Do recessions ruin friendships? That’s the premise of an interesting, if rather depressing, post by Emily Bazelon on the XX Blog. Class differences can wreak havoc on relationships even in good times, she notes, in all sorts of subtle and not-so subtle ways: Inviting someone to dinner at a fancy restaurant can be tricky if [...]
Convert some of your retirement savings into a lifetime annuity and you could snag a big tax break, if a new bill recently introduced in the House sees the light of day.
The rationale behind the Retirement Security Needs Lifetime Pay Act (H.R. 2748) is that we are going to screw up withdrawals from our retirement [...]
According to two leading surveys of our collective financial mood we have been feeling less pessimistic these days. The latest Reuters/University of Michigan consumer survey for June shows a slight uptick to 69 from 68.7. And at the end of May the Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index clocked in with another strong gain, rising to [...]
Whether or not the 401(k) is the nation’s best-designed retirement savings vehicle, for most people, it’s the only retirement plan they’ve got. Unfortunately, the most compelling feature about the 401(k) — the matching contribution from your employer — is disappearing fast. To save money, one-quarter of U.S. employers have eliminated matching contributions to employee 401(k) [...]
Three signs of our hard times, in order of ascending weirdness:
1) Dollar stores are doing top dollar business. In Newsweek, Daniel Gross looks at buyout firm Kohlberg Kravis & Roberts’ one big success (amidst a bevy of big failures) over the past year: its $7.3 billion investment in Dollar General, up a smart 30.8 percent [...]
