Your House Can Pay You in Retirement

After years of making mortgage payments some retirees are nor getting payments back from their homes.  Reverse mortgages have been a possible part of retirement planning for many years.  They are a way for retirees to use equity in their home as a source of income payments.  The plans have often functioned in the form of an annuity with fixed monthly payments for the life of the reverse mortgage agreement or with a fixed sum payout at the closing.  Various options for the structure of reverse mortgages – some are discussed below.  There are some, however, for whom the reverse mortage option is simply not viable.  The reason for that has to do with the recent housing bubble and the ensuing collapse.

How Your Tax Dollars are Spent

Accounting Degree Online has created an informative infographic about U.S. personal taxes.

Click “Read the rest…” to see the entire presentation.

Tricky Social Security Questions Answered

This is a Special Report by Elaine Floyd at horsesmouth.

Topics:
Suspending benefits before full retirement age
Survivor benefits on a first marriage
Going back to work after starting Social Security
How will the recession effect Social Security benefits?

College Loan Debt is a Big Problem for Borrowers, Lenders and Government

MSN Money and The Wall Street Journal have combined to produce an article detailing some of the problems that exist for those with college loans debt. Among the situations cited is a 41-year old MD with $550,000 outstanding college debt. The debt was much less (about $250,000) when this individual graduated from medical school in 2003, but has ballooned to the present amount through mismanagement.

Another case mentioned is a laid-off factory worker with $120 a week garnished from her $300 a week unemployment check to apply against her son’s college loan debt. The son is also unemployed, having lost his $29,000 a year job 8 months ago.

A third case describes a college loan debt that has grown from $28,000 to more than $90,000, with monthly payments that were originally $230 now $816.

How do such cases happen?

You Are Not So Smart

I just came across a great blog with the subject title: http://youarenotsosmart.com/ published by David McRaney, a journalist and broadcast media director. I want to highlight two interesting posts.

Goldman’s Big Day

This is an update of an article “Great Day for Goldman” “Great Day for Goldman” that appeared on Seeking Alpha following the SEC press conference announcing the settlement with Goldman Sachs.

Listen to the Crash

This is an audio tape of President of TradersAudio.com Ben Lichtenstein’s breathless order-taking in the S&P 500 pit in Chicago during Thurday’s unusual trading. Link to audio.

Articles Week Ending January 29

Jan. 22 Oil Service Companies: Time to Buy?

Jan. 22 U.S. Banks to Face New Trading Restrictions

Jan. 23 Housing Double Dip?

Jan. 23 Aftershocks from the Massachusetts Earthquake

Jan. 24 Long Term Unemployment: Less than Actual Out of Work

Jan. 25 Hedge Funds, Investment Banks: When Will They Ever Learn?

Jan. 26 Housing Market Has a Way to Go

Jan. 26 Housing: Government as Casino Player

Jan. 26 New York Fed: Further Investigation Regarding the AIG Affair

Jan. 26 Are Existing Homes and New Homes Following Different Paths?

Jan. 28 Job Recovery Cycle Intact

Information Overload

This fabulous simple graphic from Jessica Hagy, courtesy of http://flowingdata.com, has initiated some very interesting discussion, both serious and humorous.

The Seduction of America

From easy money in Wall Street banking to easy money in Main Street America real estate, the country has been seduced. We now live with the ensuing mess that was begat. I read a comment that talked about the free lunch syndrome, written by a certain “morph366″ on a Seeking Alpha article by another author. I now know that commenter personally as Clive Corcoran, a London private equity manager. At the time this article was written, though, he was known to me only by his pseudonym, taken from the name of his personal blog site.

This article was originally published about five months ago, but I think that with what has unfolded since, it has even greater significance today. The structural problems in our economic theories, financial systems and our individual situations continue to be revealed. Read the entire article at Seeking Alpha.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/131580-the-seduction-of-america