Author Archives: Megan Russell

Rebalancing can both boost returns and lower volatility, but most investors do not understanding how.

This is a complete list of the budgets and purposes of the federal agencies that begin with the letter A.

The cost of commission-based advisors are so hidden that you may be paying more than you realize.

A computer algorithm cannot help you with these things.

See our review of the two pros and nine cons of how Schwab monitors and rebalances portfolios.

It is a great marketing campaign, and the service is a wonderful idea, but the asset allocations of SIPs aren’t actually that intelligent.

You cannot help a company by buying its stock.

From the blind eye of the law, this seems like a violation of SEC regulation.

“They find whatever is different and peck it to death.”

The domestic spying of the executive branch deserves our outrage. Efforts like “Citizenfour” that keep the issue in the public eye deserve our support.

The new holiday cliché is to complain about hyper-materialism, but gifts and gift giving help shape our identities.

Obama evidently believes that politicians are elected to make a difference in the lives of Americans. The problem is that no one can opt out of a federal impact.

The loudest tend to drown out competitors regardless of whose reasoning is better.

It is often said that the only two certainties in life are death and taxes. The IRS takes that truism to heart.

It is a simple thought experiment. Would you rather invest in South Korea or in North Korea?

Regardless of income level, overspending causes poverty.

Here is one of the most brilliant breakthroughs in all of food science and how it relates to almost every aspect of life.

A mob boss exercises absolute control over his many followers and profits from the often criminal activities of his organization.

It is illegal to sell contacts in the United States without requiring a prescription. A Federal Trade Commission regulation provides penalties of up to $11,000 per violation.

These noble-sounding goals intuitively appear useful, but the federal government has only two ways to encourage change and neither of them helps in this case.

Stop borrowing from your future self. Each day you fail to save is another day where you tighten the ball and chain around your ankle. You deserve better than that.

Unfortunately, Obama’s good intentions are thwarted by the economic principle formulated by banker Charles Goodhart.

The amount of energy available in the brain to exercise self-regulation and resist temptation is a limited resource. When the account runs out, well… you know the kind of decisions you make.

The average factory-farmed frozen turkey from a grocery story is sold for as little as $0.67 per pound. Economics can offer five explanations.

Unless McConnell is willing to risk a government shutdown, he will ultimately have to acquiesce to Obama’s wishes.

There are thirteen states so far. Does your state allow them?

Last year plans were being cancelled. This year, citizens are receiving notifications of rate hikes in the double digits. Is this really happening?

We e-mailed all the senatorial candidates inviting them to be interviewed on our blog. Of all the candidates, Robert Sarvis, the Libertarian 2014 Virginia Senatorial candidate, was the only one to respond.

The lottery is based on the most powerful way to motivate people and change their behavior: a variable reward in response to a specific behavior.

The classic conversational pastime of answering the question, “What would you do if you won the lottery?” could help you or it could hurt.

Government-run lotteries have a sordid and monopolistic past. Should we enforce a separation of sin and state?

The Whiskey Rebellion established the sovereignty of “we the people” to tax and oppress any selected group.

Exchange funds, also know as swap funds, can provide investors with one highly appreciated security a way to trade it for an equivalently valued but more diversified portfolio.

There are five ways that both you and the government could make charitable giving more significant.

We must return, as much as possible, to a fee-for-service approach to health care and restore the traditional doctor-patient relationship.

We can only afford to allow others the freedom to strive against death when we are not trying collectively to subsidize it.

“Shouldn’t patients and their families have some skin in the game as a brake on the profligate spending of other people’s money for health care?”

Next time you receive an unintelligible medical bill, remember how hard it is for your doctor to get paid.

Asians in New Jersey have the best life expectancy of any racial or ethnic group.

Now there is absolutely no charge for a costly set of test and procedures on the all-you-can-spend preventive care buffet.

After the birth of my (David’s) first child, my wife and I noticed we were being billed for a very expensive bedpan and box of tissues that we had never used.

Why shouldn’t we just institute price controls in America?

These quotes are provocative for what they say about us as Americans.

“When institutions protect the liberty of individuals, greater prosperity results for all.” – Adam Smith

If you are not paying for the product, you are the product.

Someone has to be proactive about your child’s retirement and every year you don’t open a retirement account is another year you’re holding back compound interest.

Government has never been known for customer service. But today it is known primarily for being against the very people it is supposed to serve.

Michael Kirsch, a practicing physician and newspaper columnist, laments that there are questions he can never answer satisfactorily for his patients. His questions are central to the public policy debate increasingly being decided by voters and politicians rather than physicians and economists.

Beware of government regulation, especially when a portion of the industry thinks it’ll be good for business.

We are all embarrassingly honest with search engines.