Personal Economics 101

Rep Jim Jordon: Biden's claim that government spending will bring down inflation is stupid. Democrat economic plan of increased lockdowns due to Covid-10, spend like crazy, pay people not to work, and increase taxes on those who do work, may be the four most stupid economic policies ever.  

From the  American Institution for Economic Research Real gross domestic product increased at a 6.5 percent annualized rate in the second quarter, up from a 6.3 percent pace in the first quarter. Over the past four quarters, real gross domestic product is up 12.2 percent, putting the level almost back on trend. Growth in the second quarter was led by consumers. Real consumer spending overall rose at an 11.8 percent annualized rate, beating the strong 11.4 percent rate in the first quarter, and contributing a total of 7.8 percentage points to real GDP growth. The pattern of contributions to growth among the components of consumer spending in the second quarter was the mirror opposite of the first quarter, as the second quarter was led by consumer services, followed by nondurable goods and then durable goods. Spending on services grew at a 12.0 percent rate, contributing 5.1 percentage points to real GDP growth, while nondurable-goods spending rose at a 12.6 percent pace, contributing 1.

Why are car manufacturers still improving and spending money on combustion engines in the year 2020? Should all development research be going into electric cars and electric vehicle technology? Unfortunate news if you think ICE transportation is going away in the near future to be solely replaced by electric vehicles (EVs). The internal combustion engine is still incredibly relevant today, and can still use further improvements in order to reduce global emissions.  In this video we'll discuss scientific issues facing electric cars, environmental problems with ditching combustion engine research, how cost impacts customer decisions and manufacturer profits, and ultimately how consumer choice plays a large role in this industry. If you've ever wondered why combustion engines are still being developed, this video breaks down all the details.

As you may have noticed, “buy now, pay later” (BNPL) options are exploding, with retailers ranging from department stores to airlines allowing customers to pay for goods and services in installments rather than all at once. In fact, in 2021 over half of consumers have used a BNPL service such as Klarna, Afterpay or Affirm to finance their purchases. These plans been around for many years, however, mostly as "buy now, use our card or credit plan, pay no interest for a year", or more. Pay no interest for 5 years! We've all seen them. But that said, there are some significant potential gotchas to think about before you give it a try. Let’s take a look at how BNPL services work—so that you can understand their pros and cons—and make an informed decision about when they may (or may not) be a good choice. BNPL plans work like an old-fashioned layaway plan in reverse. Instead of having the merchant hold on to the item until you complete all your installment payments, you receiv

In this video Peter Lynch offers 8 investing rules for all beginner investors to follow. They're simple but the hard thing is sticking to them! Peter Lynch is an American investor, mutual fund manager, and philanthropist. As the manager of the Magellan Fund at Fidelity Investments between 1977 and 1990, Lynch averaged a 29.2% annual return, consistently more than double the S&P 500 stock market index and making it the best-performing mutual fund in the world. 1. Small investor's have a huge advantage 2. Know what you own 3. Don't invest purely on others opinions 4. Focus on the company behind the stock 5. Don't try to predict the market 6. Study history. Market crashes are great opportunities 7. You have plenty of time 8. You need an edge to make money I highly recommend his book.  From Amazon:  One Up On Wall Street

When I wrote on July 19 about the need to avoid a panic , little did I know that my expectation that the market would not plunge into a correct would come true. Stocks rose Friday for the fourth straight session after a rough start to the week, with most major groups moving higher.  The Dow closed above 35,000 for the first time ever, bringing its 2021 gain to 14%, and rising 1% for the week despite dropping more than 700 points on Monday. The S&P 500 rose 2% for the week and the Nasdaq Composite added 2.8%. The 10-year Treasury yield rebounded to 1.29% on Friday, easing concerns about the economy that the bond market sparked on Monday when the 10-year yield fell to a five-month low 1.13%. Still, a 1.29% yield on the 10-year is not very good. The different indexes surged at the bell and held onto the gains as investors looked ahead to what's expected to be blowout earnings from big tech giants next week. The July FOMC Meeting gets underway on Tuesday and market participants wil

As you may know, the housing market seems to be booming with record-low mortgage rates even post-pandemic. But could this surge be faced with a bust in the near future? That’s what I’m going to be discussing in this video. - Phil Town

Note: Predictions are more entertainment, in my opinion, than "intelligence" on how to invest your money. But based on these here, I'd be overweight in energy and underweight in financials, which is exactly how I'm invested. Price Predictions Product July 23 Prices Dec 31 Prices Percent Up/Down WTI 73.45 93.15 +26.8% Natural Gas 4.03 3.58 -11.16% 30-Year Mortgage 2.78% 2.60% -06.75% Gold (ounce) $1,802 $1,620 -10.11% Silver (ounce) $25.19 $20.29 -04.90% U.S. Dollar Index 92.94

It can't go any lower (it can go a lot lower) How high can it go? (it can go a lot higher) They Always Come Back (No they don't) How much can I lose? If your neighbor invests $10,000 at $50 and you invest $25,000 at $3 and it goes to $0, who loses the most? Surprisingly, many investors can't answer this correctly, says Lynch.  It's always darkest before the dawn. Don't think the business can't get worse. I will sell after the rebound, after the stock gets back to what I paid for it. (Note: the stock doesn't know you own it.) I own conservative stocks (I don't have to worry). I lost money by not buying. (You actually didn't lose anything) Stock is up, I must be right. Stock is down, I must be wrong. Avoid long shots. They don't work.

This is a question I get asked a lot on Quora. "What are the best ways to get out of debt?" Here's my most recent answer: You really must to want to be debt-free. There is no other way. It’s a process, of both knowledge of personal finance, and modifying your financial behavior. But it is something you can achieve, if you create a plan and follow the steps of sound financial planning. I’m going to tell you up front that it will take quit a bit of work and effort on your part, depending on how much debt you have, and what you are willing to do. We had a saying in the military about what needed to be done do accomplish our mission: “Whatever is necessary.” This will be the same kind of thing. So you have to develop the same mindset. Be hungry. Personal finance is 20 percent knowledge, and 80 percent behavior. When I started I had more than $50,000 in credit card debt, had two mortgages (one on a rental house that was actually costing me more than I made in rents), and a cou

Note: In the last 30 minutes of trading, the DJIA recovered somewhat, to close at 33,962, or 716 points down.   A sort of panic has set in. As I write this (about 2:20 PM CDT), the DJIA has plunged 900 points.  But that's not even 3 percent. So it's not as extreme as it sounds. In my opinion, markets had gotten ahead of themselves. Prices were too high. But economic indicators have continued showing signs of growth. The Shiller PE ratio is at 37; not an all-time high, but still very high.  While inflation is a concern, investors had that albatross for several months.  Investor (retail) sentiment was at an all-time high. According to some theories, when retail investors get this giddy, it's a sign the market may reverse direction. (In fact, most retail investors are still buying at market highs, and selling at market lows, according to most studies). The energy markets have been beaten down in the last few days. Oil (WTI) futures are down about $10 a barrel in the last five

Retirement Planners of America's Senior Retirement Planner Ken Moraif reviews the economy and market events for the market week ending July 16, 2021. Learn more or sign up for RPOA's weekly Market Alerts at https://RetirementPlannersofAmerica.com​ . #retirementplanning​​​

From International Liberty By Dan Mitchell Nikole Hannah-Jones has said that that Cuba is a role model of equality, largely due to socialism. But she sees the world through the lens of racism, which is like having blinders on. Hannah-Jones is the creator of the  academically shoddy   1619 project . Two years ago, the New York Times unveiled the “1619 Project,” which largely argues that slavery and racism are part of the nation’s DNA. The NYT states that the project “aims to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery…at the very center of our national narrative.” The "history" is based on Marxist thinking and Critical Race Theory.  But back to Cuba. It's a disaster. It that's the kind of equality that the left in this country is aiming for, I'll opt out. The two charts below tell the story.  But even if she's right and Cuba genuinely has equality, it's only because socialism has impoverished everyone, including the ruling class. O

The latest round of stimulus checks began arriving yesterday, but you have to be a parent to get one. Your kids also have to be under 18, with $300 per month for a child below age 6 and $250 for those aged between 6 and 17. The expanded child tax credit is aimed at cutting the child poverty rate and was part of the coronavirus stimulus package passed in March. How much will it cost? Uncle Sam is shelling out $105B for the program, which will be sent out monthly for half of this year's subsidy, with the rest to come as a tax refund in 2022. "It's the most transformative policy coming out of Washington since the days of FDR," said Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ). "America is dramatically behind its industrial peers in investing in our children. Even families that are not poor are struggling, as the cost of raising children goes higher and higher." To qualify, a) One must have filed a 2019 or 2020 tax return and claimed the child tax credit on the return, b) Had a m

https://youtu.be/MO8LaObgEjQ

These are written and published by Daniel Mitchell, is a libertarian economist and former senior fellow at the Cato Institute. He is a proponent of the flat tax and tax competition, financial privacy, and fiscal  sovereignty. His blog is International Liberty. Part 1 This video from Dan Hannan crams 10,000 years of human history into 5 minutes. We learn about the “stationary bandit” of government and find out how our ancestors endured pervasive oppression and misery. But there’s a happy ending to the story. It’s called capitalism. Part 2 Yesterday, in Part I of this series, we enjoyed a video from the U.K.-based Centre for Economic Education, about how capitalism lifted the world from deprivation and oppression (also see videos by Don Boudreaux and Deirdre McCloskey). Today, in Part II of the Case for Capitalism, here’s a video from CEE that explains how markets provide you a cup of coffee. Part 3 Part I of this series featured Dan Hannan explaining how the emergence of capitalism led

By Kelly Evans The Exchange The CPI report out this morning wasn't pretty. Prices are up 5.4% from last June, the most since 2008 (the core yearly gain of 4.5% is the highest since 1991). Put differently, it means your dollar doesn't go as far. The same buck that got you three candy bars in the checkout line last year falls shy of being able to buy the same three bars this year. Okay, but what if you have $1.10 to spend on candy this year because you got a raise? Now you can buy the same three candy bars and have extra change! You beat inflation, right? This is basically the argument playing out on a national level--are wage gains matching, exceeding, or trailing the increase in prices, and what does that tell us about whether these price pressures are "transitory," or not. But lost in all this is the fact that your same dollar still doesn't go as far as it used to, whether you have more money in your pocket or not. Now think about this as it relates to the whole

The bond market created fear this week when interest rates on the 10-Year Treasury Bond unexpectedly dropped. The bond market has historically been a fairly accurate predictor of where the stock market is headed. When bond rates decrease, it’s often a sign of recessionary times ahead. I believe investors were frightened by the bond market’s activity, and this caused a sell-off in the market. But is the bond market telling us we're headed toward Bear Market conditions? No, I think this all boils down to the ongoing unemployment issue—specifically, the labor participation rate. Jobs are there, but they aren't being filled because many unemployed people don’t seem ready to go back to work yet. When companies don't have an adequate labor supply, they typically do not make as much profit. Lower profits translate to lower stock prices—hence the sell-off scare we saw this week. While the recovery is not happening as fast as investors would like, I still think it’s happening and th

Markets were probably a little ahead of themselves anyway. While markets have pulled back from nearly all-time highs (and in some cases, all-time highs), there is no way to tell what will happen (despite some "experts" already speculating about a market "crash".  As you see from this daily chart of the NASDAQ (as of 2:52 PM CDT on July 8), it has a ways to go before getting to correction territory.  In other news, a prolonged drop in U.S. Treasury yields is catching bond and fixed income traders by surprise, as well as other investors in the broader financial markets. The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield dropped below 1.3% on Wednesday, and fell another 7 bps overnight to 1.25%, despite lingering concerns about rising inflation and a gradual removal of Fed stimulus. Treasury yields play an important role in the economy, affecting borrowing costs on everything from mortgages to corporate bonds. While the move has mystified many traders, some are ascribing the reverse to c

I live in Texas, a state proud to not have an income tax. But they make it up in property taxes. As a retired person, I'd be better off living in Oklahoma, with half the property tax and pensions not included in income taxes (which are pretty low anyway.) Let's look at another example, and compare Arizona and Texas. Assume a taxable income of $75,000 filing joint, and a property value of $400,000. Your taxes in Arizona are approximately $2,687 for income tax and $2,400 for property tax, totaling $5,087 in total taxes. In Texas, there is no income tax, but your property tax on a $400,000 home would be approximately $6,400 .  So Texas brags too much, me thinks.