Economics and the Market
Business Week, November 8th, 2009Markets may have rebounded in 2009, but individual investors are still edgy and shell-shocked. Even
as the broad Standard & Poor's 500-stock index remained up 56%
since March, the U.S. unemployment rate crept above
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CNN Money, November 3rd, 2009Question: My husband and I are in our late '50s and haven't
put anything away for retirement, although we do own our home. We
figure we'll work another 10 years or so before retiring. Do you have
any helpful suggestions
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The New York Times, October 16th, 2009MANY retirees are in a cash crunch — with a lower income stream from their investment portfolios, personal expenses that are higher than expected, or both. While
most assets can be used to generate liquidity,
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The Wall Street Journal, October 28th, 2009The federal government needs to further step up efforts to fight
Medicare and Medicaid fraud to generate more savings to help pay for a
health-care overhaul, lawmakers said Wednesday.
"The scale of health
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The New York Times, October 24th, 2009Arthur Ullian is president of the National Council on Spinal Cord
Injury and co-author of two studies in the Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences on the economics of health care. In a forthcoming
analysis,
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CBS News, October 25th, 2009Of all the problems facing the United States right now, none are more important than health care. President
Obama says rising costs are driving huge federal budget deficits that
imperil our future, and that there is enough
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Main Street, October 15th, 2009Supporters of annuity plans, who often bill them as "personal
pensions," are touting their recession era durability and pushing for
federal tax breaks they say will advance their adoption.
The economic downturn seems
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The New York Times, October 14th, 2009MICHAEL SURRETT’S investment portfolio hasn’t fully recovered from the market crash, but that didn’t stop him from retiring three weeks ago.“We are no different than anyone else in this economy,” said Mr.
Surrett,
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The New York Times, August 26th, 2009When Harvey Clavon took out an exotic mortgage to refinance his home in
Santa Clarita, Calif., three years ago, he thought he knew what he was
doing.Mr. Clavon, 63, was planning to sell the home in a few years and
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The New York Times, August 21st, 2009Sales of previously owned homes surged in July as buyers stormed
back to the market, taking advantage of falling prices, lower interest
rates and a tax credit for first-time homeowners, an industry group
reported
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Washington Post, August 10th, 2009
Reverse mortgages have been around for nearly 20 years, but it wasn't
until the current financial crisis that they caught on. Seniors are
turning to these loans to tap the equity in their homes and generate
tax-free
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Bloomberg, August 5th, 2009Household income in the U.S. is
weakening as the influence of the government’s stimulus plan
wanes, prompting economists, Federal Reserve officials and a
Nobel laureate to warn that consumer spending may struggle.
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Detroit Free Press, July 22nd, 2009Many people would rather talk about sex than about money, particularly
if it means having to disclose that they don't have enough.So it is with some reluctance and shame that many boomers-and-beyond
are admitting their
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The New York Times, July 19th, 2009From the ninth floor of a downtown office building on Wilshire Boulevard, Jack Soussana delivered staggering numbers of mortgages to homeowners during the real estate boom, amassing a fortune.By Mr. Soussana’s own account,
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USA Today, July 20th, 2009Low savings rates and a rotten stock market
sent record numbers of savers to lock in current rates with fixed
annuities — precisely when rates were near rock-bottom.
Fixed annuity sales jumped 74%, to $35.6
billion, the
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