And now the other shoe drops.
Benefit changes have the political virtue of appearing to be a free lunch, in the sense that the tax and wage base may remain unchanged, but the final product is diminished in scale and scope.
Like a frog being slowly boiled in increasingly heated water…
…the hope is that the public will […]
What could be worse than knowing that your taxes will go up and your future benefits will go down?
Not knowing. And not preparing in advance.
I am indebted to these sources for the summary findings that follow: the AARP Public Policy Institute, the Urban Institute, and the American Academy of Actuaries.
(In case you wondered, […]
It’s amazing…the questions I often receive from friends and clients.
They usually arrive from no fixed point of reference…phrased innocently and innocuously.
Like the time my Dad asked me if I thought silver bullion was a good investment.
This was so outrageously out of character for him even to consider…so it came as no surprise that he had […]
The genius of James Madison’s construction of the U.S. Constitution was in the intricate checks and balances that prevented either the Executive, Legislative or Judicial branches from running roughshod over the others.
And it was a nice idea while it lasted.
Now we know what happens when you combine a lawless Executive, with a clueless Congress… and […]
There may be a solution to the dizzying array of retirement accounts we now face.
It will likely be forced on the political hierarchy by events that threaten to spiral out of control. We know that “reforms” will be applied to the entitlement programs…not because Congress has finally found the courage to do so…but because demography […]
So, would you like to know how the average person deals with extreme complexity?
Easy…they just tune out.
I spent the weekend shopping for a starter house in Dallas with one of my adultlets…there are just under six months remaining to qualify for the first time buyer’s rebate credit, so we are dealing with a time certain […]
On reflection, we may be able to muddle our way through…and thread the needle between deflation and inflation.
It won’t be easy. Free money is addictive and corrupting.
Once everyone understands that wealth makes you a target…and need makes you a favored constituency, the structure for incentives is skewed and distorted.
If I had to lay down the […]
Now that you have been scared straight on the perils of deflation…
We must explore the other gruesome possibility…runaway inflation.
Life is abundant with choices and decisions. In this case, you once again have a choice…between freezing to death and being roasted on a spit.
Perhaps you’ve wondered, as I have, where all the trillions in bailout and […]
