Bells are ringing! I am finally worthless! With my paycheck today my net worth has finally passed the literal and psychological $0 barrier. My financial leverage given a net worth of $1 is about 45,000-to-1. Let this be a lesson to everybody: massively over-leveraged financial positions can only end positively. Look at Long-Term Capital Management, MF Global, Bear Stearns and AIG: their executives still managed to escape with millions of dollars!
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.
Subtitle: Until You Read This Article.
I'm not one for hyperbole... I'm more of a "here's the data, deal with it" person, but I'll make a vast blanket statement for you today. You see, you may not care too much either way about the whole 'fiscal cliff' scenario, where an expiration of the so-called 'Bush Tax Cuts' of 2001 and 2003 would reset to their previous levels. Perhaps you make under $200,000 as a single or $250,000 as a couple, so if the cuts expire and President Obama extends them in a second term you wouldn't worry too much. Fine - I won't spend this article discussing what the appropriate level of taxation is for the many strata of incomes earned in this country. However, I do want to draw your attention to the insidious effect of rolling back the 2001/3 cuts - namely, how the code characterizes dividends.
So I drafted in the only Fantasy Football league I'm participating in. It's a 10 man, and I was the guy who went with the MJD/Rashad Jennings handcuff (risk tolerance: extreme!). Anyone want to grade my draft for a 10 person league? (I've come in second two years in a row; be harsh!)
Let's take just a moment out of our Fridays to recognize something amazing - that there is a new largest company in the history of the world, emerging during an economic climate charitably described as middling. That's right - Apple Inc (née Apple Computer), currently trading at 667, boasts the largest market capitalization of all time at $624.9 Billion. The previous leader? Microsoft, who touched $616.3 billion back in December 1999.
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.
Can you believe it's already been a month since we looked into the future and told you how the S&P 500 would close (read: looked at Yahoo! and told you how contracts are trading). That means I'm back here today to act as the weather vane and show you which way the market winds are blowing. To those that have asked, I posted some methodology at the end. Peruse that and ask me any questions you have!
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.