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I bought my first home in 1990 at the top of the Southern California real estate market and promptly found myself with an “underwater” mortgage. And although I owed more than the home was worth over the next seven long years, I never walked away from that loan — even though I wanted to — because I felt I had a moral obligation Continue reading If It Feels Good Do It: Maybe Strategic Defaults Aren’t So Bad After All In an ideal world we all want to be debt-free; and borrowing money is something that we all should approach with caution. However, when it comes to living a real life, very few of us will be able to escape borrowing money to finance a larger purchase. A car can be one of those big purchases and, unless you’re happy to ride a bicycle or save up money in your Continue reading Evaluating the Pros & Cons of 4 Common Car Loan Alternatives Inflation? What inflation? The fact is, for those who are willing to look close enough, we are actually being confronted by a serious bout of deflation — at least when it comes to the size of the containers sitting on our supermarket shelves. With prices continuing to rise in the face of the depressed economic climate, manufacturers continue to find themselves caught in a classic dilemma: either raise prices and risk losing Continue reading Looking for Inflation? It’s Hiding In Smaller Package Sizes. According to Freddie Mac’s most recent survey, there is currently a spread of 0.79 percent between the 15- and 30-year fixed rate mortgage benchmarks, which just so happens to be the largest spread since Freddie started tracking the 15-year mortgage 20 years ago; for comparison purposes, the average spread over that same time period has been only 0.47 percent. I think most people naturally assume that, when it comes Continue reading The 15 vs. 30 Year Mortgage Loan Debate: Why 30 Is Better One of the more difficult jobs any parent faces is teaching their kids the value of a dollar. Sadly, some kids never learn that money doesn’t grow on trees. It may seem cruel, but parents who aren’t afraid to let their kids spend their money on ill-advised purchases — especially those with limited shelf lives — are actually doing them a favor. Experience is a terrific teacher and, with respect to Continue reading 100 Words On: A Surefire Way to Teach Kids the Value of Money You might think that credit cards for people with excellent credit are universally the best products available, and that the quality of a credit card naturally rises in accordance with the credit level required to get it. You might believe that high fees and lacking rewards simply come with the territory of having bad credit, and that this is a natural trade off. You might also assume that Continue reading Beware: A Credit Card for Excellent Credit That Doesn’t Fit the Bill Assume you earn 4% interest in a savings account. Whether you pay a tax of 100% in a non-inflationary environment, or collect that interest tax-free with 4% inflation, the end result is the same. In other words, inflation is a tax that requires no approval from legislators. This concept isn’t lost on our government, which is currently mired in over $100 trillion of debt and unfunded obligations. The bottom Continue reading 100 Words On: Why Inflation Is Taxation without Representation
President Roosevelt signing the Social Security Act of 1935 in the Cabinet Room of the White House. This weekend I was looking through the safe that holds all of my most important documents, like family birth certificates, insurance policies and the secret recipe for mom’s sauce, when I ran across my Social Security card. Now I’ll wager that, if you poll a room full of people at a triple-keg Continue reading 18 Fast Facts You Didn’t Know About Social Security Numbers It’s been said that if the palm of your right hand itches, you’ll soon be coming into money. On the other hand (seriously, no pun intended), it’s also been said that if your left palm itches you’ll soon be paying out money. Don’t laugh. There are folks out there who actually believe this stuff. What is funny though is if you do an internet search, you’ll find there is no consensus at Continue reading 10 Old Wives’ Tales Masquerading As Financial Rules of Thumb |
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100 Words On: Why the Federal Reserve Must Be Abolished
The central bank is an institution of the most deadly hostility existing against the principles and form of our Constitution. If the American people allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the People of all their property until their children will wake up homeless
Continue reading 100 Words On: Why the Federal Reserve Must Be Abolished