The message From Congress Is Clear: Quit Work, Go on welfare!

(Guest Article by Dave Webb)

The following is from an article in the Dayton Daily News in Ohio. Anyone who is not alarmed by this quote needs to be. It effects everyone. “A typical middle-income family making $40,000 to $64,000 a year could see its taxes go up by $2,000 in 2013 if lawmakers fail to renew a lengthy roster of tax cuts set to expire at the end of 2012, according to a new report Monday, Oct. 1, 2012. Taxpayers across the income spectrum would be hit with large tax hikes, the Tax Policy Center said in its study, with households in the top 1 percent income range seeing an average tax increase of more than $120,000, while a family making between $110,000 to $140,000 could see a tax hike in the $6,000 range.” Normally I would not quote anyone from the wire services. If there is ever a Pravda(Moscow newspaper) in the United States, surely this is it. This one got through the editors. I don’t know why but it did. The FED is busy printing money. They do not have time to comfort us. The new idea which is very old is to make our money worthless. This encourages unions and everyone else to re-negotiate wages every year. Obviously if everything is inflating at say 10% per year(Off the wall (Read more....)

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An Unusual Perspective

An Unusual Perspective, by Surviving Survivalism

Some may call it a self imposed exile, but several years ago we separated ourselves from so-called “society”. It’s a 90 minute ride to even get to a town from here, mostly across dirt ranch road, some of it “primitive” (white knuckles). About a year ago, our Ford Bronco died, and we got swindled out of $3000 for a replacement truck that…well, long story, but suffice it to say we haven’t had a vehicle since then. We haven’t left the ranch in about a year. The handful of times we had visitors since then, they have been so kind as to bring us up some small amount of groceries for a “treat” or two, but we gained something very special in that time – perspective.

It’s not like we’ve always lived so remotely and we don’t know what the other side of the world is like. Many of the past 25 years we lived in suburbia, raising our kids and working our successful business. We traversed the country more times than I can count as we drove to the seminars we taught, kids in tow, giving them a better education than they could have gotten in a classroom. We stayed in major cities when we, too, were involved in the (Read more....)

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Making Friends With Your Financial Fears

Making Friends With Your Financial Fears By Mark Ford

Last week, I wrote an essay about protecting your wealth by using stop losses, diversification, legal strategies, and tax planning.

I thought it was a good essay. It covered, I thought, everything I knew on the subject. But I’ve been thinking about it since then and realized that there was one important idea I did not include. It is perhaps the most important idea.

You see, the essay was in response to a reader who was obviously afraid of losing the wealth he had. The fear of losing something you value is completely natural. And it is also healthy as long as the fear is not too great. But when fear is great—and I sensed that for this person it was—it can be destructive. Unbridled fear produces two negative responses: immobility and rashness.

When you fear too much, you won’t take the positive actions you suspect you should. When opportunities are presented, you’ll shun them for fear of the potential dangers and downsides.

Tim Mittelstaedt, a research analyst at The Palm Beach Letter, sent me the following note after he read the first draft of this essay:

“I’ve wanted to buy rental real estate since high school more than 13 years ago, but fear (Read more....)

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