Tag: FRED

Financial Predictions for 2014: I Predict They Will be Mostly Useless

Tuesday, January 14, 2014 at 2pm
By John Friedman

T’is the time of year when the financial media outlets — both lay and professional — are chock-full of stories about what 2014 will bring. Should you listen to them? I’ll start off with a blanket response to that question of nyet, and soften it only if you promise to […]

Replacing “Assets Under Management Fees” with “Net Worth Under Management Fees”

Tuesday, July 9, 2013 at 3pm
By John Friedman

The other day I asked a money manager I was getting to know whether his firm charged a lower fee for managing bond portfolios than it charged for managing stock portfolios. He said no — that his firm charged the same for both. I asked him about this because some […]

The Heartbreak of Student Debt

Wednesday, January 30, 2013 at 1pm
By John Friedman

As a financial planner, I sometimes hear really sad stories. And sometimes I hear stories that are so . . . repugnant, let’s say . . . that I feel them in my gut and it takes my breath away and leaves a big pit in my stomach. On the […]

15-Year vs. 30-Year Mortgages (Part 1): Fun with Pix and Historic Data

Tuesday, December 18, 2012 at 11am
By John Friedman

A few days ago I wrote about the difference between tax-deferred retirement accounts and tax-paid retirement accounts, and commented about how the difference between the two is akin to a choice between instant gratification (for TDAs) and delayed gratification (for TPAs). So how about taking that same framework to mortgages? […]

What Does It Mean When Big Negative Numbers Get Smaller?

Wednesday, October 17, 2012 at 12pm
By John Friedman

So, say you have a big negative number, such as, oh, I dunno, a negative 1 trillion, and say that that number measures something. And say that you measure that thing a year later and it now measures out at a negative 900 billion. Is that second number smaller or […]

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