By 2 Cents on December 27th, 2010 | Category: Collections |  If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday.
~Pearl Buck
As 2010 draws to a close, I thought we might take a look at some of the major themes we’ve explored this year at Balance Junkie. I’ve chosen ten main ideas and included a few posts for each. Enjoy!
1. Balance
Of course, balance was an idea that was woven through most of the articles for this year, so I’ll just highlight a few that address the concept more specifically:
Your Life Balance Sheet How to Cultivate a Better Life What Is a Balanced Portfolio?
2. Deficits
We discussed a lot of different types of deficits this year, from budget deficits to integrity deficits. It seems we’re in the red in more than one area:
What If Your Budget Doesn’t Balance? Read on and enjoy … Year in Review: 10 Themes from 2010
By 2 Cents on August 30th, 2010 | Category: Economics | Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it.
~Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Is the Federal Reserve a hero or a villain? You can find plenty of Nobel Laureates, pundits, and civilians like myself on either side of that debate. Nassim Taleb, author of The Black Swan has been saying for quite some time that the Fed steered us into the ditch and that it’s shameful that the same group that got us here is still in the driver’s seat. Perpetual overspending and record low interest rates have not only failed to solve our problems, but are the major causes of them. It is therefore ridiculous to turn to them to solve our current challenges.
Paul Krugman is probably the most vocal Nobel Laureate who supports the Keynesian spend-till-you-drop/debt-levels-don’t-matter viewpoint. He has been a supporter of [...]
Read on and enjoy … Will the Fed Save the Day?
By 2 Cents on June 25th, 2010 | Category: Investing | The seeds that delivered that crop – the global financial crisis – there’s more of those seeds than ever. They’re bigger than ever.
~ Rob Arnott
Update: This article was included in the Carnival of Financial Planning #148 posted at My Wealth Builder.
I’ve got a really interesting video link for you in today’s Friday Food for Thought. I found it via Preet Banerjee at Where Does All My Money Go. It’s an 8 minute clip of Rob Arnott of Research Affiliates in which he discusses his outlook for the economy and the markets. If you’ve been reading Balance Junkie for a while, you will likely recognize some of these themes as I’ve written about many of them quite often.
Mr. Arnott does not believe the financial crisis is over, but that the problems that caused [...]
Read on and enjoy … 3D Hurricane: Are Your Finances Prepared?
By 2 Cents on June 21st, 2010 | Category: Money Psychology | Why do children want to grow up? Because they experience their lives as constrained by immaturity and perceive adulthood as a condition of greater freedom and opportunity. But what is there today, in America, that very poor and very rich adolescents want to do but cannot do? Not much: they can “do” drugs, “have” sex, “make” babies, and “get” money (from their parents, crime, or the State). For such adolescents, adulthood becomes synonymous with responsibility rather than liberty. Is it any surprise that they remain adolescents?
~Thomas Szasz
Update: This article was included in the Carnival of Personal Finance #263 posted at Suburban Dollar. Thanks!
Friday’s Financial Wisdom for Father’s Day post touched on the idea that many of our modern social and financial mores represent a rejection of the ideals of those who came before us. A lot [...]
Read on and enjoy … Have We Become a Society of Financial Adolescents?
By 2 Cents on June 18th, 2010 | Category: Financial Literacy | When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.
~ Mark Twain
Update: This article was included in the Carnival of Personal Finance #262 posted at Personal Finance Journey. Thanks!
The financial habits of society at large over the past few decades have been, in some ways, reflective of the attitude of the 14-year-old in the opening quote. In an article entitled How Did We Get Here? I pondered the progression of social and financial values from the 1950s to the present era. I speculated that the Baby Boomers’ rejection of their parents’ social mores gave birth to some great new ideas, but that we may have allowed the pendulum [...]
Read on and enjoy … Financial Wisdom for Father’s Day
By 2 Cents on June 14th, 2010 | Category: Money Psychology | I don’t like money, actually, but it quiets my nerves.
~ Joe Louis
Update: This article was selected for the Best of Money Carnival #56 posted at Free Money Finance. Thank you! It was also included in the Carnival of Financial Planning #147 posted at The Skilled Investor. Thanks!
Money, or the lack of it, can cause a lot of stress. It can lead to tremendous personal or family strife and even wreck marriages. This issue has really come to the forefront during the financial crisis of the past couple of years. A lot of folks have really struggled with financial, psychological, and physical health problems as a result of excessive debt levels, employment issues, and insufficient emergency funds. A lack of money is undoubtedly stressful.
But how do you explain the fact that wealthy people can experience a great [...]
Read on and enjoy … Does Money Reduce Stress?
By 2 Cents on May 20th, 2010 | Category: Investing | Pleasure can be supported by an illusion; but happiness rests on truth.
~ Sébastien-Roch Nicolas de Chamfort
Update: This post was included in the Money Hackers Carnival #117 posted at Engineer Your Finances. Thanks!
Monday’s post dealt with some of the ways in which today’s market climate is Not Business as Usual. I’d like to expand on that today with a bit more detail on some of the issues I mentioned. Many of the 5 challenges I’m going to address are double-edged swords. They can be productive market forces, but also have the potential to create enormous problems for our financial system.
5 Double-Edged Swords for Investors
Each of these factors is, in some way, interrelated with the others. Each one has been with us for quite some time and may persist much longer. Each [...]
Read on and enjoy … 5 Investing Challenges for the Next Decade
By 2 Cents on April 27th, 2010 | Category: Economics | The only reason a great many American families don’t own an elephant is that they have never been offered an elephant for a dollar down and easy weekly payments.
~ Mad Magazine
Update: This article was included in the Carnival of Financial Planning #142 posted at The Digerati Life. Thanks!
I’ve heard a lot of people on both sides of the border extolling the virtues of the Canadian mortgage and banking system over the past year. Our mortgages are recourse loans, mortgage interest is not tax deductible, and our banking regulations are more stringent. We crafty Canucks have even managed to inflate a housing bubble during the worst recession since the Great Depression. Wait. Is that good?
If it sounds like that makes no sense, maybe it’s because it shouldn’t. Recessions are supposed to be a pause that refreshes [...]
Read on and enjoy … CMHC: Fannie Mae Canadian Style?
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