Read About The Tarbaby Story under the Category: About the Tarbaby Blog
The GOP tax cuts for the wealthy has another layer: It’s helping them funnel that money into the 2018 midterms
Robert Reich on the GOP Tax Cuts for the Rich and the 2018 Midterms
The GOP tax cuts for the wealthy has another layer: It's helping them funnel that money into the 2018 midterms
Posted by NowThis Politics on Tuesday, August 28, 2018
August 27, 2018
What Floridians are enduring is decades in the making. Agricultural runoff polluting the water and Big Sugar blocking its natural flow. Bianca Graulau with 10News in Tampa Bay does a remarkable job telling the story here.
What does Big Sugar have to do with Florida's red tide?
You've been hearing a lot about the toxic algae situation in Florida. But what's causing it? @Bianca Graulau explains.https://on.wtsp.com/2oddXNH
Posted by 10News WTSP on Sunday, August 26, 2018
August 8, 2018
You can trade it for groceries, fuel or even school fees. Learn more about the fight against plastic waste:
These stores accept plastic waste as money
You can trade it for groceries, fuel or even school fees. Learn more about the fight against plastic waste: https://wef.ch/2JC1fEx
Posted by World Economic Forum on Wednesday, August 8, 2018
A Lesson on Happiness From a 92 Year Old
I agree with her 100%!
Posted by Power of Positivity on Monday, October 30, 2017
August 25, 2018
Like George was calling out Big Sugar by name: “They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying, lobbying, to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else.
But I’ll tell you what they don’t want: They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests.”
Like George was calling out Big Sugar by name: “They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying, lobbying, to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else. But I'll tell you what they don’t want: They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests.”
Posted by Everglades-Trust on Saturday, August 25, 2018
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders — US Senator for Vermont
August 26, 2018
Despite Trump and Scott Pruitt, the world is making progress to address climate change. Costa Rica is proving that it’s possible to rapidly transition away from fossil fuels to renewable energy. (via The Years Project)
Despite Trump and Scott Pruitt, the world is making progress to address climate change. Costa Rica is proving that it's possible to rapidly transition away from fossil fuels to renewable energy. (via The Years Project)
Posted by U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders on Sunday, August 26, 2018
Kathleen Elkins August 27, 2018
Cloud 9. Michael Yarish | NBC.
The vast majority of Americans, 78 percent, say they’re “extremely” or “somewhat” concerned about not having enough money for retirement, according to Northwestern Mutual’s 2018 Planning & Progress Study.
And for good reason: A shocking 21 percent of Americans have nothing at all saved for the future, and another 10 percent have less than $5,000 tucked away, the study finds.
That means about a third of Americans have only a few thousand dollars, or less, put away for their golden years.
Of course, some people are more prepared: A quarter report having $200,000 or more stashed away, while 16 percent have between $75,000 and $199,999. But overall, Northwestern Mutual found that Americans with retirement savings have an average of $84,821 saved, which is far from enough. Experts typically recommend trying to accumulate at least $1 million.
Meanwhile, a new survey from Bankrate finds that 13 percent of Americans are saving less for retirement than they were last year and offers insight into why much of the population is lagging behind. The most popular response survey participants gave for why they didn’t put more away in the past year was a drop, or no change, in income.
“That’s consistent with federal data that show real wages have barely budged in decades,” Bankrate reports. According to the Pew Research Center, the average paycheck has the same purchasing power it did 40 years ago.
Day-to-day costs continue to soar, and salaries don’t go as far as they once did to cover the necessities, author and executive director of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project Alissa Quart tells CNBC Make It. That makes it more difficult to set aside money for the future.
Still, the longer you put off planning for your golden years, the farther behind you’ll fall.
The good news is there are ways to make progress without feeling cash-strapped or committing to any drastic lifestyle changes. Here are three effective strategies:
1. Start ASAP. The sooner you begin putting your money to work, the less you’ll have to save each month to reach your goals, thanks to the power of compound interest.
If you start at age 23, for instance, you only have to save about $14 a day to be a millionaire by age 67. That’s assuming a 6 percent average annual investment return. If you start at age 35, on the other hand, you’d have to set aside $30 a day to reach seven-figure status by age 67.
Ideally, you’ll want to work your way up to setting aside at least 10 percent of your pretax income, but if you’re only comfortable with setting aside 1 percent, start there!
Check online to see if you can set up “auto-increase,” which allows you to choose the percentage you want to raise your contributions by and how often. This way, you won’t forget to up your contributions or talk yourself out of setting aside a larger chunk when the time comes.
If you can’t find the feature online, call your retirement plan provider to find out what’s possible.
3. Bank any surplus money. Whenever you come across any extra cash — a bonus, birthday check or small windfall — rather than blowing it on a new pair of shoes or a vacation, send at least a chunk of it straight to savings.
To resist the temptation to spend any surplus money, deposit it right away, so you never even see it.
Don’t miss: The economy is booming, yet Americans are struggling. An award-winning author explains why
Here’s how this North Carolina couple could retire in their 30’s.
The U.S. government official overseeing the protection of student loan recipients from predatory lending practices resigned at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and wrote a scathing letter addressed to Mick Mulvaney, the bureau’s acting director.
As first reported by NPR, who obtained the letter, Seth Frotman asserted that Mulvaney’s leadership led the bureau to “[abandon] the very consumers it is tasked by Congress with protecting.”
The CFPB under Mulvaney’s leadership, Frotman wrote, “has turned its back on young people and their financial futures.”
The CFPB oversees financial practices that could potentially harm consumers.
“We protect consumers from unfair, deceptive, or abusive practices and take action against companies that break the law,” the bureau’s website reads.
Part of their protection oversight includes the $1.5 trillion student loan industry. Frotman’s loud resignation brings into question how seriously the government takes its responsibility to protect student borrowers.
Frotman accused Mulvaney of using “the Bureau to serve the wishes of the most powerful financial companies in America.”
In a recent survey by Student Loan Hero, 39 percent of millennials said too much debt is their No. 1 source of stress.
The cost of getting a degree contributes a large part to that burden. From the time that millennials were born until the time they entered college, tuition increased by nearly 129% for private colleges and by over 213% for public colleges, when adjusted for inflation.
Add that to the fact that, according to a new St. Louis Fed study, families of millennials were hit particularly hard by the Financial Crisis. (Single millennials aren’t doing much better.)
“Wealth in 2016 of the median family headed by someone born in the 1980s remained 34 percent below the level we predicted based on the experience of earlier generations at the same age,” the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis stated.
“Consider a typical 32-year-old family respondent in 2016 (born in 1984),” the study added. “This respondent’s family was 34 percent ($12,000) below the 32-year-old benchmark established by earlier generations.” This group is also holding more debt than any previous generations.
And because the debt that millennial families hold is not attached to “assets that have appreciated rapidly during the last few years — such as stocks and real estate — they have received no leveraged wealth boost like that enjoyed by older cohorts.” Instead, this group is dealing with debts that accumulate high interest in a seemingly never-ending cycle of repayment, such as credit card debt, auto loans, and, yes, student loans.
Frotman had served at the CFPB since the agency was started seven years ago, and he held the position of ombudsman for the last three years. There, he was in charge of the Office for Students and Young Consumers, where he reviewed complaints from student borrowers about private lenders, loan servicers, and debt collectors.
His departure comes after the relationship between the Trump administration and the CFPB has grown increasingly fraught.
Last summer, the U.S. Department of Education announced it would no longer share information regarding the oversight of federal student loans with the CFPB, claiming the bureau was “overreaching and unaccountable.”
“The Bureau’s current leadership folded to political pressure … and failed borrowers who depend on independent oversight to halt bad practices,” Frotman wrote of the decision.
READ MORE: American women are facing ‘perfect storm’ of student debt
August 2018
It might sound quackers but it’s catching on. Learn more about the future of farming:
Farmers across China, Japan, Iran and France are using ducks instead of pesticides
It might sound quackers but it's catching on. Learn more about the future of farming: https://wef.ch/2IjsVdR
Posted by World Economic Forum on Thursday, August 2, 2018
By Lorraine Chow August 17, 2018
Jones Gap State Park in Greenville County, South Carolina. Jason A G / Flickr / CC BY-ND 2.0