Spoiler alert for anyone who is still ignoring the Presidential race, Republican Mitt Romney has picked Paul Ryan (a Representative from Wisconsin) as his running mate (and President Barack Obama and Joe Biden work out some kinks). The battle has already begun as each campaign has pivoted from talking about the economy to talking about how their opponent will cut Medicare to the bone, and leave millions of seniors without health care options. If talking about Social Security and Medicare is the third rail of American politics, then the best way to describe it would be to say that the candidates are trying to push their opponents onto the track.

"Oh, I don't invest in stocks. They're too risky" said a young (urban) professional friend of mine. Five minutes later he was reconsidering that statement, and you'll be happy to know he's now the proud owner of some stock (well, at least some stock mutual funds).

I've made the warning before... and I'll make it again: be wary of false precision. This time, in particular, I'm talking about political odds - yes, of the very sort I now display prominently on the right sidebar of this very site!

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.

You all know what time it is! It's time to parse the option trader tea leaves and guess where the options market thinks we are headed in the near to somewhat not near future. As always, we are taking options data from Yahoo, and using contracts which trade more than .5% of the daily volume to make our targets. We're also using the ticker SPY (a S&P 500 ETF) as our proxy for the S&P - all numbers you see are multiplied by 10 to get the conversion to actual closing prices.

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 a case of great timing, DQYDJ's article guessing how Mitt Romney has so much money in his IRA is now the third most popular article on the site! While I hold no belief that this situation will continue past November of this year, I think that, in the moment, it's interesting to ask how a retail investor (read: the rest of us) might have fared had we contributed as much as the Romney family must have during Mitt's 24 year stint in the public sector (whew). So, how much out-performance did Mr. Romney achieve?

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.

Once again I dropped the ball and neglected to give you folks a post on option contract divined predictions over the next few months (and years). Operating from the school of better late than never, I've gone numbers as of last Friday, 6/29/2012, when the S&P 500 closed at 1362.16. I neglected it right on into July, from the publishing date - but I'll attempt to get July numbers at the proper time (options expiration day is on the 20th).