Wed, December 31, 2008
The Bernard Madoff scandal has been extraordinary. The amount of money lost, the number of years that the scheme went on undetected, and world-wide extent of the fraud are unprecedented. The fact that Madoff’s victims were mostly highly sophisticated investors is unsettling for a lot of people – if experienced investors could be fooled, how can the average investor avoid getting taken by an unscrupulous adviser? Here's how. Read the full article
Tue, December 16, 2008
The news media continue to reverberate with details of Bernard Madoff’s fraudulent investment scheme. Sadly, a number of charitable foundations, including Elie Wiesel's Foundation For Humanity, Steven Speilberg’s Wunderkinder Foundation, the Carl and Ruth Shapiro Foundation, and the Robert Lappin Foundation, had most of their funds invested with him. The Lappin Foundation, based on the North Shore of Boston, has had to shut down. Read the full article
Sat, December 13, 2008
2008 has been firmly established as an annus horribilis for the financial world. Yesterday, Wall Street got another big dose of bad news as a well-known stockbroker and former chairman of the NASDAQ stock exchange was arrested yesterday for swindling investors out of tens of billions of dollars. Read the full article
Wed, December 10, 2008
Back in October, some influential members of the House of Representatives held hearings to discuss overhauling the 401(k) retirement plan system. Soon thereafter, talk radio, the blogosphere, and even the generally-sober Wall Street Journal erupted with dark warnings of a plot afoot to “nationalize” or “confiscate” everyone's 401(k) plans and convert them to accounts managed by the Social Security Administration.
Read the full article
Wed, December 03, 2008
A comment that I've heard several times in the last few weeks is, "I took a look at my 401(k)/mutual fund statement and it was really depressing." Well, take heart: at least you're not down by eight billion dollars.... Read the full article
Sat, November 22, 2008
I’m delighted to announce that The FFS Blog has been accepted by the Newstex blog syndication service. The change will be transparent to my blog users, except for the addition of the Newstex icon at the bottom of the blog.
Read the full article
Fri, November 21, 2008
Yesterday I attended the semiannual conference of the New England Economic Partnership (NEEP), a nonprofit organization that analyzes economic issues relevant to New England. The dismal scientists lived up to their name, although there were valiant attempts at optimism during the conference, which was held in the auditorium of the Boston Federal Reserve Bank. Read the full article
Fri, November 14, 2008
Prescription processor Express Scripts recently reported that some of the confidential data that it maintains on millions of patients has been compromised. In October the company received an extortion letter from someone who possessed names, Social Security numbers, and prescription information for about 75 people. Some of Express Scripts’ clients (typically these are health benefit plans) received similar threats.
The company has established a website to provide information about the data loss, although at present the site doesn't contain much real information. Express Scripts believes it has identified where the lost data was stored, but gives no indication that it has figured out how many people's information was stolen.
As I’ve mentioned before, stolen medical data sells for a premium because it can be used to commit insurance fraud; medical data theft is potentially much more lucrative than credit card theft. This incident will bear close watching, especially if it turns out that a significant number of people's information was lost. Express Scripts says that it will provide free "identity restoration services" to individuals who become victims of identity theft as a result of this loss – so by the time help is provided, the damage will already be done.
Read the full article
Tue, November 11, 2008
Last week, financial journalist and author Jane Bryant Quinn polled several members of the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA) for our opinions on whether it's still a good idea to have stocks in a retirement portfolio. The consensus? In a word, "yes." Read the full article
Tue, November 04, 2008
With so much attention being given to the $700 billion bailout of banks and the financial industry in the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, not much has been said about the individual income tax provisions included in the massive 440-page bill passed last month.
If you'd like to avoid searching the full bill for the parts that might be personally relevant, here's a quick summary of some provisions that could be interesting to you even if you're not an enormous bank.
Read the full article
Tue, October 28, 2008
The IRS is reporting that more than 383,000 regular refund and economic stimulus checks have been returned as undeliverable by the Postal Service.
Taxpayers whose economic stimulus checks are not in the mail by Dec. 31 will lose out, because by law the checks cannot be sent out after that date. If you're expecting a check and haven't received it yet, browse over to the IRS's website and use the Stimulus Payment tool. Addressing errors must be corrected by Nov. 28 in order for checks to be processed in time. The "Where's My Stimulus Payment" tool provides instructions on how to update your address if needed or you can call (866) 234-2942.
Read the full article
Tue, October 28, 2008
Most people thought that the Federal Reserve was being generous when it provided $85 billion to AIG in an equity deal plus $37.8 billion in liquidity lending. As it turns out, that might not be enough to keep the company going.
Read the full article
Tue, October 21, 2008
The parties involved in the Lehman credit default swap (CDS) auction are settling up today, and everyone is hoping that none of the participants got too badly burned (even if they're hedge funds). Read the full article
Wed, October 15, 2008
Today, the FFS Blog is participating in Blog Action Day 2008. Along with over eight thousand 9,700 other bloggers, my topic today is poverty.
Read the full article
Sat, October 11, 2008
I had no idea when I began this web log in April that I'd be writing an average of four posts a week. But activity in the financial markets has been extraordinary this year; in addition to the educational posts that I had planned to write, I've written many more posts related to current events than I'd envisioned. There are a number of posts I hope to write in the near future: more on hedge funds, life insurance, charitable giving, the cost of college, buying versus renting, retirement - when I can find the time.
I definitely wasn't planning to write my 100th post right after the biggest down week in the history of the S&P 500 and the DJIA. The turmoil in the markets caused an extraordinary increase in my site traffic. According to Quantcast.com, my average monthly traffic is at 2,300 2,500 people per month and still climbing. I'm not assuming that it will stay that high after the markets calm down, but it will be interesting to see what happens next!
Read the full article
Fri, October 10, 2008
Until now, it hasn’t been entirely clear how much damage will result from the Lehman bankruptcy. An auction taking place today will be an important step in assessing which financial institutions stand to take a hit.
Today’s auction involves a type of security that many people know little about or have only heard of recently: credit default swaps.
Read the full article
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