Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Friday, March 26, 2010
Disintermediation
Gross: If the 10-year Treasury moves to 4% or higher, it starts to provide some competition for the equity market.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
What would my clients do if they knew my expertise is being overridden by a computer program and a young person who wasn't born when I started doing this?
Should I Convert To A Roth IRA?
Click here for calculator
You will generally pay ordinary federal income tax (but not the 10% penalty tax) on the taxable amount that is converted. Your tax-free potential is maximized if you pay the taxes from your current income or personal savings, not your IRA. Please note that beginning in 2010 the $100,000 adjusted gross income limit for conversions to Roth IRAs is permanently repealed. From 2010 onward, all taxpayers, regardless of income, can convert to Roth IRAs. Also, for conversions occurring in 2010, the taxpayer has the option to report one-half of taxable income in 2011 and one-half in 2012 or the full amount in 2010. After 2010, conversions must be reported in full in the taxable year in which they are made.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Monday, March 8, 2010
WSJ Let's Go Back to the Moon and to Mars and Beyond
Well put - by someone who's worked for the government all his life.
LETTERS MARCH 7, 2010, 6:41 P.M. ET
LETTERS MARCH 7, 2010, 6:41 P.M. ET
Buzz Aldrin has actually traded the moon for not going to Mars. Further, he would cede the moon, its resources and human settlement to China, and leave Russia in control of our future access to Earth-orbit. NASA and the Congress's Constellation Program, which the president proposes to cancel, was conceived, first and foremost, as a Mars exploration program. A return to the moon represents exactly what a Mars initiative needs to develop—the required launch vehicles, spacecraft technology, biomedical foundations, operational procedures and generational expertise. Using the moon as a highly beneficial step toward Mars gives us time to understand how to actually get there and land through its thin atmosphere. In the process of preparing for Mars by returning to the moon, great benefits also will accrue to science and to building the foundations for independent human settlements on both bodies. To paraphrase Mr. Aldrin, having the experience of walking on the moon's surface on the last Apollo mission, I think the president made the wrong call.
Americans need a clear and specific goal, enough dollars, youthful motivation, and competent and courageous leaders to do great things for liberty and the nation. The president's proposed abandonment of the Constellation Program in favor of open-ended technology development provides none of these essential ingredients. With his ongoing retrenchment and politicization of NASA, the president is signaling to the young and the world that the U.S. has withdrawn from the future of humankind in space.Mr. Aldin's characterization of the president's budget as a "bold initiative" would be laughable if it did not represent such an abysmal lack of understanding of the consequences of this proposed retreat from American greatness.
Harrison H. Schmitt
Apollo 17 Astronaut
Albuquerque, N.M.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Economic Justice and the Spirit of Innovation | Edmund Phelps
I DVR and watch nearly every “Charlie Rose” interview. I’m amazed at Elizabeth Warren’s courage in standing up to the likes of Geithner, Bernanke and Paulson, but they and their peers have way to much power for her to compete, I fear. What actually happens to the Consumer Financial Protection Agency will speak volumes about regulation.
In another sense, though, I’m not sure that the antidote to the predatory and corrupt financial system is government protection of consumers, many of who were greedy and dishonest themselves. Both extremes: - on one hand, government bailouts of those who created the instruments causing the financial crisis and on the other hand, regulation of consumers deemed not capable of making their own decisions – rely on government control and/or taxpayer dollars. I wish the regulatory mindset would be more in agreement with the attached piece by the economist Ned Phelps. This essay describes Capitalism at its best and would be the mantra of the Republican Party were it not hijacked by the religious right.
Economic Justice and the Spirit of Innovation First Things
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
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