident that the economy is going down the tubes. Over in Asia and Europe, stocks plunged on fears that Americans may no longer be able to find the second jobs and recklessly borrow the money needed to buy imported stuff. Economists now freely use the "recession" word following the report that American payrolls fell in August, the first monthly decline in four years. American consumers, in other words, are all dried up. And the discussion has begun on what kind of baloney economy kept them lubricated for...

Lives Well-Lived On the other side of the spectrum, I dined last night with an old friend from the glorious street of my childhood, Harvey Road in Silver Spring, Md. Gene Daumit, who was accompanied by his beautiful wife, DeeDee, is a super-smart guy with a Ph.D. from MIT, a major job at a huge chemicals company, a spouse with a great job in real estate, a home and a vacation condo that are both paid for (or mostly paid for), a substantial pension, and impressive savings. As they told me about their life, especially their wildly successful daughters, I...

If you're having money problems, you probably have good reasons. Maybe you're getting less overtime or your expenses have unexpectedly climbed. Perhaps your ex left you with big debts. Maybe your parents never taught you about money. You might blame the economy for the fix you're in. Then there's the whole credit industry, which hands out credit cards like confetti before slapping you with interest rates that would make a loan shark blush. Or maybe you're just not good with numbers. You may comfort yourself with the idea that your money fix isn't entirely your fault. Here's the thing, though:...

Insurance: A new report shows consumer-directed health care gaining ground, but it's still far from meeting its promise as a serious restraint on medical costs. People still need more choices. Measured against the past couple of years, the latest news on health savings accounts looks pretty good. Measured against expectations, it's not good enough. According to a survey of insurers issued this week by America's Health Insurance Plans, an industry group, 4.5 million Americans were covered under HSA-eligible high-deductible plans as of January. That's up 40% from the 3.2 million covered in the last AHIP survey a year earlier. By...

A Republican lawmaker who co-authored a bill that would give every child born in California a $500 savings account has withdrawn his support following a backlash within his own party. Sen. Bob Dutton, R-Rancho Cucamonga, who had promoted the measure as a good investment, announced Friday he no longer supported the bill he had introduced two days before with Democrat Sen. Darrel Steinberg. The surprise move came after fellow Republicans questioned the measure's $285 million cost and inclusion of children of illegal immigrants. In a press release, Dutton said that thousands of Californians had asked him "what I was thinking"...

SACRAMENTO — Every child born in California would get a $500 savings account to start building a nest egg for college or down payment for a home, under a bipartisan bill introduced Wednesday in the state Senate. The proposal would cost taxpayers about $285 million a year. A similar program has increased savings in Great Britain since 2002, but California would be the first state in the nation to enact it, said David Lesher, California program director for the nonprofit New America Foundation, based in Washington, D.C. A national savings program has been pending in Congress since 2005. Under the...

US plans to change daylight saving hours this spring could wreak havoc on computer systems, Gartner claims. The analyst firm said utomated systems could run haywire this March. Disruptions could affect calendars, billing programs and security systems as well as undermining automated trading systems.

Yahoo!My Yahoo!Mail Make Y! your home pageYahoo! SearchSearch:Welcome, oblockcfp [Sign Out, My Account]Finance Home -Help Home InvestingMarket OverviewMarket StatsStocksMutual FundsETFsBondsOptionsIndustriesCurrencyEducationNews & OpinionMarketsInvesting IdeasSmall BizExpert AdviceSpecial EditionsCompany FinancesProvidersPersonal FinanceBanking & BudgetingCareer & WorkCollege & EducationFamily & HomeInsuranceLoansReal EstateRetirementTaxesHow-to GuidesGet QuotesSymbol LookupFinance Search AP 2006 Personal Savings Fall to 74-Yr. Low Thursday February 1, 1:22 pm ET By Martin Crutsinger, AP Economics Writer Personal Savings Rate for 2006 Tumbles to Negative 1 Percent, the Lowest Level in 74 Years WASHINGTON (AP) -- People once again spent everything they made and then some last year, pushing the personal savings rate to the lowest...

WASHINGTON - People once again spent everything they made and then some last year, pushing the personal savings rate to the lowest level since the Great Depression more than seven decades ago. The Commerce Department reported Thursday that the savings rate for all of 2006 was a negative 1 percent, meaning that not only did people spend all the money they earned but they also dipped into savings or increased borrowing to finance purchases. The 2006 figure was lower than a negative 0.4 percent in 2005 and was the poorest showing since a negative 1.5 percent savings rate in 1933...

Waters Hot owner Kevin Flammang stands next to a component of his Reverse Ambient Solar Energy Reclamation System installed at a hog finishing site in Northwest Iowa. ALTON -- It may have a long name and it’s somewhat unconventional, but all Pat Zenk knows is the new energy system in his hog finisher is saving him money. Zenk, who farms near here in Sioux County, had a Reverse Ambient Solar Energy Reclamation System (RASERS) installed in his finishing unit and his home in July. The result, he says, has been a much smaller propane bill. “We haven’t had really...

The Bush Administration has been around long enough that by now we can smell a retreat in the making. To wit, the White House is getting ready to throw personal retirement accounts over the side in an attempt to cut a Social Security deal with the new Democratic Congress. Will a tax increase be the next concession? President Bush has made no secret of his desire to claim some kind of Social Security deal as a legacy before he leaves office. Asked last week about possible negotiations, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson declared there would be "no preconditions." Without quite admitting...

GAINESVILLE - From all appearances, America's baby boomers are a nation of procrastinators wearing rose-tinted glasses. They think just because they worked all their lives - many starting as early as 16 - they deserve a retirement with the same income as at the peaks of their careers. Oh sure, there will be some health benefits they'll have to pay for, and heaven knows what gasoline will cost in 10 years. But they'll still be in their homes, drive two cars and take cruises whenever they like. But recent surveys show that probably isn't going to happen. The 16th annual...