Don't Quit Your Day Job…

Credit cards get a bad rap – one that is not entirely deserved. I’ve got this working theory that it has to do with their name – the term ‘credit’ may mean ‘ability to obtain resources based on a future payoff’, but the card is named entirely wrong: If the only purpose of your credit cards is to purchase things on credit you are doing things completely wrong. The true beauty of credit cards is that they are a liquidity tool; credit cards allow you constant access to funding… whenever you need it.  So, let’s look at the perfect strategy for turning your credit cards into liquidity cards!

I’d be remiss if I didn’t highlight Warren Buffett’s post today in the New York Times. Buffett is never lacking with a quote or an opinion, and on the topic of deficit spending he’s no different. Hilariously, he refers to the massive influx of liquidity into the economy as “Greenback Emissions”. I definitely agree with Buffett on this topic; we’re in for a pretty good amount of inflation if the government doesn’t dial back it’s money printing efforts.

Do you get a match? What’s the average management fee on your fund choices? Does your plan have all of the necessary asset classes? If you’ve got a 401(k) at work, no doubt you’ve been pressured to sign up (or automatically enrolled). How does your 401(k) stack up?

In my previous article, I compared some of the advantages and disadvantages of different methods of “welfare”.  Near the end, it seemed that the Earned Income Tax Credit was clearly the best option, especially as compared to the only other possible method, that of the Living Wage.  There is one important, and significant, advantage to [...]

One of the most contentious issues of the past couple of decades has regarded policy debates on how to benefit lower-income individuals (colloquially referred to as ‘Welfare’ programs). This article will not deal with the benefits or disadvantages of Welfare programs in general, but instead will compare the various forms of implementing Welfare. Also, I will show (in the next article) a very important unintended consequence that arises from the current preferred Welfare program, the Earned Income Tax Credit.