Weekly Round Up – November 29, 2013

Before we get to the good reads!

Check out this beastly resource on how to start a blog, and let me know what you think.

A Few Good Reads

Here are a few of my favorite reads from the past week.

1. America’s health care cost slowdown and the disappearing debt:

Six years after the start of the Great Recession, there should be little disagreement what America’s number one domestic priority should be. With unemployment still stuck around 7 percent four plus years after that recession was declared “over,” creating jobs has to be Job #1.

That urgency is underscored by the new analyses warning that the massive downturn that has cost America trillions in lost economic output will likely cost trillions more in what might be called a “permanent slump,” one that is putting the future prospects for younger workers—and the entire nation—in deep peril. Open this article

2. Today’s Wealth Destruction Is Hidden By Government Debt:

Still unnoticed by a large part of the population is that we have been living through a period of relative impoverishment. Money has been squandered in welfare spending, bailing out banks or even — as in Europe — of fellow governments. But many people still do not feel the pain.

However, malinvestments have destroyed an immense amount of real wealth. Government spending for welfare programs and military ventures has caused increasing public debts and deficits in the Western world. These debts will never be paid back in real terms. Open this article

3. Out With the Old in the With the New Debt:

Earing up for Thanksgiving dinner, I am not going to be caught interpersonally unprepared this year, and am compiling some handy notes that I can use in the inevitable awkward family conversations, such as somebody remarking, “Boy! There are some good smells coming out of the kitchen!”

This year I can keep the conversation ball rolling along by instantly having a clever comment at hand, such as, “Yeah! Much nicer than the foul, stinking stench coming out of a corrupt, brain-dead Washington, which is, of course not coincidentally, where the evil Federal Reserve is located, which has been at the forefront of ‘corrupt and brain-dead’ for most of the last century.” Open this article

4. Woman starves to pay debt:

Waikato pensioners are starving and raiding their KiwiSaver accounts to pay back mounting credit card debt.

A Hamilton financial adviser said an “alarming” number of retired and elderly are asking for help dealing with credit card debt.

Hamilton Budgeting Advisory Trust manager Clare Mataira said financial abuse of the elderly is a growing problem and she is pushing for banks to tighten their lending policies. Open this article

5. Guangdong debt call sparks fears over local government finances:

A notice from a court in Guangdong that city authorities were ignoring its orders to repay hundreds of debts totalling 1.85 billion yuan (HK$2.34 billion) has highlighted the financial plight of many local governments.

Xinhua reported on Friday that the Intermediate Court in Zhanjiang, a city of more than 1.3 million people in the southwest of the province, had ordered various city government departments to settle some 764 outstanding cases. Open this article