retirement

Bye Bye Chained CPI and Other Budget Surprises

The Obama administration is finally abandoning their endorsement of chained CPI for next years budget.  The reason is probably not good economics, but political.  Election season is near and this is just one of many policies the Obama administration endorsed which raised the ire of the retired.  A refresher, chained CPI is another method to adjust for cost of living increases at a reduced rate than what is currently used, CPI-W.

Friday Movie Night - Retirement Impending Disaster

Retirement is something most of us don't like to think about.  It is not due to aging and fear of death.  Instead, most of us are just scraping by, if that, and our retirement funds do not exist.  Out of sight, out of mind is a way to deal with the deathly fear of having absolutely no money to take care of ourselves with in old age.

So Much for the Impending Economic Armageddon Federal Budget Deficit

Surprise, when tax revenues increase the deficit goes down.  Such was the news of a new CBO update on the federal budget deficit.

If the current laws that govern federal taxes and spending do not change, the budget deficit will shrink this year to $642 billion, CBO estimates, the smallest shortfall since 2008.

Low Income Households Have Expenses More Than Twice Their Income

A shocking claim was made by various press sources that those at the bottom of the American economic pile have living expenses which are double their income.

The bottom fifth of the U.S. income distribution -- 24.4 million households -- on average earned $10,074 in after-tax annual income and spent $22,001 last year,

The Lottery is the Best Investment Strategy for April 1st 2012

After 72 hours of non-stop mega millions lottery news coverage, we discovered the best investment strategy to secure your future is to buy lottery tickets. One never knows and it's best to place your fate in the hands of improbable odds. While the chance of hitting it big are 176,000,000 to 1, we checked the numbers and discovered getting your retirement 401k to where it needs to be has even worse odds and also correlates to winning a lottery. See the correlation graph below.

 

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