Interesting and exciting week ahead, unlike most recent weeks which have been pretty boring.  Tuesday of course marks the mid-term elections where every congressman/woman is up for election, a good chunk of senators and governors as well.  It looks like the Republican party will make a big push to take a good number of seats, but the bigger question will be does it matter?  Additionally, arguably the more influential day with regards to the markets is Wednesday where the Fed is expected to announce their plans for the next round …

Are you sick of the stupid political ads yet? I am. Unfortunately, I’m fairly disengaged in the political scene right now because while I think the Democrats need to be voted out, I’m not really excited about many of the Republicans that are likely to fill the seats. I like a few, but by and large, it’ll be more of the same.

One of the great things about having a highly motivated, educated audience is that I have a resource to ask legitimate questions to and pay attention to the group’s thoughts and reactions. So, today, I’m using this resource to ask a question.

My question is would you pay $10 a month to be a part of an online community described as follows:

In the last article, I mentioned productive assets as a part of different asset types.  I’d like to expand on this topic.  It’s truly amazing how the vast majority of people have little to no productive assets – and the few that do have some stocks and that’s about it.
Let’s first consider the difference between a productive asset and its extreme opposite, a debt-financed consumer product.  Unfortunately, most people are way more familiar with debt-financed consumption that investing in productive assets.  Debt-financed products are essentially the opposite of a productive …

The Federal Reserve looks to be announcing the plans for their next phase of quantitative easing next week.  The announcement will come on Wednesday, November 3rd.  Interestingly, this comes a day after the elections.  Whether or not the timing means anything is up for you to decide.
For now, the markets are kind of in a holding pattern as the only thing that really matters anymore is how much money the Fed will throw at the markets and at the economy.  With no money being thrown at either, both would collapse. …

Let’s talk a bit about assets today.  Assets are good.  Liabilities, bad.  Hopefully, you have more assets than liabilities.  If not, you probably need to back up and get some of your basic finances in order.  Once you get that taken care of, get back to this discussion which is about what are the best types of assets and where should you be investing your time & money?
I’ve decided to break it down into three categories and I will talk briefly about each.
Productive Assets
In my opinion, this is your top …

There are essentially two paths to move down if you are a leader of the United States.  The path of austerity which essentially refers to cutting spending and balancing the budget.  In the pension world and entitlement world, it means making tough decisions to bring pensions and programs back to solvency.
The path that a politician typically chooses is the inflation route because the effects of it are more beneath the surface – or in the case where the effects are blatant (i.e. $10 gas), the causes can be debated.  The …

I heard some interesting insight into social security today that I’d pass along to the readers here. First, let’s start with demographics – demographics are crucial to anything finance or political. When it comes to life expectancy, the demographics show the following with regards to men and women, both black and white: