Since the 2001 Tax Act, an inside joke of many trust departments and trust and estate attorney firms has been “work with your clients so that they consider dying in 2010, so that they can avoid estate taxes.” In truth, ...
Read More »Housing market is cursed by brain freeze
If you are buying or selling a home in a market glutted with distressed properties, it’s time to change your attitude. Don’t be misled by pundits saying the bottom may be visible in this stultifying decline. The real-estate recession will ...
Tagged with: home sales recession
Read More »Goldman Sachs BRIC stock strategy is getting hot again
Want to rebuild your stock portfolio? Start with a BRIC strategy. As promoted by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in 2001, this approach focuses on Brazil, Russia, India and China. While their stock markets were as battered as those in North ...
Tagged with: China Goldman Sachs
Read More »No reason to demonize U.S. single-payer health
It’s time to stop kicking sand in the face of single-payer health care. It may be the strongest solution around to insure every American at a lower cost. After decades of industry campaigns against this model – dubbed by its ...
Tagged with: Barack Obama health care Physicians for a National Health Program Robert Gibbs single-payer health care socialized medicine
Read More »Five ways to recoup your losses in the age of Obama
Even with all of the hoopla around Barack Obama’s inauguration last week, did you still get the gnawing feeling that the retirement cushion you had built up is now little more than a throw pillow? After so much wealth disappeared ...
Tagged with: Barack Obama economy recover retirement
Read More »Obama’s actions will speak louder than checks in mail
My senses and spirit tingled with the pure energy of possibility when I was in Chicago on Election Day on Nov. 4, 2008. So much history was being made. Hope was in the air, shared by millions. That golden moment ...
Tagged with: Barack Obama economy foreclosure income-tax rebate jobs stimulus
Read More »Housing market still offers hidden value
If you were searching for pockets of optimism in the U.S. housing market, where would you look? Easy guesses would be to avoid Detroit, Cleveland or any cities with domestic automobile plants or troubled manufacturers. Then there are the foreclosure ...
Tagged with: foreclosure Freddie Mac housing market
Read More »Good, bad and ugly methods to raise some quick cash
If you thought things were getting tight last month, get ready for the big squeeze. While I would love to start 2009 with some rosy predictions, one theme sticks in my mind: Cash will never be more important. You need ...
Tagged with: cash checking account credit credit cards
Read More »