POST PUBLISHED INFebruary, 2010
Home > Blogs > Sound Mind Investing > Archive

  • Persevering through the rough places

    February 26th, 201009:14 AM ET
    By Matthew Pryor
    Market reversals will come. If you didn't know that before, the period from October 2007-March 2009 made it abundantly clear! Unfortunately, many investors run for the exits as bear markets unfold, and then are skittish about getting back in for fear that another drop might occur (statistics suggest many investors who bailed during '08 and ea...

  • Kansas City Fed Chief: Hyperinflation could happen here

    February 25th, 201008:08 AM ET
    By Joseph Slife
    I started working for Larry Burkett in 1990, about the time he was beginning work on a book called The Coming Economic Earthquake. Larry wasn't an economist. He was just an extraordinarily insightful, common-sense guy who had the uncanny ability to see around corners. Although some criticized The Coming Economic Earthquake (I think unfairly) a...

  • A law with unintended consequences

    February 24th, 201001:19 PM ET
    By Joseph Slife
    "It wasn't supposed to turn out this way." So we wrote in our November 2009 article (subscribers only) about the unintended consequences of the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act, signed into law last year by President Obama. The law took full effect Monday. AP Personal Finance writer Eileen AJ Connelly picks up th...

  • Buying coupons can be a big money saver

    February 17th, 201001:11 PM ET
    By Matthew Pryor
    Are you aware that you can buy coupons? If that isn't the perfect marriage of the Internet and the American capitalist spirit, I'm not sure what is! I found out about this one day when I Googled "Lowes promotional code" for an online purchase. Next thing I know, I'm on eBay where there's an entire Coupons on eBay section. Hmmm. I hadn't don...

  • On Presidents' Day, financial wisdom from past presidents

    February 15th, 201012:38 PM ET
    By Joseph Slife
    Below are several quotes about money management from late U.S. presidents. Some quotes relate to personal financial management, others to the management of the government's finances. Some touch on both areas. First, from Kiplinger.com: George Washington: "As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method...

  • For-profit colleges: Market-driven education

    February 15th, 201009:19 AM ET
    By Joseph Slife
    Recently, we made note of a Wall Street Journal report that served as an interesting follow-up to our October 2009 cover article, Is a College Education Still Worth the Investment? The Journal found that the earnings gap between high-school grads and college-grads has long been overstated. This story, from Fast Company magazine, touches on a d...

  • Earnings gap between college grads, high-school grads overstated

    February 12th, 201008:38 AM ET
    By Joseph Slife
    Here's an addendum to our October 2009 cover article, Is a College Education Still Worth the Investment?: The long-touted lifetime-earnings gap between college graduates and high-school graduates isn't as wide as commonly reported. The Wall Street Journal has details in a story that bears out some of the analysis in our cover article. In re...

  • Big Brother is watching...and compiling...and selling

    February 10th, 201001:22 PM ET
    By Matthew Pryor
    The Information Age seems to have taken us full circle back to the days of hunters and gatherers - only now they're digital hunters and gatherers. Massive bureaucracies and corporate entities are all too happy to hunt down the details of our lives, scoop 'em up, and sell 'em to a willing bidder. And it's only going to get worse. Don't believe ...

  • In scary times, looking to the God who gives a "sound mind"

    February 08th, 201008:47 AM ET
    By Joseph Slife
    Here is an interesting tidbit from former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson's new book, On the Brink: Inside the Race to Stop the Collapse of the Global Financial System. Back in my temporary office on the 13th floor, a jolt of fear suddenly overcame me as I thought of what lay ahead of us. Lehman was as good as dead, and AIG's problems were spi...

  • Fidelity one-ups Schwab on no-fee ETFs, stock-trading fees

    February 05th, 201009:10 AM ET
    By Joseph Slife
    Just weeks after Charles Schwab shook things up in the ETF world by introducing its own brand of commission-free exchange-traded funds, Fidelity has unveiled a commission-free model for 25 ETFs from iShares (managed by BlackRock). Schwab currently has only eight commission-free ETFs. The no-fee ETFs from Fidelity include some of the most popul...

  • How do your money habits compare to the Jones's?

    February 03rd, 201001:01 PM ET
    By Matthew Pryor
    There's a site in beta that allows you to compare your spending (and soon, saving) habits with the proverbial Jones's. It's called Bundle.com. That's more interesting than it may sound at first, as you can slice the data any which way - by geography, age group, income, type of household...you name it. You can even see which business end up with t...
Advertisement
About this blog
A blog for people who want to find their purpose in managing and investing their financial resources