The stock market crashed last week. I continued with overbalancing although I slowed down the pace from my original plan because it’s hard to keep up with the speed the market was dropping. Both the U.S. and international broad market indexes crossed the 40%-off mark. My target stocks/bonds ratio is 70/30, up from 65/35 when […]
Latest Blog Posts
Refinanced to Foreclosure
I heard this on the radio on my way home last week. A lady called a talk show program about her foreclosure story. I’m paraphrasing here: The bank foreclosed my home recently. It was my family home of 35 years. I raised my kids in it. I love it. The bank was WaMu. I begged […]
Mortgage Loans Around the World
In so many articles about the housing and mortgage crisis in the United States, adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) are invariably mentioned as one of the culprits. People can’t pay when the interest rate on their loan resets. The words ARM and dangerous are often used in the same sentence. Should ARMs bear the blame though? […]
Crime and Punishment
There is no doubt the financial market crisis is perpetrated by Americans. American homeowners decided to speculate on housing prices. American lenders lent irresponsibly. American borrowers decided not to honor their debt. American financial institutions packaged and sold mortgage backed securities to other American investors and to investors around the world. American bond rating agencies […]
Price Matching Policy and Time Limit
There are enough chaos in the financial markets. I’m not going to post anything related to investing this week. There’s plenty to read and digest about Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and AIG. I believe all eyes are on WaMu now. Should a business stand firm on its price matching policy? That’s the question for today. […]
Nudge: Econs, Humans, and Choice Architecture
At the end of a previous post, Stories from Strapped: Debt, I asked, How do you make people do the right thing for themselves? This new book Nudge, by University of Chicago professors Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, addresses exactly that question. Here’s a 8-minute video of the authors talking about this book. I find […]
Recession and Wii
I want to buy a Wii. I played a Wii at my sister’s place and I liked it. Now I want to buy one but I can’t find one. Except on eBay, where it’s sold above MSRP, the Wii is out of stock everywhere. When they come into stock, the units are sold out immediately. […]
A Non-Deductible IRA Is Worth It For Me
In Alternatives to a High Cost 401k Or 403b Plan , I mentioned non-deductible IRA as one of the options. If you are not eligible to contribute to a Roth IRA, you can still contribute to a Traditional IRA. Even though the contributions are not tax deductible, the money in the IRA still grows tax […]
The Cost of Being Green
I love the Om Money column in the Yoga Journal magazine. It’s the first thing I read in every issue. The column features a question from a reader answered by two money experts. A previous column prompted me to write Unsure About Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) last year. Here’s another good question in the September […]
Stories from Strapped: Conclusion
Are you glad the Stories from Strapped series is finally coming to an end? In the last five weeks, we read some stories in the book Strapped: Why America’s 20- and 30-Somethings Can’t Get Ahead by Tamara Draut. Stories from Strapped: College Education Stories from Strapped: Paycheck Stories from Strapped: Debt Stories from Strapped: Housing […]