How secure are your future Social Security (SS) checks? Turns out, not very secure. After 2034, when the Trustees say they will run out of “reserves” there will only be enough money coming in from workers to pay just 77% of your promised retirement benefits! Your SS income may be cut by a quarter or so. But that’s not all. Medicare Part A, which helps pay for services such as inpatient hospital care, will be able to pay scheduled benefits … Continue reading

The stock market and the economy are not always in sync with one another. Here is an interesting look at every recession since WWII along with S&P 500 returns in the 6 months leading up to the recession, during the actual recession itself, and then 1, 3, 5 years, and 10 years from the end of the recession: Sometimes the stock market front runs the economy. Sometimes stocks are too slow to react to economic data. Sometimes stocks fall as … Continue reading

It’s been about two years since we’ve “endured” a bear market so it’s probably a good time for a refresher on markets: Bear markets are normal. They can be painful. The reasons are always different but the emotions are the same. No one knows how deep they will be. No one knows how long they will last. They do come to an end eventually. Below is a chart showing all of the bear markets since 1950. It shows when the … Continue reading

I was just looking up my “TAX-FREE Millionaire” book on Amazon yesterday to check to see if they UPDATED it with the eight pages I added to the original and the other changes I made to the PAPERBACK version (the KINDLE won’t be updated for another week or so). Scroll down a bit, OK? Anyway, to my HUGE surprise… I saw this and took a screenshot.   Upon further inspection, I saw that it is currently the #2 Best Seller … Continue reading

There has basically only been 3 long-term bond market cycles over the past century or so for U.S. 10-year Treasury bonds. The 1st from 1920-1959 was rangebound interest rates from around 2% to 4%. That was due to a combination of deflation following the Great Depression and a cap on rates to help fund World War II in the 1940s. Inflation picked up in the 1960s and rates followed its lead. Prices spiked even higher in the 1970s and inflation … Continue reading