February 2009 - Posts
The Wall Street Journal - February 26, 2009
Small businesses are having a harder time meeting their obligations in offering retirement benefits for their employees, with two stark choices facing them: shut their doors or end their contributions, according
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Consumer Affairs - February 26, 2009
The Senate Special Committee on Aging is looking into 401(k) target-date funds, with some members calling for new protections for account holders.
At a hearing Wednesday, witnesses offered insight into the myriad
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US News & World Report - February 24, 2009
The House Education and Labor Committee held a hearing today to examine the shortcomings of the U.S. retirement system. The two-and-a-half hour discussion largely highlighted the weaknesses of the current
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MSNBC - February 24, 2009
As the stock markets tumble to a record low that hasn’t been seen in 12 years, people are desperately trying to understand how to protect their retirement savings.
Brokers said that the drop on the Down Jones was so bad, people
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HUD - February 25, 2009
More American families will be eligible this year to purchase or refinance their homes using affordable, FHA-insured mortgages, thanks to the economic stimulus package signed into law by President Obama last week. The American
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The New York Times - February 24, 2009
Toward the end of Monday’s meetings on fiscal responsibility at the White House, Senator Kent Conrad stood up and produced a little bolt of honesty. “Revenue is the thing almost nobody wants to talk about,” said
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California Chronicle - February 24, 2009
(Sacramento) – Assemblymember Mike Feuer (D-Los Angeles) has introduced three bills to protect seniors vulnerable to abuse in nursing homes and exploitation in the marketplace. AB 392 would restore funding to
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MarketWatch - February 24, 2009
The Economic Stimulus Bill signed recently by President Obama provides even more of America's seniors with the opportunity to benefit from a reverse mortgage. The new bill will raise the HECM loan limits to 150 percent
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Truthout - February 16, 2009
Remember all those headlines about how the baby boom cohorts just lost several trillion dollars in home equity due to the collapse of the housing bubble and how they lost trillions more in their retirement accounts as a result
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The Washington Post - February 22, 2009
Target-date retirement funds are coming under increased scrutiny as investors try to contain the damage to their 401(k)s from the worst economic downturn in generations.
The funds, also known as lifecycle funds,
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CNN - February 22, 2009
The Obama administration's efforts to help struggling homeowners will aid "responsible" borrowers, not deadbeats or speculators, Housing Secretary Shaun Donovan said Sunday.
President Barack Obama announced the plan Wednesday,
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The Sunday Business Post - February 22, 2009
Just one day after signing a $787 billion economic stimulus package into law last week, President Barack Obama turned his attention directly to the housing crisis - and committed another $275 billion of taxpayers’
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CNBC - Feb 20, 2009
CNBC's Rick Santelli called for a "Chicago Tea Party" Thursday, leading the charge for calls to revolt against the Obama Administration's mortgage bailout plan (see video below).
The clip has gone viral on the Internet, bringing
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Dallas News - February 15, 2009
Forrest Brannon has great faith in God, but it was sorely tested recently when he faced losing his Dallas home to foreclosure. Brannon, a 79-year-old veteran, said his mortgage payment more than doubled in a year from
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Bradenton Herald - February 16, 2009
HUD recently announced that it is now offering for the first time reverse mortgages for purchasing a home.
This is phenomenal news to the Florida market as the reverse mortgage program has always targeted those
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The Wall Street Journal - February 18, 2009
FORT MYERS, Fla. -- Hoping to save her house, Saundra Hill Scott arrived at the county courthouse clutching dog-eared mortgage bills and letters from her lender.
She need not have bothered. The foreclosure
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PBS Bill Moyer's Journal - February 13, 2009
On Tuesday, February 10, 2009 Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner unveiled the Obama administration's plan to address the crisis in the financial sector. The strategy he outlined calls for the largest Federal
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US News & World Report - February 13, 2009
Baby boomer retirement and a “retirement wave” of experienced Social Security Administration (SSA) employees could create long lines and unanswered phone calls, according to a recent report. The Government
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The New York Times - February 13, 2009
You did what you were supposed to do. College. Graduate school, maybe. Bought a home. Invested in mutual funds.
And now? You have student loan debt. Your degree has not shielded you from unemployment (or the fear
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Bloomberg - December 4, 2008
Arthur Laupus joined AARP because he thought the nonprofit senior-citizen-advocacy group would make his retirement years easier. He signed up for an auto insurance policy endorsed by AARP, believing the advertising that said
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Yahoo Finance - February 12, 2009
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The recession has cut many Americans' net worth by about 20 percent as the value of homes, stock portfolios and businesses have plummeted, the Federal Reserve said Thursday.
The Fed said the average
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Reuters - February 9, 2009
Ian Thiermann, age 90, has abandoned retirement and now works the aisles of a grocery store to make ends meet after losing his life savings of $750,000 to Madoff. He now hands out fliers hawking avocados and pork ribs at a
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US News & World Reports - February 9, 2009
Reverse mortgages allow qualified borrowers to tap the equity in their home, pay off their existing mortgage balance--and all the while live in their home as long as they're able. Now, recent changes in
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NewsDay - February 7, 2009
The problem: I am 67 and rent an apartment. Recently I inherited about $200,000, so I've been thinking about buying a small house in the $300,000 range where I could retire more comfortably. I live on Social Security and a
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MSNBC - February 5, 2009
As the U.S. economy buckles, executives are delaying retirement, cutting back on their pension savings and trimming contributions to their children's college funds, according to a survey released on Thursday.
A large majority
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American Public Media - Friday, January 30, 2009
With retirees living longer, it's harder to make ends meet with savings and Social Security. Marketplace's Jeremy Hobson explains how reverse mortgages let retirees use the value of their home to help
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Kitsap Sun- January 31, 2009
If she is very careful, widow Dolores Still, 70, of Island Lake, has just enough money to meet daily expenses.
The trouble is, the house she's occupied since 1974 is in bad shape and needs many improvements. Her teeth need
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Los Angeles Times - February 1, 2009
If you're at retirement age and worried about how you'll pay the bills after the bear market devoured a chunk of your nest egg, you may be sitting on the solution: your home.With a loan called a reverse mortgage,
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CNNMoney.com - January 30, 2009
Question: I'm 75 and I'm considering buying a fixed indexed annuity as a way to preserve my nest egg. Do you think this is a good idea? --William Frazier, Peachtree City, Georgia
Answer: I can understand why a fixed indexed
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The Wall Street Journal - January 29, 2009
Talk to financial gurus about where they’re investing their own retirement money, and you’ll hear plenty of disagreement. John Bogle, founder of mutual-fund giant Vanguard Group, holds municipal-bond funds.
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The Wall Street Journal - January 29, 2009
In times of market strife, financial gurus often tell investors to think long-term and stay the course. Some of them even put their own money where their mouth is.
A sampling of high-profile industry veterans,
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