Early Retirement Is All the Rage, But Is It the Right Choice for Everyone?
Read any financial news site today and it will be full of accounts of people who worked hard to retire early. Whereas most Americans hope to retire around 65 and think of retiring at 50 as retiring early, some of these accounts feature people who have retired as early as 35. It’s pretty impressive to think that people have...
A Strong Stock Market Doesn’t Mean a Strong Economy
For decades stock markets have been viewed as proxies for the strength of the economy. The higher stock market indexes go, the stronger the economy is deemed to be. The most famous index, of course, is the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which in recent days has pushed back to record new highs. But while many people, President Trump included,...
The American Dream Is Becoming Less and Less Attainable for More and More Americans
We’re all familiar with the concept of the American Dream, the idea of having a small family, a house, a car, and leading an idyllic lifestyle. But for more and more Americans that dream is becoming further and further away from reality. With a rising cost of living, more expensive housing, food, and education, it seems that each generation...
Social Security Continues to Disappoint
Although the Social Security system was originally intended only to provide a backstop to retirees who may not have had enough money saved up for retirement, the initial benefits received by Social Security recipients lured many people into a false sense of security, leading them to believe that they could survive in retirement solely on their checks from the...
Don’t Be Mistaken About the Cause of the Next Crisis
One thing that’s almost universally true of the financial media is that they are ignorant of economics. Read just about any financial commentator and you’ll find articles chock full of bad economics and debunked fallacies. Whether it’s the “benefit” of higher government spending contributing to GDP growth, the necessity of the Fed to stimulate demand, or the broken window...