Boston College’s Center for Retirement Research Center has a study out this month about the cost of 401(k) plans, and they have found another flaw in the nation’s defacto retirement savings system: It is overpriced. So not only do 401(k) plans not meet the needs of the average American, they aren’t cost effective either. I [...]
We’ve all by now learned about the dangers of too much debt. The U.S. is paying the price for an explosion of consumer debt. Europe is struggling with too much sovereign debt. Now one of the big questions facing China is whether or not Beijing’s policymakers are about to get their own lesson in the [...]
Richard Florida’s recent piece in the FT, “America needs to make its bad jobs better,” presents a pretty interesting argument, one that a nation so focused on job creation might want to keep in mind. Florida points out, as plenty of others have before, that the sorts of service-sector jobs the U.S. is on track [...]
For a time now my editor Rick Stengel has been asking the question: Why won’t unemployment stay at around 10%. That is to say, even after the economy pulls out of the recession how do we know that unemployment won’t remain where it is today. Perhaps 10% is the new 5%, when it comes to [...]
Over the past decade or so, there has been a lot of hand wringing about how minorities in the U.S. use computers and the Internet at lower rates than whites. That ostensibly handicaps them in realms from searching for a job to finding the best deal on a car. A 1999 report from the Commerce [...]
One issue I keep beating on in my posts about Europe’s debt crisis is the need for collective action to resolve the region’s problems. The independent nations of Europe have gotten into bed together, with the common market as the blanket and the euro as the wedding ring, and they have to start behaving that [...]
Stocks are rallying today in the wake of very little positive news. So some are clinging to the one piece of news that can be spun. The financial reform bill is good for banks and their profits. Yes, State Street did pre-report good profits. But most banks are projected to have falling profits in the [...]
It’s a wonder we can sleep at night. No, I’m not talking about the heat wave cooking the northeast this week but rather the debate over whether the country needs—or can even afford—a second shot of federal stimulus spending. New York Time’s columnist and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman has been making the case in print [...]
As you may have noticed, most states are finding themselves in fiscal straights. States took in $87 billion less in tax revenue between October 2008 and September 2009 than they did in the prior 12 months, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. That has led to all sorts of service cuts and [...]
The one word that has been used again and again to describe the global economic rebound is “fragile.” The G-20 featured it prominently in final declaration issued after its June Toronto summit. And recently, more and more signs have emerged that the recovery is even more fragile than many had anticipated just weeks ago. Stephen [...]
