The answer to this question is probably no.  Yet, most grandparents of people I know were in pretty good financial shape.  I believe this all comes down to the fact that that generation (our grandparent’s generation) was much more frugal than us.  Personal finance was just common sense back then (and should still be today).  They didn’t need a financial “expert” to tell them how to manage their money.  They just did the common sense personal finance things that too few of us do today.
Our grandparents for the most part …

College tuition is increasingly expensive these days – even for the top online schools. To battle the rising costs, our wonderful politicians seek ways to get more people access to education funds and debt.  As Peter Schiff discusses in one of his recent posts, this “solution” is exactly the problem.
Take the recent student loan reforms that were slipped into the health care bill. Obama wants to reduce the cost of providing student loans by taking the profits out of the industry. According to Obama, student loans are too expensive because …

The SPDR S&P Retail Index ETF (XRT) is approaching an all time high, essentially erasing the losses during the crisis… err, meltdown… err, recession…. err, distraction.  Yeah that’s the word.  2008 was just a distraction on our way to unlimited prosperity for all.  Why even worry about it?
Onward and upward!
Thanks to Mark at Fundmymutualfund.com for pointing this out.

My favorite politician is Ron Paul.  I agree with almost everything he stands for.  While I do have some minor disagreements with him, I believe he is one of the few elected officials in Congress who actually says what he means and means what he says.  Furthermore, I believe he stands for an America that most closely resembles what the Founders attempted to architect with the Constitution.
Some of his major views are:

End the militarism – United States military has personnel positioned in over 100 countries, we’re fighting multiple wars (neither …

Definition
The VAT Tax, or the Value-Added Tax, taxes a product at every stage of production.  It is similar to a sales tax except that it is not confined to the retail level and it will most likely be at the Federal level whereas sales taxes vary by state.
Is The VAT Coming?
Probably, yes.  A few reasons why:

Budget deficits are spiraling out of control.  The debt levels are getting dangerously high.  A new tax is needed to raise revenues to get the federal government’s fiscal situation in better shape.
“Everyone else has it” …

We recently had a great writing contest here at 20smoney on writing financial plans (click here to see the results).  I’ve been brainstorming some ideas on another contest and thought I’d just announce some of my ideas and get some feedback.
The idea here is to discuss a range of major issues that I feel we are facing here in America (and other countries).  The leaders are influenced by special interests and self interests often more than common sense, so we’re going to look at some common sense approaches to some …

The inflation vs deflation debate continues.  I feel like I read an argument presenting both sides every single day on sites like Zero Hedge.  It typically goes something like this:
Inflationist: We’re printing money like crazy.  It will end in massive inflation.
Deflationist: It doesn’t matter how much money you print if it doesn’t get into the economy, there’s no inflation.
Inflationist: What do you call oil at $85 a barrel?
Deflationist: What do you call housing down another 10%?
The reality is I’m not sure where we’re headed.  The reality is that I see …

A guest post over at Zero Hedge basically makes my argument that I’ve been trying to make for a couple years now.  The article does an indepth analysis of the average Joe who is struggling to get by in America these days.
The author goes through average income levels and average expenses and concludes that the average Joe is essentially in the red each month.  Click on the link above and read through the analysis if you want the details.  On the whole, we pay too much for things and we …