Americans have been talking a lot lately about needing to save more money, both individually and governmentally. Without getting into the national deficit questions, it is worth thinking about how tricky the process of individual savings can be and how widely results can vary, even with the best of intentions....

Most reasons given to buy gold evolve around being pessimistic about the economy and/or expecting inflation. Most reasons given to buy stocks are that they will appreciate in good times. It is foolish to think that presidents can control either, but they do get blamed for the bad times and...

The Sunday New York Times stated that:

We remain perplexed by the Obama administration's decision to consider businesses' contention that cutting employers' contributions to payroll taxes will lead to more jobs. It probably won't -- especially if the break is not specifically tied to new hiring.

The...

As gasoline prices approach $4.00 a gallon, we are tempted to think this is the highest price it has ever been. But in 1981 the average price was $1.35 and by many indexes that was much higher than today.

If we adjust that price by the CPI the 1981...

It appears that President Obama is willing to accept a compromise in the Senate to extend the tax cut to all but the top two percent of income earners. Some compromises are better than others.

Senator Mark Warner suggests, "other short-term incentives that promote additional hiring, such as a...

In Tuesday's New York Times Peter Orszag's article "One Nation, Two Deficits", suggests that all the Bush-era tax cuts be extended for two more years. His argument for the deadline is that we cannot afford to extend them permanently as that would make the future deficits too large....

Perhaps I should have said non-working instead of dependent population. The common definition of the dependency ratio is "an age-population ratio of those typically not in the labor force (the dependent part) and those typically in the labor force (the productive part)" and this is why I used that term.

From the comments on the previous postings, I see that I am still not getting my points across to everyone.

SirWillae does not like comparing Social Security to insurance, because "Getting old is the rule, not the exception. Therefore, it makes no sense to insure against getting old." I...

How someone views Social Security is often based on what they think it is. How many times have you seen the quote "social security was never intended to be..."? And then the writer puts in what they do not like about it today. I am not sure that it matters...

The present pay-as-you-go Social Security means that workers are taxed to put money into a trust fund that is used to pay benefits for retirees. For over 28 years, workers have paid in more than retirees have received and the extra money has gone into a trust fund that holds...

I live in Chicago part of the year. As I am over 65 and can prove I am a resident, I get a pass to ride all the public transportation for free. It is a subsidy I do not need, but I use it and enjoy the "free ride." Of...

Two towns called Green and Yellow sat across a river from each other. Each had 50 families. They both had school districts that needed a new bus costing $50,000.

The school board of Green said, 'It is only fiscally responsible that we all pay a tax of $1,000 per family,'...

David Brooks is a wonderful columnist and is usually even more interesting when he is not talking politics. His article today on economics had several insightful comments, but when he predicts that economics "would again become a subsection of history and moral philosophy." and "economics will be realistic, but it...

An editor for the CBS evening news called me today. She said that this was the 83rd anniversary of Babe Ruth signing a contract making him the highest paid baseball player in history. She wanted to know what he signed for was worth today and how it compared to Alex...

From what I can tell, the Senate will vote on two tax credits, one that goes to employers for hiring workers that have been unemployed for two months, and another when they keep a new employee for 52 weeks. I think both these ideas may make some political sense, but...

The president is proposing a job and wage tax credit to lower unemployment. (Note, while the title is Tax Cut, all the discussions use the word credit, so I will too.) In a statement from the White House last Thursday, the administration tried to explain how it would be effective,...

A recent piece in The Economist titled "Dealing with America's fiscal hole" says nothing new and gives no insight as to how to deal with the current economic problems.

The first thing that bothers me is the statement that "Raising the retirement age for Social Security and Medicare...

American now work more hours per year than most advanced countries in the world and we have not reduced our average hours over the last three decades as other countries have. The table below gives the average hours worked in 2006 for twelve countries and only South Korea exceeds us....

I appreciate the comments to my previous post, "Hiring More People Is Not the Answer to Lowering Unemployment", where I wrote:

Let us get something straight. People are being hired all the time. In fact close to 5% of the workforce are new every month. Our problem for the last...

Let us get something straight. People are being hired all the time. In fact close to 5% of the workforce are new every month. Our problem for the last couple of years is that more than 5% of the workforce has been losing or leaving jobs each month as well....