Don’t Quit Your Day Job – Personal Finance, Economics and Investing

My friend sent me an article the other day which really summarized my thoughts succinctly – he sent me this piece from Evan Newmark writing at the Wall Street Journal. If you haven’t noticed the crazy action in the stock market in recent weeks and days, let me be the bearer of bad news: the major US indicators are down from their yearly peaks. You’ve probably lost some money on paper, even. Between oil in the Gulf, the Greece Drama, and even North Korea, there is a lot to be worried about. Here’s the thing – these are all known unknowns, and generally priced into the stock market already.

Thanks to the Committee for a Responsible Public Budget, you too can play Dictator/a for a day! It’s no surprise that the United States has a high national debt. The United States has around $13 trillion in public debts. The United States is also the largest economic engine in the world, with a GDP of $14.2 trillion in 2009. How would you balance the expenditures of the government?

I haven’t recently taken a look at what the Treasury market is telling us about inflation… but that’s now changed, and I’m here to share with you. The market predicts continued smooth sailing on the currency front. My method is the very crude subtract real treasury yields from the yield curve. Currency stability is probably here to stay in the meantime, what with the only reasonable alternative in flux and everything… and the market reflects that truth.

CO2 emissions fell with the economy last year! CO2 emissions had fallen 3% in 2008, but multiple factors account for the fall last year. As the Ars Technica article states, the drop in emissions wasn’t completely attributable to the fall in GDP; some of the fall was due to trends that may continue in the next few years towards higher mileage cars and cleaner industries.

Carnivals (2) and links (5) for the week!

Not: new articles when I get my new video card and monitor. Let’s go FedEx!

Reality check or tempered expectations? The number of 401(k) investors who believe they can retire early has, as expected, decreased over the last few years of market turmoil. Since 2007, the number of investors who think their 401(k) or IRA accounts will be the largest source of income in retirement has fallen 7 percentage points – from 52% to 45%.