What Disappearing Pensions Mean To You

I remember as a kid hearing older relatives talk about getting their pension as in "Uncle Bob worked for them 35 years and now gets half his salary for the rest of his life". For better or worse, those traditional "pensions" are slowly fading into history. These "pensions" are plans where your benefit is determined by a formula and guaranteed for life. As people live longer, these plans are becoming more expensive for companies to provide. They also have downsides such as the requirement you must work for the same company for 35 years. It is just not terribly common to be a "company man" anymore. In addition, what are the odds that the company you start out in is going to survive and prosper in what becomes a mature industry 35 years later?

Lottery Scams: can you game these games of chance?

First up, a big thanks to Brett for inviting me to be part of this blogging project. When Brett first asked me I was like "Really? You and Jon are both Wall Street types. I'm just some schlub who does a podcast with a $5 microphone. What can I do?" Brett is under the impression I have a good eye for scams and suggested I write about such. Hey, I can do that. Intelligent people not only fall for woo and bad financial advice but they also fall for many, many get-rich-quick schemes. Think how many of those Nigerian bank scam emails you get a week or even a day. What's surprising is how many intelligent people fall for it. I mean, if you were getting two or three similar sounding emails a day or a week, why would you think "sure those other guys are scammers but this guy, Prince Stelco, is the real deal."

Anyway, my inaugural post isn't about Nigerian bank scammers but about the most common "something for (nearly) nothing" offer we encounter every day. The lottery.

The Long Run Update

As you know, Jon will be leaving us to pursue other ventures (a new job!).  I personally thank Jon for starting The Long Run Blog by kick starting something I have wanted to do for a long time.  Originally, Jon wondered if anyone would be interested and I immediately contacted him to affirm the idea and offer to participate.  As it turned out, we shared very similar visions for what we wanted to accomplish and saw eye-to-eye on many of the economic topics of the day.  TLRB was off and running (after a few startup issues).  Jon's reputation springboarded our start.

Russia is for investors?

Sometimes, investors are just blind.  It is not that they don't know better; rather they actively choose to ignore pertinent information to the contrary.  Or perhaps greed takes over and reason goes out the window.  What brings this to mind is a bit of interesting news today. 

Going, But Not Forgetting

Just a couple of weeks in, and already I'm... leaving?  True, unfortunately.  As I said in my farewell post at 'The Rogues Gallery', there are times when circumstances demand that we make choices, and this is one of those times for me.

The short version is that the responsibiliities of my new job are in conflict with my desire to get out and randomly cast my pearls of wisdom before... wait, that's a bad analogy.  The truth is, I love blogging, and I'm grateful to everyone who visited The Long Run Blog in the short time I've been here.  We've had some lively discussion, and I've had tremendous fund and learned an awful lot in a very short space of time.

Behavioral Problems

The word ‘behavior' very often invokes the concept of mis-behavior.  Perhaps it is because we more often hear about a person or organization's poor conduct rather than good conduct?  While this observation may be enlightening, you may by now be snickering ‘what does this have to do with finance?'  Before I answer, let us segue with two questions:  What are the last two digits of your Social Security number?  Next, what is the maximum dollar amount you would pay for an average bottle of wine?

GDP update

Last week I wrote how the upbeat revised GDP number seemed fishy.  At the least, it was an inconsistent data point in an otherwise dour economy.  Today, Barron's had another explanation of why this number was suprisingly optimistic and may also be the reason why the official GDP numbers have been stronger than many of us economy watchers would have thought.