Small Business Boomers is seeking a temporary blogger for the month of April. If you or someone you know is interested, please send me a note. This is a paid position that we are looking to fill as soon as possible. If you perform well, the possibility of writing your own blog at b5media is not out of the question by any means.
Yesterday, on NPR’s Morning Business Report, an announcer floated an interesting thought. As Americans we put too much money in our houses. The tax laws are skewed toward real estate, but he may be right.
If you read anything about investing you’ve read plenty of articles about how you should be re-balancing your portfolio. If you roll the investment you have in your house into the total of your investments, and you should, then your house is probably a big chunk. Real estate is also illiquid, had to sell, when you compare it to stocks and bonds.
Everybody has to live someplace, but from …read more
As all boomers know “The times they are a changin’”. What with all the troubles in the sub-prime mortgage market it looks as if the housing slump looks like it will go through this year. Not good. A prolonged slump in the residential housing sector will cause a slump in the general economy. May be a recession is coming up.New house means new appliances wrapped in the mortgage and such. Slower house sales, used or new, and the appliance manufacturers take a hit. Same thing happens in the furniture sector. Because there is lower demand to transport appliances and furniture then the …read more
Virgil said that fortune favors the brave. Not really. Fortune favors the prepared. Somebody else said that, though I haven’t got any idea who.
For example, if someone came up to me with the best deal ever for pork bellies I would not have any way of knowing it was a good, because I don’t trade futures any more. On the other hand, if someone asked me if Cisco was a good deal I’d say buy on a down swing. I’m an computer guy and I have good experiences with their products.
What does it mean to you? Do what you know. If you’ve been around …read more
The stock markets around the world have taken a beating the past few days because of a number of problems with the “sub-prime” mortgage market. For those of you who do not know this is a real estate mortgage market which lends money to borrowers who do not have the credit worthiness to borrow form the first tier lenders under normal rates. The companies who make these loans charge borrowers very high fees which they wrap into the mortgages. The mortgages tend to be for more than the assessed value of the property used as collateral. Generally these loans were …read more
http://www.linkedin.com/home This is the link for “Linked In” which appears to be your personal networking site. My son sent this to me and though I haven’t gotten into every nook and cranney it appears to be very cool. Take a look. Tell what you think.
As a Boomer looking forward to retirement, like me, I’m sure you’ve noticed that the news is full of articles and pundits guessing that stock investments will be showing lower returns for the average investor over the next few years. Apparently things won’t be much better for the average speculator either. The risk premium is projected to be about 2%. Not all that swell.
If you believe those forecasts then that raises a question. How’s an investor going to get those 8 and 10 percent returns on their money while maintaining acceptable levels of risk?
You have to be something other than …read more
Today I was going to do a number of different things, but a health issue came up. It wasn’t a big deal, but it changed the day substantially. My wife has had a head cold type thing for the past week and it just wore her down. She’s an elementary reading teacher so she feels this duty to be in school for the kids. Sick days are available, but there is some sort of code among teachers about not taking any.
Nevertheless, I got a call at work this morning to come pick her up because she was too sick …read more
What you want
If you’re a boomer you probably have stock investments. Either you have them personally or indirectly through a mutual fund or a pension plan. You want them to do two things if you know it or not. First, you want them to preserve your capital. Don’t loose my money. Second, you want them to give you a return either through price appreciation, growth, or by throwing off cash, dividends. Now, give me five, eight or ten percent return on my money.
If you are aware of your position then the past week in the stock marketing has been sobering …read more
The University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee is holding a one day conference on boomers and work. The web site is www.sce-boomer.uwm.edu . This get together is the second in the past year by UWM on this same topic. The thing I find interesting is that it’s being put on by their Center for Workforce Development which in the past has been about the “economically disadvantaged” that are under educated, under employed and unemployed. I guess looking at boomers the conference subject isn’t that big a stretch.
I’m wondering if there are more programs like this springing up around the US or any other place for …read more
1 Comment