Don't Quit Your Day Job…

Every few months, we here at DQYDJ like to check in on the market’s expectations of inflation.  There are lots of variables in the market – not least of which is the ending of the Federal Reserve’s open market purchase of bonds known as Quantitative Easing 2.0.  Still, even with the conflicting signals of  historically high gold prices, ridiculously low mortgage prices, and out of control commodity prices, the market isn’t pricing out of control inflation.  As a matter of fact, the inflation that it is pricing in is decently low.  Enough rambling, let’s take a look.

Interesting article in the New York Times the other day: “Is Your Religion Your Financial Destiny?“.  The Times took the income line of $75,000 and plotted the percentage of members of various religions who make more than that amount (2007 Numbers).  The top three religions, when it comes to high income members?  Reform Judaism, Hinduism, and Conservative Judaism.

Guess what?  DQYDJ actually entered a carnival last week!

• Check out “The Housing Double Dip“, which was hosted at the Carnival of Personal Finance over at (our newfound and liked blog!) Control Your Cash.  In fact, subscribe to them while you’re over there!

I hear you: DQYDJ needs to enter more Carnivals.  Fine, we will!

‘Conventional’ knowledge, until the last couple of months, was that home prices bottomed in late 2009.  Recent data on home sales shows a local maximum in 2010 followed by a further decline – leading some economists to believe we are now in a “double dip” where housing prices will continue to decline in the immediate future.  The most recent data point is from Zillow, estimating that (a record) 28.4% of all single family homes are currently underwater – meaning mortgage holders owe more than their house would sell for on the market.  Full disclosure: I’m currently testing the real estate market on the buy side.

Genius? Disturbing? Unfair? Disgusting? Misguided? There are many words that can apply to a new concept in higher education: increasing tuition based upon the expected career earnings of an industry. Yes, Engineers can now expect to pay more than English majors at some colleges. 57 Percent of the 162 Public Research Institutes now charge different tuitions based on majors, including 18 institutions which have adopted the practice in just the last 3 years.