Don't Quit Your Day Job…

Got cash sitting on the sidelines? It may be time to move some of that cash into play, according to Mark Hulbert writing on Marketwatch.com. “Believe it or not, the stock market performs much better than average when Congress is not in session.”

Congress goes into recess on Friday; this could be your opportunity.

Social Security numbers are 9 digit numbers issued to workers in the United States tying their holders to unique Social Security accounts. They were first issued in 1936 as part of the Social Security entitlement program. SSNs also are also used officially by the IRS and by states and political subdivisions. The number’s status as a unique identifier has also led to the usage of SSNs in the private sector for products like loans and credit cards.

Thank you Bernie Madoff! Bernie Madoff set the news on fire with a $50 billion Ponzi scheme for which he recently went to prison. Since then, a number of other financial schemes have come to light: Allen Sanford, Joseph Forte, even the Yacht scheme. But what are Ponzi schemes? How are they different from Pyramid schemes (and Matrix Schemes)? And, most importantly, what are the signs of each?

Our article “Use Irrationality Against Yourself!” was hosted in the 75th edition of the Money Hacks Carnival at My Life ROI. Visit the carnival now!

In an earlier article, I detailed how you could check on inflation expectations using information publicly available from the Department of the Treasury. Using the data they provide, it is simple to calculate the market’s expectations for inflation over the next 5, 7, 10, and 20 Year periods. Let’s take another look not at the 2009 inflation rate, but the expected inflation rate of the future viewed through ’2009′ colored glasses.

During the Great Depression, governments and companies printed an estimated $1 billion in scrips (money substitutes) on things as varied as car tires and seashells. Today California is doing its best impression of those times and issuing IOUs to cover certain contractual obligations. The Wall Street Journal published an article taking a look back at some historic scrips from the Great Depression.

Behavioral finance and economics have recently exploded onto the national scene. These two behavioral topics deal with the idea of ‘rationality’; they are concerned with the rationality of the decisions of members of a population and the limits to an individual’s rationality. Studies show that humans have many irrational tendencies which can be shown experimentally.

What would happen if a private company fired its actuary for pushing the company to adopt the mandatory pension accounting method for the company’s pension?

I think we can agree that a scenario such as that wouldn’t go over well. How about a public pension plan? For whatever reason, public plans are not mandated to use the same pension valuation methods as private plans. The Wall Street Journal recently featured an article on this public subterfuge.

Oftentimes the best place to look for value is in a place few others know to look.

Go ahead and quote that; I just made it up. Closed end funds are an often overlooked place in the market for your investment funds. CEFs are mutual funds which trade on exchanges and lack the price arbitrage functions of Exchange Traded Funds. This means that Closed End Funds can be (and often are) priced significantly differently from their underlying assets.

Our article “Jevon’s Paradox, and More Ado About Gas Taxes” was featured in the OneMint Economy and Your Finances Carnival. Go check out the carnival, and the OneMint blog.

“Debt: Invest in Yours” was a featured article at LivingAlmostLarge, which is hosting the 201st Carnival of Debt Reduction. The site’s host, LAL, poses an excellent question, however: “…if you pay off debt with a windfall, how do you know you won’t do it again?” If you know the answer, post a comment over there.

“Putting a Mortgage in Reverse” is included in the 74th edition of the Money Hacks Carnival, over at Suburban Dollar. Check it out!