Analysis Topic: Personal Finance
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
UK Inflation Falls But Savers Continue to Get Raw Deal / Personal_Finance / Savings Accounts
By: MoneyFacts
Inflation figures released today show that the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) fell from 1.9% to 1.6% during July.
To beat inflation, a basic rate taxpayer at 20% needs to find a savings account paying 2% per annum, while a higher rate taxpayer at 40% needs to find an account paying at least 2.67%.
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Thursday, August 14, 2014
If Mr. Rogers Ruled Wall Street / Personal_Finance / Pensions & Retirement
By: Don_Miller
Wall Street is “rigged.” That’s the word Michael Lewis, author of the bestseller Flash Boys, is spreading among the news networks, and it’s produced a vast outcry in the financial community.
Really? As Gordon Gekko, the unscrupulous corporate raider in the ‘87 classic Wall Street, says, “Come on, pal. Tell me something I don’t know.”
There’s a lot to learn from Gekko, who spends the bulk of the film demanding a young stockbroker named Bud Fox bring him information—information no one else can or will deliver. A few Gekko-isms should jolt your memory of the movie:
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Tuesday, August 05, 2014
Your Insurance Company Lands in Rehab—Will Your Annuity Survive? / Personal_Finance / Pensions & Retirement
By: Don_Miller
Your insurance company probably won’t go under; however, one might have said the same of AAA bonds in 2007. As many investors found out, sometimes the unlikely suddenly becomes your very own nightmare.
In 2012 the Financial Guaranty Insurance Company with $2.1 billion in assets failed. Also, in 2009 the Shenandoah Life Insurance Company with $1.7 billion in assets went under. In 2008, Standard Life Insurance Company of Indiana with $2 billion in assets collapsed as well. Although these failures weren’t all national front-page news like the AIG fiasco, anyone who owns an annuity or is thinking of buying one should take note.
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Friday, August 01, 2014
UK Savers’ Still Paying the Cost of Funding for Lending Scheme / Personal_Finance / Savings Accounts
By: MoneyFacts
The ill-fated Government initiative to kick-start the housing market, (Funding for Lending Scheme) was withdrawn this January, but not before it had decimated the savings market.
Now the dust has settled, Moneyfacts has analysed what, if any, impact the withdrawal of FLS has had on the savings market.
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Thursday, July 31, 2014
Need-to-Know Tips for Buying Annuities… And Knowing When They’re Not For You / Personal_Finance / Pensions & Retirement
By: Don_Miller
You're probably something of an expert in your own field—and that field probably isn't insurance or annuities. How, then, can you work through the minefield of clauses, guarantees, and pages of small print? Here are nine ways to start.
While you may feel uncomfortable doing this, you're the one putting down thousands of dollars, and you have every right demand this. Remember: caveat emptor! It's the buyer who must beware; you must protect yourself. Ultimately, the language in the annuity contract is what matters, but it doesn’t hurt to memorialize your verbal agreement with the agent in writing.
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Monday, July 28, 2014
Subprime Loans Just the Start of Students’ Debt / Personal_Finance / Student Finances
By: Money_Morning
Shah Gilani writes: This is amazing.
If you’re about to become a college student, if you’re already a college student, or if you’re simply in debt and need more credit and plan on becoming a student again, you’re in luck.
Financial services giants Discover Financial Services Inc. (NYSE: DFS), Capital One Financial Corp. (NYSE: COF), Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC), Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C), and U.S Bancorp (NYSE: USB), to name a few players in the student credit game, are bending over backward for you.
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Wednesday, July 23, 2014
When All You Have Left Is the Cost of Breakfast at McDonald’s / Personal_Finance / Pensions & Retirement
By: Don_Miller
When I was 20 years old, I sat through my first day of a business law course at Northwestern University. The professor began by writing two words on the blackboard (in the prehistoric days of blackboards and chalk): Caveat emptor. He raised his voice and said, “Let the buyer beware!” I’m here to echo his warning, but this time it’s about annuities.
Annuities are at the top of the list of complicated products that often profit insurance companies without adequately compensating the buyer in return. Put plainly, sometimes you don’t get what you thought you paid for.
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Thursday, July 17, 2014
Fake Pensions - They’re Lying To Us / Personal_Finance / Pensions & Retirement
By: John_Rubino
Most people learn by the age of 10 or so that making promises is easier than keeping them. That’s why really big promises like corporate pensions and national retirement/health care programs are so easy to screw up. Offering someone a cushy retirement or a lifetime of healthcare feels great and generates massive goodwill from the recipient. So elected officials and corporate executives tend to over-promise in the moment and leave the hard part — actually making good on those promises — for their successors.
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Payday Loans Industry Crash as FCA 100% Cap on Interest Rate and Fees / Personal_Finance / Debt & Loans
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The FCA successor to the inept FSA regulator is finally going to act to put a CAP on the pay day legal loan sharks industry a good five years later than they should have acted had the financial regulator the best interests of the general public in mind rather than Britains banking crime syndicate.
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Thursday, June 26, 2014
New £15,000 Cash ISA Interest Rates Ahead of 1st July - What to Do? / Personal_Finance / ISA's
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Many savers will have delayed opening a cash ISA for the current tax year so as to best capitalise on the the new cash ISA allowance of near triple the existing amount of £5,490 to £15,000. However, It should not come as a much of a surprise that after more than 5 years of an artificial highly manipulated UK interest rates market for the primary purpose for funneling tax payer cash into the bankrupt banks (QE) that the already extremely low savings rates have have yet again been cut ahead of new ISA's going live on 1st of July.
Thursday, June 26, 2014
Wonga Pay Day Loans Outfit Gets a Slap on the Wrist Instead of Prison / Personal_Finance / Debt & Loans
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Apparently 45,000 customers of the Wonga payday loans outfit are going to receive a flat £50 as compensation for being conned by fake threatening legal letters from law firms that did not even exist, which went on to include charges for bogus legal fees that is tantamount to fraud that caused huge distress for tens of thousands of Wonga customers, that instead of now facing the full weight of the law has instead been asked to compensate its victims for approx £2.6 million compared to Wonga's annual profits of £84 million which reeks of an FCA regulator that seems even more inept and toothless than the FSA it replaced.
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
5 Women Who Made Me Rich and What They Can Teach You / Personal_Finance / Money Making
By: Don_Miller
My grandmother refused to share the heart-wrenching details until I was in the Marine Corps. I’d heard bits and pieces about my ne’er-do-well father but didn’t fully grasp the devastation he’d left behind until Grandmother spilled the story with tears in her eyes:
Your father never worked. After you were born he stole all the money in the house, vanished, and was never seen again. Fortunately your mother had gone back to work earning $8 per week.
However, one of the worst parts was: the store repossessed your baby carriage because your father stole the money your mother had saved to pay it off.
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Thursday, June 19, 2014
What the Regulatory Shift from the OFT to the FCA and Means for Payday Lenders / Personal_Finance / Debt & Loans
By: Submissions
Melly Abruzz writes: On April 1, 2014, the regulations governing payday lenders in the UK was transferred from the Office of Fair Trade (OFT) to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The gist of the regulatory shift was that payday lenders are now obligated to conduct thorough affordability and credit checks. Other changes include a cap in loan rollover, and pointing borrowers in the direction of free debt advice.
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Tuesday, June 17, 2014
Warning Russian Worm Burrows Into Our Mobile Banking Network / Personal_Finance / Cyber War
By: Money_Morning
Shah Gilani writes: This is a public service announcement. Really, you need to read this!
If you think your mobile banking app is safe, think again.
Right now, as in this very second, if you have a mobile banking app connected to USAA, Citigroup, American Express, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, TD Bank, JPMorgan Chase, BB&T or Regions Bank, you could be in deep Svpeng.
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Friday, June 13, 2014
Unintended Consequences of Obama’s Student Loan Policies / Personal_Finance / Student Finances
By: F_F_Wiley
So this week, President Obama’s populist, class-warring, shut-out-the-legislature, ignore-the-long-term-consequences romp through every corner of life turned to the education sector.
His new policies on student loans include greater access to both payment reductions and loan forgiveness.
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Monday, June 09, 2014
What Most Americans Don’t Know About Student Debt / Personal_Finance / Student Finances
By: PhilStockWorld
Courtesy of ZeroHedge: Submitted by Tyler Durden.
Now that student loans, well over $1.1 trillion, are hitting fresh record highs as… well… daily as the S&P500, the Fed is finally getting concerned about the latest debt bubble it has blown (not so much in equities). So concerned, in fact, the New York Fed recently added questions about student loans in its broad survey on consumer expectations to find out what people knew, or rather, did not know about this record debt mountain. We hope it was not shocked to learn that once again the bulk of Americans are taking on unprecedented amounts of debt without having a clue what the conditions are: accordint to the analysis, people don’t fully comprehend the ramifications of taking on student debt.
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Friday, June 06, 2014
How to Die in Dignity Without Leaving Your Spouse to Starve / Personal_Finance / Pensions & Retirement
By: Don_Miller
We’d all been waiting for the big day, but the chapel the ceremony took place in was very small—just a room with Christian symbols and a few chairs. My wife Jo's father was waiting for us in his hospital bed, grinning from ear to ear. Despite the feeding tube, he still managed to devour a few bites of our wedding cake. Parkinson’s is a powerful disease; it can take the sturdiest tree in the forest and wilt it like an aging rose.
Yes, Jo and I got married in a nursing home chapel. Little did we know that we would spend the better part of the first 18 years of our marriage dealing with nursing homes and assisted-living facilities for both sets of parents.
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Tuesday, June 03, 2014
Be Very Afraid of the Underfunded Public Pensions Nuclear Solution / Personal_Finance / Pensions & Retirement
By: Don_Miller
With few exceptions, state and local pension funds are woefully underfunded. Five heavily populated states—California, Illinois, Ohio, New Jersey, and Texas—collectively lack $431.5 billion; money that won’t be paid out to hopeful pensioners. That’s according to those states’ own accounts published in a 2012 Harvard University study that was led by former Assistant Treasury Secretary Tom Healy.
Thursday, May 29, 2014
UK Citibank USD Current Account Continues Ramping Up Fees / Personal_Finance / UK Banking
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Once upon a time the Citibank USD current account was by far one of the best such accounts on the market for depositing USD cheque's in the UK, where typically 1.75% was added to the spot GBP exchange rate and if lucky at best as little as 1.5% or at worst rarely more than about 2.2% with no other fees as long as £2,000 or equivalent was always kept on deposit.
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Is It Time to Hide Your Money Under the Mattress? / Personal_Finance / Savings Accounts
By: Don_Miller
“I don’t know what to do,” said my good friend Rob after inviting my wife Jo and me to dinner for the third time in two weeks. “I know I should do something. Every time I think about it, it scares the hell out of me! Maybe I should just hide everything under the mattress.”
Rob is a sharp guy—he’s done well for himself and his family. He also recently settled the last details of his parents’ estate. Upon banking part of his inheritance, the branch manager magically appeared, introduced himself, and invited Rob into his office to discuss “some really good rates” the bank had to offer.
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