Personal Finance For the N64 Generation
If you put your money in a bank or credit union in the USA, the government guarantees your deposits up to $250,000. While you could lose a lot of money to fees if you bank with a major financial institution, the money in your account is secure. This is one of the biggest lies in the American financial system. Continue reading “Your Bank is Riskier than the Stock Market”
Bernie Sanders believes that there is a group of rich, international capitalists conspiring to rip off the poor and middle class. While that might be partly true, the poor and middle class do far more to rip themselves off. 62% of Americans do not have $1,000 in a bank account. A majority of college students carry credit card debt. The average millennial only has $16,500 in their 401k, and that figure includes workers all the way up to age 34! To use a biblical analogy, we have a lot of planks in our eyes that we need to clean up first before we blame millionaires and billionaires for our financial problems. Here are a few practical ways to rig the economy in your favor. Continue reading “How To Rig the Economy In Your Favor”
Everybody assumes you can only fix your retirement account problems around the end of December. However, that couldn’t be more wrong. In fact, the IRS generously gives a gift that keeps on giving. You have until Tax Day of the following year to make any IRA contributions that can count for the year prior. You can fix your empty IRA problem by looking out for these special cases and seeing if any apply to you. Continue reading “The IRS Time Machine to Fix Your Empty IRA Problem”
Breaking news for Millennial Moola readers that just came out yesterday: Google just dropped the price of the Nexus 5X from $350 to $199 if you activate Google Fi for a month and they eliminated the previous invite requirement. For those that do not know about all the new mobile phone options out there, Google Fi was an experimental service offered by Google to try and break into the mindless monopoly of AT&T and Verizon. The service uses a combination of T-Mobile and Sprint and offers coverage and data connectivity around the world in most countries for only $0.20 a minute. In the US, you can talk and text unlimited. Here’s a quick overview of who I think this incredible deal makes sense for, and why I’m waiting for a new development from Republic Wireless. Continue reading “Google Fi Best Deal of the Year Good Until April 7”
Fake. Duplicitous. Phony. Surreal appearance underlying the dark truth of the willingness to take advantage of anyone in its way. I could be talking about Chris Christie’s support of Donald Trump. Unfortunately, I’m not. If you take a look at trading levels, there are a lot of individual investors out there that could lose their shirt when New Jersey bonds default. I’ve written two pieces on the coming disaster of New Jersey’s finances, here and here. Sometime in the next 10 years, the state will have no money to pay its bills. The scary part is, the bond market is completely ignoring it. There are people today paying premium dollars for bonds that could be close to worthless in 10 years. The rating agencies and other institutional investors are wrong because there has never been a looming financial crisis quite like this before. Here’s the evidence. Continue reading “New Jersey Bonds Are Like Chris Christie at a Trump Rally”
Reader in San Francisco: I have seen two articles about younger investors playing the oil speculation game, specifically on UWTI and DWTI (leveraged oil ETNs). I’ll have to admit, its a pretty interesting consideration for the Robinhood slush account. How bad are these leveraged products and what is the decaying nature of them? Continue reading “Should Millennials Be Playing the Oil Speculation Game?”
When Bernie Sanders talks about ‘the billionaire class,’ he speaks in a similar tone that an actor in an R rated movie would say the F word. He has clearly hit a nerve in American politics and is performing shockingly well in the polls. Wages have not risen with productivity, and the wealth gains among the working class pale in comparison to those of the top 1%. America’s top 25 hedge fund managers make more money than all the kindergarten teachers in America. Mitt Romney’s tax rate is not even 15%, and Warren Buffet pays less in taxes than his secretary. For all these reasons, we should tax the rich at confiscatory levels and put their heads on figurative pikes right? Billionaire is the new four letter word, but it shouldn’t be. Here’s why. Continue reading “Billionaire Is the New Four Letter Word In American Politics”
Like most Americans, I had no idea that Guatemala was a hotbed of volcanic activity. For less than $20, you can obtain a private guide to Pacaya, an active volcano with flowing lava fields. I had no idea that this kind of experience existed, and it’s something I hope every person gets to do at least once in their life. Continue reading “See Pacaya, a Giant Active Volcano in Central America”
For those who are unaware, I’ve been journeying around Latin America for the past couple months as part of my trip around the world. I discovered a fascinating bit of knowledge the other day in the central market of Antigua: Guatemala is where America’s old school buses spend their golden years. Nicknamed “chicken buses,” the locals turn the boring school buses of the early 90s into some of the most pimped rides I’ve ever seen. Their creativity has lots of implications for how we treat out own personal finances and combat America’s throwaway culture. Continue reading “Where America’s Old School Buses Go To Retire”
Bernie Sanders wants to make college free, and who wouldn’t? College is so expensive today. It leaves generations of students saddled with mountains of debt. I contend that Sanders proposal to make college affordable would have the opposite effect, driving costs up for the taxpayer. To see why, we will look at higher education spending over the past 40 plus years. During this time, the cost to attend college more than tripled, using constant 2015 dollars. I will use my experience at a large public flagship state university from 2008-2012 to provide anecdotal evidence as to why college costs are exploding in addition to cold hard facts. Continue reading “Why College Is So Expensive”
