Don't Quit Your Day Job: The Intersection of Personal Finance, Economics, and Politics.
Want a quick rundown? None. In fact, Boomers are the only age group who have gained jobs since the Great Recession – and they continued to gain jobs throughout the recession. I know, I was shocked as well.
Luckily for you, I ran the numbers,, tossed them into a chart, and cross referenced them with the population of various age groups in 2008 and 2012. Let’s play ball!
Personal finance experts frequently tout the advantages of having a six month emergency fund, if not a more conservative twelve month fund. There are many reasons that a citizen would need to dip into their emergency savings: family illness, death, severe medical expenses, unplanned pregnancy or job loss to name a few. Many reports however, indicate that many (>25% or >50% depending on your definition) Americans still are not prepared for a downturn scenario.
Setting aside my esteemed co-writer’s obsession with hypermiling (not practicing, mind you, joking about), there really is no such thing as a free lunch – especially when it comes to fuel economy. The Government, however, as demonstrated by recently finalized mileage laws, wants their lunch on the house.
As the saying goes, “you can’t legislate innovation”, and fuel economy standards give car manufacturers very interesting incentives.
Last we checked out one of the obscure numbers that relates to jobs in the United States, we were looking at a Employment-Population Ratio under 59%. Today let’s revisit that same ratio and see how much things have changed.
It’s been a while since we here at Don’t Quit Your Day Job have collaborated with another site to give you some original epic pieces. Today, we rectify that by teaming up with the inimitable ADP at American Debt Project. ADP is one of the good ones – a debt blogger who is actually seeing declining debt. And isn’t that the way the debt genre is supposed to work? (And almost never does?). Follow her progress as she does what so few others do.
ADP came to us with a curious question: Can we use building statistics to see when economies become overheated? Basically, she wanted to know if watching building trends and construction would provide any clues to where an economy is headed. Evidence is slim, but let’s take a look at the numbers and see what we can figure out!
One important thing to have an idea of – for personal and business reasons – is the amount of inflation expected in the future. Think about it – by having a reasonable number to plan for the erosion of the value of your money, you will better be able to make decisions on what loans to take out, what purchases to make, and how to invest.
Luckily for you, there are a few ways to gauge these predictions, which don’t resort to guessing, praying, or going to a fortune teller. The methods are also more sophisticated than taking the last few years worth of data, drawing a trend line, and attempting to extrapolate future results.
“Ask yourself, ‘Are you better off now than you were four years ago?’” implored Ronald Reagan in his debate against President Jimmy Carter on October 28, 1980. Maybe it seems like the United States is on the cusp of a second recession, but in one key measure the US is finally starting to outpace inflation and population growth.
That measure? Real Personal Income – personal income deflated by the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index – is on a definite upswing. The personal income component is defined as all income earned from production and from transfer payments from both business and government.
About a month ago, my colleague Cameron penned an article about the Mortgage Interest Deduction – namely, whether it is a good idea or not. For an itemizing taxpayer in the 25% bracket, he pointed out, “The bank receives 4.0% interest, the homeowner pays 3.0% and the taxpayer is left footing the 1.0% difference.” Right – and the bank ends up pocketing the subsidy.
The multi-payer system sets up the incentive for those without their own insurance to be unhealthier. Car accident deaths increased after the seatbelt law was instituted. When I finally have to foot some of the bill, do I still want to see Americans wolfing down their Wendy’s?
In the pilot episode of NBC’s self-referential 30 Rock, the new boss accurately stereotypes a member of middle management after meeting her just thirty seconds before.
Parody? Undoubtedly. Is it a thing? Yes, it’s a thing.
