I read a great article on New York Times last week, Unnatural Selections. The author, Mr. Barry Schwartz is a professor of psychology at Swarthmore College. He wrote about the power of the default option. People tend to stay with the default option presented to them because deviating from the default option requires making a […]
Latest Blog Posts
Which Vanguard Money Market Fund?
This post was written in 2007. Things have changed since then. Please read the update Which Vanguard Money Market Fund Is the Best at Your Tax Rates.
Who Pays for Credit Card Rewards and Rebates?
There is debate about whether one should charge everything on credit cards for reaping the rewards (cash rebate or miles) or pay everything by cash (and by debit card and checks). In this post I examine the source of the credit card rewards. If I charge everything on credit cards, pay the balance in full […]
Picking Stocks Is a Waste of Time
The 2/26/2007 issue of the Wall Street Journal had a special section for stock score board. If you don’t have access to WSJ Online, it’s worth digging it out from a library. I’m highlighting something I noticed in that section which makes the point for the title of this post — picking stocks is a […]
Bogleheads Forum Moved To Diehards.org
The new Diehards in the Vanguard forum I wrote about two weeks ago was renamed to Bogleheads forum. It moved to the diehards.org domain, which has been the more popular entry point for the old Morningstar forum. Diehards.org is the #1 spot on Google when you search for “Vanguard Diehards.” They changed the forum’s name […]
Prosper Lending Return on Investment Analysis
IndexFundFan alerted me to an excellent review for person-to-person lending on Prosper.com by Jonathan at My Money Blog: part 1, part 2. I wrote about Prosper in a previous post Prosper.com Or Junk Bond Fund?, in which I said if people want to take credit risks, there are other places to take them, such as […]
New Diehards in the Vanguard Forum
[Update on July 19, 2008]: The name of the forum changed to Bogleheads Investment Forum. diehards.org domain name also changed to bogleheads.org. I have been a member of the Vanguard Diehards forum at Morningstar for a long time. People there help each other with investment related discussions. The forum however has a weakest link — […]
Was It a Bubble, Or Was It Just Early?
One of the often used excuse for having ventured into something that didn’t materialize is “I wasn’t wrong. I was just early.” There is some truth to that statement although timing is every bit as important as the action itself. I’m seeing a number of things derided after the late 1990s stock bubble coming back […]
What Happens When a Bank Goes Out of Business
Last week I wondered in a comment to a post on The Simple Dollar about what the FDIC insurance claims process is really like when a bank fails. If a bank fails, do you get paid right away, or do you have to wait until everything is sorted out? For how long? How do you […]
Tax Deduction Denied
I started doing my taxes last weekend. I’m not ready to file yet, but I just wanted to see where I stand. When I compared my first run with my 2005 tax return, I noticed that although my income was higher in 2006, my total itemized deduction was a few thousand dollars less than that […]