From the category archives:

Criticism

Should Americans with No Kids Be Able “Opt-Out” of School Taxes?

I was at a family gathering this summer and the usual topic of complaining about the ineptitude of local government officials and school boards came up.  That then led to older participants questioning what their tax dollars were being used for and why they’re even paying school taxes to begin with.  It led to an [...]

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Learnings from Advanta High Yield Notes: Investors to Get 38 cents on the Dollar

After some prolonged legal proceedings following Advanta’s collapse, there’s a new settlement whereby investors in their high yield notes will get 38% of the money owed.  This follows months of warnings (April 2009, May 2009, Jun 2009 and then…boom!) from me highlighting that as the company continued to blow more and more money on ads [...]

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The Inflation Conspiracy? EAT ME

CBSMoneyWatch published a piece of screed this week on the Inflation Conspiracy pretty much mocking and patronizing people who question the value or validity of the government’s official measure of inflation.  The author somewhat misrepresents the intent of mainstream inflation critics by saying they “believe that somehow there’s an inflation conspiracy going on, and the [...]

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Lazy Portfolios are LOSERS – Told ‘Ya So…

When I penned an article (here) criticizing the lionization of the Lazy Portfolio mantra as just historical cherry-picking and luck, the MarketWatch lemmings jumped all over me for doing the unthinkable – challenging such a seemingly successful strategy with great PR.  What I said at the time was pretty much that these portfolios were no [...]

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Is It Something I Said?

The other night I had one of those moments where I felt I needed to write a post about the experience.  It’s about women and money.  And attitudes and feminism.  All mixed into a brief conversation. Here we go: My wife asked me to stop by the gym where our kids are taking a class [...]

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Americans Scooping Up Doomsday Shelters – The Illogical “Recency Effect”

You’ve gotta love Americans.  Leading up to Y2K, gun sales and bomb shelters were through the roof.  After 9/11 we were buying parachutes for jumping out of buildings.  When it was evident Obama would win the election, gun sales skyrocketed over fears the government would begin confiscating guns.  Californians have cleared the shelves of Iodine [...]

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2011 Average Raise – Will Raises Stink Like Last Year?

With equities markets amazingly breaching prior highs already and unemployment slowing dropping to 9% with projections of 8% by year-end, the data is indicating we are firmly in a recovery now.  But it still just doesn’t “feel” like that.  The mood is somber, employees are still feeling like they’re on the verge of a pink [...]

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Winning the Lottery Brings Misery, Loss, and Death – Why Bother?

We often wish for things that we probably shouldn’t.  I remember in middle school we were studying the middle ages and our teacher went off on a tangent about how little girls all say they want to be a Princess but what a horrible life it was.  After all, Disney has about a dozen movies [...]

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Jobless Rate Drops to 9.4% – But What’s the REAL Deal?

I don’t mean to be a perpetual party-pooper here, but the headline number for unemployment looks good today – better, at 9.4%.  So, why didn’t stocks rally on the news?  Why aren’t people exuberantly rejoicing in the streets?  The reason is the way the unemployment number is calculated.  What actually helps this number is when [...]

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