What I'm Reading Today:

• High unemployment still has me concerned. Mohamed El-Erian, with PIMCO, agrees. He says the risk of stalled economic growth in 2010 is increasing, given a still-weak labor market.
• Will improvements in technology "save" us from our national debt? Conor Clarke, a correspondent for TheAtlantic.com, thinks so.

What I'm Reading Today

• Good-Bye, Microsoft Money! 16 Powerful Personal Finance Programs Get Rich Slowly lists 16 powerful personal finance programs that can take the place of Microsoft Money. Let me know if you use any and if so, what you like and dislike.
• Wall Street Journal points out some good news-bad news: "The good news is that Wall Street finished its best quarter in years on Tuesday — part of a dizzy spree that lifted the broad market 35 percent since early March. The not-so-good news? It would take almost three more rallies like that to push the Dow Jones industrial average back to 14,000 and return markets to where they were before the financail crisis."
• Bill Gross publishes the July edition of his always entertaining & informative Investment Outlook: "Our economy’s lights, if not switched off in a rehash of the 1930s Depression, have certainly been dimmed in a 21st century version likely to be labeled the Great Recession. Much like John McSherry, U.S. and many global consumers gorged themselves on Big Macs of all varieties: burgers to be sure, but also McHouses, McHummers, and McFlatscreens, all financed with excessive amounts of McCredit created under the mistaken assumption that the asset prices securitizing them could never go down. What a colossal McStake that turned out to be. Now, however, with financial markets seemingly calmed and an inventory-based recovery in store for the balance of 2009, there is a developing optimism that we can go back to the lifestyle of yesteryear. PIMCO’s driving thesis however, if not a juxtaposition, is succinctly described as a “new normal” where growth is slower, profit margins are narrower, and asset returns are smaller than in decades past based upon the delevering and reregulating of the global economy, which in turn should substantially inhibit the “gorging” of goods and services that we grew used to in decades past.

What I'm Reading Today:

• How to Minimize Long-Term-Care Premiums By Kimberly Lankford, Contributing Editor, Kiplinger's Personal Finance "You'll have the most flexibility if you buy a policy with benefits that are "short and fat" rather than "long and lean."
• Taxes go up on cigarettes, hard liquor & wine. Is chocolate next?????? New Jersey Passes Budget Fueled by $1 Billion in Tax Increases By David Chen of The New York Times. "Those who make more than $250,000 a year will no longer be able to deduct their property taxes, at least for one year. Those making between $150,000 and $250,000, meanwhile, can deduct only a maximum of $5,000."

What I'm Reading Today:

• Stimulus Act Eases Paying for College in 2009/2010 - The chart above indicates the applicable Code section and the categories of expenses that qualify for each program.
  
• A Recession in Dog Years by Daniel Gross on Slate. "According to Nishimura's schema, in less than two and a half years, the United States has experienced as much trauma and recovery as Japan did in about 12 years. All of which means that if the dog-years analogy continues, things could start looking up by early next year. But we shouldn't get too far ahead ourselves. There are other lessons to be learned from Japan's experience of starts and stops. "We should be careful not to be very optimistic," Nishimura concluded. 'That's my advice to myself.'"
  

What I'm Reading Today:

• TaxProf Blog informs us that The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 amended the rules for 529 accounts to allow us to use the assets in 2009 or 2010 to buy an iPhone or a laptop for the student -- and possibly more. The language is broad -- covering the "beneficiary and the beneficiary's family." As a result, it appears to cover not only a college student's laptop but also the family's home computer and related equipment, software, and Internet access.
• John Hussman writes in his Weekly Market Comment Long-Horizon Risk Aversion Creates Headwinds. Despite any short-term optimism, investors are harboring a persistent sort of risk aversion about the long-term. This may seem like a small point, but it is actually a fairly powerful consideration here.
• More than 75 million people, a quarter of the U.S. population, are between the ages of 50 and 75. Demographers call this life stage “neither young nor old”; HGSE Professor Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot calls it a new developmental period. In her new book, The Third Chapter: Passion, Risk and Adventure in the 25 years after 50, Lawrence-Lightfoot challenges assumptions about aging and offers fresh perspectives on the dynamic learning that can occur during this period of life.

What I'm Reading Today:

• "Get Rich Slowly" posts "On-line Banking: 12 Choices for Higher Interest Rates and Increased Security".
• Mohamed El-Erian of PIMCO publishes his June 2009 Viewpoint "Beware of the 'Business as Usual' Mindset". "This year may well go down in the history books as combining the best of times and the worst of times for long-term investors keen to position their portfolios for high and sustained risk-adjusted returns over time."
• John Hussman writes in his Weekly Market Comment"The Outlook is Not Up But Very Widely Sideways". "We've seen a nice but predictably temporary lull in the mortgage reset schedule. We've seen a nice, typical recovery of just under a third of the market's prior losses. We've seen a nice easing from the frantic pace of job losses earlier this year. All of those have been pleasant, but it is a mistake to draw information from them. There is very little information content in mean reversion following extreme moves."

Notes from the NAPFA Fee-only Financial Planners conference June 2nd through June 6th 2009:

Peak Performance – “The Promise of Power Sleep” - keynote by Prof. James Maas:

a. Almost everyone needs a full 8 hours of sleep a night to capture those last 60 minutes of REM. Don’t kid yourself that you can get by on less.
b. If you stay up late don’t sleep in. Stay with your regular sleep schedule.
c. No caffeine after 2 PM.
d. No alcohol within 3 hours of bedtime.
e. It is best to exercise between 5 PM & 7 PM or Noon time; NOT first thing in the AM.
f. Bedroom should be quiet, dark, cool (65 to 67 degrees) & uncluttered. No LED’s.
g. Fold your pillow in half. If it does not spring forward then throw it out.
h. Before bedtime try a hot bath, easy stretching, meditation, light classical music. Have “worry time" BEFORE bedtime – dump your worries onto paper then move on.
i. Try the Litebook Elite for jet lag or to shift your biological clock.
j. Learn a new motor skill then get 8 hours of sleep to “set” the skill.

“A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future” – keynote by Daniel Pink:

a. "Abundance, Asia, and automation." There is a good chance that sooner or later your career will suffer because of one of these forces.
b. keys to success are in developing and cultivating six senses:
i. Design – not just function
ii. Story – not just an argument
iii. Symphony – not just focus, can you step back & see the big picture; can you toggle between reasoning algorithmically and reasoning aesthetically?
iv. Empathy – not just logic
v. Play – not just seriousness
vi. Meaning – not just accumulation
c. The world belongs to “multis” – people that can move back & forth amongst boundaries.
d. The “20-10 Test” – if you had $20 million in the bank or 10 years left to live, would you still do what you are doing? And would you still do it the same way?

Change & Transformation – keynote by Bertrice Berry:

a. Destiny happens in times of crisis.
b. Ask yourself every morning – “why me here now”?
c. Money follows purpose
d. Diversity is about critical thinking – you can’t do critical thinking with one thought. The more we experience the more we evolve.
e. It’s not about work-life balance – it’s about harmony.

And then there were many speakers on many financial topics. More to come.