On August 31, President Donald J. Trump signed the Executive Order on Strengthening Retirement Security in America, a preliminary step in allowing seniors more economic freedom and security in retirement.
As part of the executive order, Trump discussed how rules regarding 401(k) distributions prevent Americans from saving as much money as they otherwise would.
Suppose you live and work in Indianapolis. Your employer informs you that it wants to transfer you to San Francisco. One of your first concerns is likely to be: “Hey, what about my salary? The cost of living is really high out there, isn’t it?” Anticipating such a reaction, your boss assures you that your salary will be bumped up based on the difference in your cost of living for the two cities. Should this allay your concern?
US interest rates keep creeping upwards, largely because the US Federal Reserve (Fed) is expected to ramp up borrowings costs further in the coming quarters. The Federal Funds Rate is now in a bandwidth of 1.75 to 2.0 per cent, and the yield on 10-year Treasuries has recently climbed slightly above the 3 per cent level. Higher, let alone further rising, borrowing costs can be expected to have far-reaching consequences for the economy and financial markets in particular.
In the New York Times September 14, 2018, in an article “We’re Measuring The Economy All Wrong,” the writer of the article David Leonhardt complains that despite strong gross domestic product (GDP) data most people don’t feel it. The writer of the article argues that,
The trouble is that a handful of statistics dominate the public conversation about the economy despite the fact that they provide a misleading portrait of people’s lives. Even worse, the statistics have become more misleading over time.
No economic crisis and consequent recession hit when the lengthening of the stages in the productive structure, a process we studied in the last chapter, results from a prior increase in voluntary saving, rather than from credit expansion banks bring about without the backing of any growth in real saving. Indeed if a sustained rise in voluntary saving triggers the process, this saving prevents all of the six microeconomic phenomena which spontaneously arise in reaction to credit expansion and which reverse the artificial boom that credit expansion initially creates.
Last year, we told you about a new book from Andreas Marquart and Philipp Bagus titled Wir schaffen das – alleine! (“We can do it – alone!”). The subtitle says: “Why small states are just better.” (Read an interview about the book here.)
Unfortunately for English-language readers, the book remains only available in German.
Building permits for private housing units in the US dropped by 5.5 percent in August, which was the largest drop recorded in more than two years. The last time housing permit activity dropped by a larger amount was during June of 2016 when permits fell by 12.3 percent.
The trend in all permits (seasonally adjusted):
Today’s headline at The Wall Street Journal looks wonderful: “U.S. Household Net Worth Neared $107 Trillion in Second Quarter.” The journal is reporting on a new report from the Federal Reserve.
Last December, Krissy Noble (then going by her maiden name Tran) shot and killed a man who broke into her apartment and attacked her. She was 11 weeks pregnant at the time.
As ABC News described the incident:
