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Archive for the 'Personal Finance' Category

47% Of American Households Will Pay Zero Income Tax For 2009

by Doug Mataconis @ Thursday, April 8th, 2010. Filed under Credit Crisis, Economics, Personal Finance

Thanks partly to a declining economy, and in a large degree to a tax structure that has gotten out of whack, almost half of Americans households will pay no income taxes in 2009:
WASHINGTON — Tax Day is a dreaded deadline for millions of Americans, but for nearly half of U.S. households, it’s simply somebody else’s [...]

Getting A Tax Refund ? You’re A Sucker

by Doug Mataconis @ Wednesday, April 7th, 2010. Filed under Economics, Personal Finance

Since it’s tax season again, it’s time for me to say it once again —tax refunds are for suckers.
It’s somewhat incomprehensible to me that there are people out there who don’t realize a very simple fact — getting a tax refund means you’ve spend the last 12 months giving an interest-free loan [...]

Labor Unions Are Coming After Your Retirement Accounts

by Doug Mataconis @ Tuesday, March 17th, 2009. Filed under Economics, Personal Finance, Politics

A group of labor union advocates want to nationalize every 401(k) account in the country:
U.S. lawmakers should reform retirement plans after 401(k) and Individual Retirement Accounts lost more than $2 trillion in value since October 2007, a group of consumer and labor groups said.
The new consumer-labor group, “Retirement USA,” backed by the Pension Rights Center, [...]

Who Else Was Responsible For The Madoff Scandal ? The Victims

by Doug Mataconis @ Sunday, March 15th, 2009. Filed under Economics, Personal Finance, Politics

As one New York Times write notes, there was an appalling lack of basic common sense displayed by those people who got taken in by the biggest Ponzi scheme in history:
[J]ust about anybody who actually took the time to kick the tires of Mr. Madoff’s operation tended to run in the other direction. James R. [...]

Whatever Happened To Personal Responsibility ?

by Doug Mataconis @ Friday, March 13th, 2009. Filed under Economics, Personal Finance, Politics

I’m involved in a fairly interesting discussion over at Donklephant in the comment threat to Justin Gardner’s post about the Cramer vs. Stewart showdown last night.
The basic question is this — to what extent are individual investors responsible for their depleted portfolios if they weren’t following basic smart investing rules ?
Here’s my basic point:
[T]here’s something [...]

A Sign Of The Economic Times

by Doug Mataconis @ Monday, December 15th, 2008. Filed under Credit Crisis, Economics, Legal, Personal Finance, Sub-Prime Mortgage Crisis

The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts reports a record year for bankruptcy filings:
Dec 15, 2008 — Bankruptcy cases filed in federal courts totaled 1,042,993 for the 12-month period ending September 30, 2008, up more than 30 percent when compared to the 801,269 filings in Fiscal Year 2007, according to statistics released today by the [...]

The Roots Of The Financial Crisis

by Doug Mataconis @ Wednesday, October 1st, 2008. Filed under Credit Crisis, Economics, Personal Finance, Politics, Sub-Prime Mortgage Crisis

As George Will points out so well in a column published this morning, the fault, dear voters, lies not in the market, but in ourselves:
We are waist deep in evasions because one cannot talk sense about the cultural roots of the financial crisis without transgressing this cardinal principle of politics: Never shall be heard a [...]

Dow Jones Shatters 13,000

by Doug Mataconis @ Wednesday, April 25th, 2007. Filed under Business, Economics, Personal Finance

Not only did the Dow Jones Average pass 13,000, it positively shattered it:
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The Dow industrials jumped 136 points Wednesday afternoon to close above 13,000 for the first time as investors hailed upbeat earnings from Amazon.com, possible asset sales by Alcoa and a strong reading on the economy.
The gain in the Dow [...]

Dow Jones Average Passes 13,000

by Doug Mataconis @ Wednesday, April 25th, 2007. Filed under Business, Economics, Personal Finance

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is far from the best indicator of what’s happening on Wall Street. For that you’d do better to look at the S&P 500 or Wilshire 5000. Nonetheless, it is the one everyone pays attention to, so today’s news that it passed 13,000 for the first time is getting alot of [...]

The Deflating Real Estate Bubble

by Doug Mataconis @ Wednesday, July 26th, 2006. Filed under Economics, Personal Finance, Real Estate

There are several stories in the news today which provide further evidence in support of the idea that the days of rapidly rising real estate prices are gone.
First, the Washington Post reports that sales of existing homes fell again in June:
In Loudoun County, for example, 515 existing single-family homes and condominiums were sold last month, [...]

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