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Titanic Moments While Experiencing Risk: Lessons for Investing

Prosperity Concierge — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 22:55:57 +0000

Remember in the movie Titanic a moment in time when Rose and Jack’s greatest risk was not drowning. After all, they were high in the air, higher than they had ever been on the voyage. At that moment, their greatest risk was falling and striking an object during the fall.

If one were to graph Rose

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Social Security System Threat Diminished For Now?

Prosperity Concierge — Thu, 31 May 2012 17:34:27 +0000

The troubled financial markets may be causing people to delay their retirement, which could delay expected withdrawals from the Social Security system.

Low interest rates, financial repression, may be contributing to a retirement delay.

Gallup and Met Life surveys show an increased willingness for prospective retirees to delay retirement. Attitudes and expectations have apparently changed.Related Information in

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Money and Happiness in the U.S. – Better Life Index

Prosperity Concierge — Tue, 22 May 2012 18:30:56 +0000

Better Life Index, just released by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Americans’ household wealth is about $102,000 on average, significantly higher than those in many other developed countries. Income inequality is high, however, with the top 20 percent of the population earning nearly $82,000 a year while the bottom 20 percent get by

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Food Stamps – Our Ticket to Prosperity? – “Never spend more than you earn” and “always try and save a little something.”

Prosperity Concierge — Sat, 19 May 2012 18:49:43 +0000

Sure, we should never spend more than we earn. And we should always try to save a little something. But sometimes we need a helping hand from our friends and family to meet financial challenges. People want to help. Giving to someone in need takes some finesse. Only friends, family and neighbors who care, are compassionate

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An Agile Workforce: Education Should Help People Adapt to Technology Careers

Prosperity Concierge — Fri, 18 May 2012 17:44:45 +0000

Technology is affecting our job market, our incomes and prosperity.

We haven’t done a good job adapting to technology as a society, as measured by unemployment and wage levels. We need agility in our workforce. Our institutions of education could help us. They can teach us to be more adaptable and provide us with tactical training,

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Debt Deleveraging – is Debt Deflation Coming?

Prosperity Concierge — Wed, 16 May 2012 20:24:55 +0000

Households and businesses have been reducing debt for a couple of years. But the debt has simply morphed into government debt. But in Europe and the U.S. we’re getting close to debt reduction time, or what’s being referred to as the “fiscal cliff”.

Soon we will be deliberating the possibility of experiencing debt deflation. Austerity is

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Our Unemployment Rate – Do We Have a Structural Jobs Problem?

Prosperity Concierge — Tue, 15 May 2012 17:53:40 +0000

The unemployment rate is dropping, but not fast enough for many. Jobs affect household spending and are needed to pay down household debt. Jobs affect the well-being of families and their ability to achieve goals.

So how do we address the unemployment issue? Unemployment can be cyclical (as the economy improves, employment goes up) or structural.

Caroline

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Men Spend More and Save Less to Find a Mate

Prosperity Concierge — Thu, 10 May 2012 00:16:11 +0000

The perception that women are scarce leads men to become impulsive, save less, and increase borrowing. Research shows us that women have expectations of how men should spend their money when courting. Their expectations increase as the ratio of men to women goes down.

Some of our behaviors, including saving and spending, are much more reflexive and

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Relationships are a Causal Factor for Happiness and Well-Being

Prosperity Concierge — Sun, 06 May 2012 19:38:18 +0000

Research shows us that one of the most important causal factors associated with happiness and well-being is your meaningful connections with other human beings.

And it may not be all psychological – it may be biological. Oxytocin has been described as the hormone of love. This tiny chemical, released from the hypothalamus region of the brain, gives

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Income Inequality Affecting Debt Inequality

Prosperity Concierge — Wed, 02 May 2012 17:48:59 +0000

Income inequality is largely explained by education equality – high school dropouts vs. college grads.

But growing income inequality is explaining the growing debt inequality.

The top 5% saw their share of total income rise to 34% in 2007, up from 22% in 1983. This excludes capital gains, which pump up the income of the rich even

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Unemployment Correlated With Happiness – Steven Kaplan: Implications for Education and Personal Growth

Prosperity Concierge — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 17:56:20 +0000

What are the financial predictors of happiness? We could look at metrics related to debt, spending, hours worked, percent of income saved, travel industry sales…so many to pick from.

Steven Kaplan, a professor of entrepreneurship and finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, believes unemployment rates are better than income inequality in predicting

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Market Volatility and Financial Risk influenced by Career Risk

Prosperity Concierge — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 17:31:02 +0000

When we invest, why are the markets so volatile? How come a person trying to save for retirement has to see their investment holdings bounce around so much when the information we have about the economy seems so stable. How can stocks, commodities and even bonds change value so much from day to day?

Jeremy

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Pursuing Happiness Without Government “Help”

Prosperity Concierge — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 17:32:40 +0000

What role should government have in our pursuit of happiness? Should government guarantee social programs that help us enjoy life? Or should we ask government to back off with the expectation that freedom to pursue happiness on our own terms in itself brings happiness?

In a recent Wall Street Journal letter to the editor Grant W.

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Happiness vs. Life Satisfaction – And How We Can Have Both

Prosperity Concierge — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 18:02:51 +0000

What makes us happy and satisfied?

It may be that happiness comes simply by spending as much time as possible with the people we like and love and doing the things we love.

Life satisfaction may be determined simply by how we evaluate our life in terms of how well we have met our goals, how we

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Income Buys Satisfaction, Not Happiness – the Value of Intrinsic Goals

Prosperity Concierge — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 18:17:21 +0000

Most Americans want to spend less money, according to Gallup polling organization. Families continue to monitor spending closely but aren’t making meaningful changes in cutting back their spending.

While families manage their household budget and spending, behavioral psychology has found that spending money does not make people happier. Gallup polling data indicates that families’ sense of

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Diversify Across Time, Taxes and Vehicles – Holistic Diversification

Prosperity Concierge — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 18:17:20 +0000

Investment diversification is an important concept for any investor. The markets these past few years have brought the lesson home that we need to reduce risk by investing across asset classes.

Christine Benz tells us that we should look at other dimensions of diversification, besides asset allocation.

Diversify Across Time

Dollar-cost averaging – or diversifying your purchases by

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Where to Invest in a Debt Reducing World? Real Assets, Says Bill Gross

Prosperity Concierge — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 15:32:07 +0000

How do we make money in our investing when debt is being constrained?

That’s the question Bill Gross, Managing Director of PIMCO, asks. He answers by saying that we need to avoid financial assets and, instead, invest in real assets.

Bill explains that during the “Great Leveraging of the past 30 years, it was financial assets with

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Debt Reduction, Not Education, Skills Issues, Biggest Employment Problem – Bernanke

Prosperity Concierge — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 22:04:05 +0000

Some smart money is betting that there will be more accommodation to lower interest rates and get more people working. After all, it is an election year. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is defending the central bank’s policy of very low interest rates. Verbally believes that “further significant improvements in the unemployment rate will likely

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Reduce Anger and Increase Happiness with Education

Prosperity Concierge — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 00:38:13 +0000

Acquiring more education is not only associated with more income but is also associated with greater happiness.

A couple of years ago a survey was conducted in the U.S. to find out what caused people to become angry. The survey found that young people, parents with children at home, and people with less education had a

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We Produce Breadlines and Deficits

Prosperity Concierge — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 19:52:38 +0000

Statistics can paint a picture that reflects our current values and our future prosperity.

1. 15% of us are in a breadline.

Altogether, there are now almost 46 million people in the United States on food stamps, roughly 15 percent of the population. That’s an increase of 74 percent since 2007, just before the financial crisis and

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