Earn What You Spend

If you haven’t read it already, go find a copy: this weekend’s New York Times Magazine is all about debt, and it is well-worth reading.
My favorite articles: 
Suze Orman is having a moment. 
What our credit card companies know about us is rather scary.
And an amazing story from Edmund Andrews about his personal credit crisis.   What makes [...]

An interesting video from Charlie Rose featuring Tim Geithner.  Rolfe Winkler caught the best exchange: 
Rose:  “Looking back, what are the mistakes and what should you have done more of? Where were your instincts right, but you didn’t go far enough?”
…
Geithner: “…I would say there were three types of broad errors of policy and policy both [...]

This chart (click to enlarge) from the WSJ shows we’re still a long way off from the tax burdens of year’s past:

Obama’s new proposed tax rates will increase for those who are married and filing jointly, starting at $235,000 in taxable income.  The first point that caught my eye was that $235K is well below [...]

Leverage is a dangerous game - it magnifies both returns and losses - but a historically safe bet has been education.  Not only do I (strongly) believe in the intrinsic value of education, there is little doubt a college education substantially raises your future earnings.  Just look at unemployment rates for confirmation: those with a bachelor’s degree or [...]

Consumers have been curtailing their spending for months now - we’re now deep into this recession, and virtually everyone is trying to save cash.  The savings rate has rebounded from it’s near-negative numbers.  And now, consumer debt - the money individuals borrow through car loans and credit cards - is falling in tandem.

Source: WSJ
Some of [...]

[via Clusterstock]
Howard Davidowitz says the worst is yet to come.  Things have been quite rough on the consumer: 

An $8 trillion negative wealth effect from declining home values.
A $10 trillion negative wealth effect from weakened capital markets.
A $14 trillion consumer debt load amid “exploding unemployment”, leading to “exploding bankruptcies.”

This video contains nothing surprising - but it’s a great [...]