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  • While America Aged: How Pension Debts Ruined General Motors, Stopped the NYC Subways, Bankrupted San Diego, and Loom as the Next Financial Crisis

    Roger Lowenstein

    While America Aged: How Pension Debts Ruined General Motors, Stopped the NYC Subways, Bankrupted San Diego, and Loom as the Next Financial Crisis
    From the bestselling author of Buffett, When Genius Failed, and Origins of the Crash, a wake-up call to the pension and retirement crisis facing America and the road map for a way out

    In While America Aged, bestselling author Roger Lowenstein explains how corporations and governments ran up ruinous pension and health-care promises to workers—promises that are now coming due and that will hit America like a tsunami if nothing is done.

    Negotiating high benefits means gambling with future finances—and when the farm gets sold out from underneath major corporations or public institutions, it affects all of us, and in ways we might not imagine. With his trademark narrative panache, Lowenstein unravels the truth about how pensions work in America and illuminates the impending crisis. While America Aged is comprised of three fascinating case studies— each an object lesson and a compelling historical saga. The first goes back to the early days of the United Auto Workers and its crusading leader, Walter Reuther, to tell the story of how pensions and health-care obligations destroyed the American auto industry, in particular General Motors.

    Lowenstein then shifts the scene to New York City to tell the story of the rise of public pensions and public sector unions through the vehicle of the Communist-led Transport Workers Union. Once again, justifiable benefits were followed by outrageous ones, such as the right to retire at age fifty. The saga reached a dramatic climax in 2005, when workers responded to proposed pension cutbacks with a massive strike that brought New York’s subways and buses to a screeching halt days before Christmas.

    In the concluding episode, Lowenstein visits a metropolis even more reckless in doling out benefits—San Diego. Desperate not to impose higher taxes, city officials in this highly conservative enclave cut a series of deals with unions to short-change the retirement system and use pension funds to run the city. A massive scandal ensued—two mayors resigned, officials were indicted, and San Diego lost its bond rating. Lowenstein warns that the pension wars that erupted in Detroit, New York City, and San Diego are only the first. But he also recognizes that workers are entitled to decent security in their retirement—a critical problem as the country ages. While America Aged explains how we came to this crisis, and it also proposes a way out. Arming readers with knowledge of the consequences of doing nothing, While America Aged, first and foremost, a call to action.
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  • Spend 'Til the End: The Revolutionary Guide to Raising Your Living Standard--Today and When You Retire

    Laurence J. Kotlikoff, Scott Burns

    Spend 'Til the End: The Revolutionary Guide to Raising Your Living Standard--Today and When You Retire
    Rich or poor, young or old, high school or college grad, this book, written by economist Laurence J. Kotlikoff and syndicated financial columnist Scott Burns, can change your life for the better! If you follow the advice in this book, it will raise your living standard (possibly by a lot), improve your lifestyle, and help you spend 'til the end. And it will completely transform your financial thinking, turning every bit of conventional financial wisdom on its head.

    If this sounds like a revolution in financial planning, you got it. So do The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Time, Consumer Reports, and other top publications that have been featuring the authors' economics-based "consumption smoothing" approach to financial planning.

    Spend 'Til the End substitutes economic wisdom for the "rules of dumb" that currently pass for financial advice. In the process it indicts the investment and financial-planning industry for giving most people saving and insurance targets that are much too high and then convincing them to invest in risky mutual funds and expensive insurance policies. The result is that most people are scrimping and saving during the years when they could be spending and enjoying their money -- and with no sure payoff.

    Easy to read, this book is packed with practical and often shocking advice on whether to work, how to pick a career, which job to take, where to live, what sort of house to buy, how much to save, when to retire, which kind of retirement account to use, whether to have kids, whether to divorce, when to take Social Security, how fast to spend down your assets in retirement, and how to invest.

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  • How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free: Retirement Wisdom That You Won't Get from Your Financial Advisor

    Ernie J. Zelinski

    How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free: Retirement Wisdom That You Won't Get from Your Financial Advisor
    A happy retirement is dependent on more than just having adequate financial resources. It means paying attention to all aspects of life, including leisure activities, creative pursuits, physical and mental well-being, and solid social support. With its friendly format, lively cartoons, and captivating quotations, Zelinskis guide offers inspirational advice on how to follow your dreams instead of someone elses how to enjoy life after work.
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  • The Bond Book: Everything Investors Need to Know About Treasuries, Municipals, GNMAs, Corporates, Zeros, Bond Funds, Money Market Funds, and More

    Annette Tha

    The Bond Book: Everything Investors Need to Know About Treasuries, Municipals, GNMAs, Corporates, Zeros, Bond Funds, Money Market Funds, and More
    In today’s volatile financial environment, growing numbers of investors are looking to flee the stock market in search of safer ground. While the bond market has often been a “safe haven,” confusing new bonds and bond funds make it increasingly difficult for unfamiliar investors to choose the correct fixed income investments. The Bond Book provides investors with the information and tools they need to make bonds a comforting, important, and profitable component of their portfolios. Thoroughly revised, updated, and expanded from its bestselling first edition, this all-in-one sourcebook includes: *A new section on using the Internet to research, buy, and sell bonds *A new chapter devoted to increasingly popular foreign bonds *Detailed information on the inflation-linked Treasury bonds *Explanation of the new categories of bond funds *Tips on how to evaluate and buy bond funds
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  • Parlay Your IRA into a Family Fortune: 3 EASY STEPS for creating a lifetime supply of tax-deferred, even tax-free, wealth for you and your family

    Ed Slott

    Parlay Your IRA into a Family Fortune: 3 EASY STEPS for creating a lifetime supply of tax-deferred, even tax-free, wealth for you and your family
    “America ’s IRA expert”(Mutual Funds magazine) Ed Slott shows readers how to make the most out of their retirement plans.

    • Achieve unlimited tax-free income after retirement and keep assets in the family
    • Protect retirement funds from creditors, divorce, bankruptcy, lawsuits, or other problems that could expose it to loss
    • Use a Roth IRA to build a tax-free fortune Slott’s three-step strategy cuts through the tax laws and provides simple, easy-to-follow instructions for managing IRAs and other retirement income.
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  • Early Bird: A Memoir of Premature Retirement

    Rodney Rothman

    Early Bird: A Memoir of Premature Retirement
    Everyone says they would like to retire early, but Rodney Rothman actually did it -- forty years early. Burnt out, he decides at the age of twenty-eight to get an early start on his golden years. He travels to Boca Raton, Florida, where he moves in with an elderly piano teacher at Century Village, a retirement community that is home to thousands of senior citizens.

    Early Bird is an irreverent, hilarious, and ultimately warmhearted account of Rodney's journey deep into the heart of retirement. Rodney struggles for acceptance from the senior citizens he shares a swimming pool with and battles with cranky octogenarians who want him off their turf. Before long he observes, "I don't think Tuesdays with Morrie would have been quite so uplifting if that guy had to spend more than one day a week with Morrie."

    In the spirit of retirement, Rodney fashions a busy schedule of suntanning, shuffleboard, and gambling cruises. As the months pass, his neighbors seem to forget that he is fifty years younger than they are. He finds himself the potential romantic interest of an aging femme fatale. He joins a senior softball club and is disturbed to learn that he is the worst player on the team.

    Early Bird is a funny, insightful, and moving look at what happens to us when we retire, viewed from a remarkably premature perspective. Any reader who plans on becoming an old person will enjoy joining Rodney on his strange journey, as he reconsiders his notions of romance, family, friendship, and ultimately, whether he's ever going back to work.

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  • America's Financial Apocalypse: How to Profit from the Next Great Depression (Condensed Edition)

    Stathis

    America's Financial Apocalypse: How to Profit from the Next Great Depression (Condensed Edition)
    For more than two decades, numerous experts have predicted a major depression in America. Many of these forecasts were written in the early 90s as an aftershock of the 87 Crash. While most ignored these warnings, cautious investors withdrew from the capital markets. But the expected turmoil never appeared, at least not for over a decade. In the mid-90s, the Internet was released. Soon, hundreds of companies sought to harness this new technology. By 1999, the Internet stock bubble had swollen beyond belief, and everyone wanted a piece of the action. And we all remember what happened at the start of the new millennium. While this correction revealed the most recent illusions embedded within the economy, it s only a prelude of what to expect in the coming years. Today, economics control the investment cycle rather than hype generated by Wall Street. Accordingly, Washington can only hide the realities of America s decline for so long before the truth is revealed. Currently, we are in the middle stages of a secular bear market that began in 2001. Upon examination of the Dow Jones Industrial Average since 1900, it s clear that the stock market must correct downward, or else encounter a period of modest returns through 2012. But still, muted gains will only partly compensate for the spectacular appreciation of the 90s; a period fueled by excess consumption. Today we see that competitive forces from abroad are much more influential than in the past. In the mid-1990s, President Clinton signed off on NAFTA and the World Trade Organization, promising free trade would deliver better jobs and higher wages for all. But for the majority of Americans, the opposite has occurred. America entered the free trade paradigm as a losing participant from the start since all other nations place the burden of healthcare and pension costs with the government. While it still remains as the centerpiece for the global economy, America now relies on record debt to maintain its status as the world s strongest consumer marketplace. For over three decades, more money has been leaving America than coming in. As a result, the U.S. is now the world s largest debtor nation. Rather than increases in net wealth, America s growth has been fueled by credit spending. This has created the illusion of impressive productivity, while serving to mask declining living standards for the majority. As corporate America continues to achieve record profitability, these gains have come at the expense of its core citizens; the middle class. As a result of these trends, the United States is now more dependent upon foreign nations than anytime in its history. Declining oil reserves and a foreign-funded credit bubble have positioned its fate in the hands of the world. And its vulnerable role in the New Economy threatens to erode its empire status. Already, the effects of America s decline have registered. Declining competitiveness and reliance on foreign debt can be seen by noting the weakness of the dollar. As foreign nations lose interest in financing Washington s deficits, interest rates will soar. Soon, America will face the economic burden of 76 million aging boomers. Beginning in 2011, expenditures for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security will start to grow rapidly. During this same period it is likely that peak oil will have been reached; this alone promises to cause worldwide devastation. In summary, I have presented what I feel to be a strong case for America s declining economic position and weakened competitive landscape by addressing the major issues at hand the trade imbalance and federal debt, free trade, healthcare, Social Security, pensions, the real estate bubble, the war in Iraq, tensions in the Middle East, the global oil shortage, and the effect baby boomers will have as they enter what they expect to be their Golden Years.
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  • Encore: Finding Work that Matters in the Second Half of Life

    Marc Freedman

    Encore: Finding Work that Matters in the Second Half of Life
    The movement of millions of sixty-somethings into a new phase in their working lives constitutes one of the most significant social trends in this country in nearly half a century. Encore describes the competing visions for work that are already lining up to capture the hearts and minds, and the time, of waves of baby boomers who are not content, or affluent enough, to spend their next twenty or thirty years on the golf course. Baby boomers are searching for a calling in the second half of life; they are moving beyond midlife yet refusing to phase out or fade away.

    If the old dream of the Golden Years was the Freedom from Work, the dream of this new wave is the Freedom to Work—in new ways, on new terms, to new ends. As their numbers begin to swell, these individuals hold the potential not only to transform work in America, but to create a society that balances the joys and responsibilities of contribution across the generations—in other words, one that works better for everyone.

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  • The Coming Generational Storm: What You Need to Know about America's Economic Future

    Laurence J. Kotlikoff, Scott Burns

    The Coming Generational Storm: What You Need to Know about America's Economic Future
    One of Library Journal's Best Business Books of 2004, A Forbes.com Top Ten Business Book for 2004, One of Barron’s 25 Best Books of 2004, Winner in the category of Economics in the 2004 Professional/Scholarly Publishing Annual Awards Competition presented by the Association of American Publishers, Inc. and CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title for 2004

    This paperback edition of The Coming Generational Storm has been revised and updated and includes a new foreword by the authors.

    In 2030, as 77 million baby boomers hobble into old age, walkers will outnumber strollers; there will be twice as many retirees as there are today but only 18 percent more workers. How will Social Security and Medicare function with fewer working taxpayers to support these programs? According to Laurence Kotlikoff and Scott Burns, if our government continues on the course it has set, we'll see skyrocketing tax rates, drastically lower retirement and health benefits, high inflation, a rapidly depreciating dollar, unemployment, and political instability. The government has lost its compass, say Kotlikoff and Burns, and the Bush administration's spending and tax policies have charted a course straight into the coming generational storm.

    Kotlikoff and Burns take us on a guided tour of our generational imbalance: There's the "fiscal child abuse" that will double the taxes paid by the next generation. There's also the "deficit delusion" of the under-reported national debt. And none of this, they say, will be solved by any of the popularly touted remedies: cutting taxes, technological progress, immigration, foreign investment, or the elimination of wasteful government spending. Kotlikoff and Burns propose bold new policies, including meaningful reforms of Social Security and Medicare, that are simple, straightforward, and geared to attract support from both political parties.
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