Top Financial Blogs: Altucher On the top 10 Financial Bloggers Who Should Write Books - Financial Adviser - WSJ edited by Wade Dokken

This is an excellent list compiled by the Wall Street Journal of top financial blogs which are not only rich in content, but also very well written.    We often forget that when we are targeting our keywords: retirement crisis, private pensions, wealthvest marketing, retirement income planner, fixed annuity, index annuity, 401k, IRA, Roth IRA, top financial advisor, #1 FMO, and the myriad of key words either we or you will target, that you also have to provide real content.  Well-written content that justifies the time spent on the site.   Wade Dokken

Before I present The List (and what self-respecting blogger doesn’t resort to lists?), here are couple of thoughts about book publishing:

a.) Enough About Warren. If one more book about Warren Buffett comes out, I think I might lose it. “Warren Buffett on Business.” “Warren Buffett’s Management Secrets.” Warren Buffett this. Warren Buffett that. I’ve read 100 books on Buffett, and there’s only one book on him worth reading and after that there’s nothing more to say. Would-be authors should pick another topic!

b.) It’s Not About the Money. Writing a book means you fell prey to the entire book-publishing scam. When I walk in a bookstore it’s obvious that there is an enormous supply (the 10,000 books in the store) and weak demand (the four other people besides me and the employees who are in the store). Everyone rationalizes about why they felt compelled to write a book, and “for the enormous money” rarely is a reason. (A side story: I met the guy who manages John Grisham’s money and he said, “John writes a book and then another $50 million comes my way.”)

OK, here are the 10 bloggers whose book I would buy if they sat down and wrote it. Guaranteeing them at least one purchase (that and a cup of coffee will be enough for them to earn their advance back for the publisher).

Paul Kedrosky - Hey Paul, what are you doing already? Are you a VC? A blogger? An investor? An entrepreneur? A weather-data addict? Heck, write a book about weird weather data. I’ll buy it. Write a book, Seth Godin-style, of your pithy one-page gems of wisdom. Do you need an agent or something? What’s the hold-up on “Paul Kedrosky: My Story”?

Bess Levin – I start and finish my day with Dealbreaker. Title your book “Crashing Parties on Wall Street” or, preferably, something better than that.

Felix Salmon - You blog all day about credit default swaps, blogonomics, and other sundry topics. But, at the very least, write the unauthorized biography/tell-all about Nouriel Roubini. Give us an inside look at the wild parties where everyone is toasting the end of the world ’til the light of dawn.

Cody Willard – Write the “Top 100 People I Hate on Wall Street and in Washington D.C.” Or the top 1,000. Whatever can fit. Why do you hate so many people? Can you relax already? But, seriously, a book with that title would sell.

Roger Ehrenberg – You are dead wrong about mark-to-market, punk. From the time they put on FASB 157 (November 2007) to the time they got rid of it (March 2009) the market went down. And, you know what, that saves lives. But other than that: how about do one of those, “How I’d Save Capitalism” books. Spice it up with stories about making the leap from Wall Street to VC. You’re one of the best investors out there, and you have lived to write the tale.

Henry Blodget - OK, you already wrote a book. But I don’t really count books like this as real books. You were scammed by your publisher into believing that counted as a “book.” You have statements like this in the book: “Diversify your assets, reduce your costs, and get out of the way.” Rather, where is the tell-all? Your rise from English major to multimillion-dollar salaried analyst, to the AMZN call, to the move from Oppenheimer to Merrill (now BAC), to Spitzer, to the Business Insider, all the stuff in the cracks in between. You have the true Wall Street Financial Thriller in your head. Let’s hear it!

Nate Silver - Not quite a financial blogger, but politics = finance and you are the most astute political blogger around. I still haven’t seen a race that you haven’t called in advance. I’d like to know your techniques, how you discovered them, and what’s in store for 2012.

Tyler Durden – Zero hedge. I can’t read your blog. It’s too depressing. Life is short and you are relentless in your efforts to just crush the fun out of it. If I read one more time about how Indonesian bank troubles are the “harbinger of things to come” or the “Fate of Foreign Oil Investors In Limbo Amid Ghana-Côte d’Ivoire Border Dispute” I mght just lie in bed all day weeping. Yes, weeping. But, if anyone is going to write a book describing the exact surgical process by which the world is going to lose all of its guts and insides, it’s probably you.

Jeff Miller - Finally! Someone who can piece together all the economic data and bring down the love on why things might be better than all the doom-and-gloomers say. Why not write the book “Why the Doom-and-Gloomers are Wrong.” Here’s what I want to know: How will we fund those massive unfunded liabilities everyone keeps talking about? How will housing come back? How will we rein in this deficit? I know you can answer these questions and help the world rest easy at night.

Mark Cuban - Probably the happiest guy on the planet. I know people say, “Money doesn’t solve all of your problems.” This is definitely true. But money does solve your money problems. You made a billion or so when you sold Broadcast.com to Yahoo and then top-ticked his sale of YHOO stock. Then you bought a basketball team, a movie studio, and you blogs about whatever you want. You have a very fun life and not only am I incredibly jealous but I want to live vicariously through your tell-all story. Please, Mark. Write the book.

Many more bloggers out there should do books. I didn’t list them all but next week I’ll put out a list of my 100 must-reads in the blog world. But certainly I’d buy any books by the guys listed above (except for books about Buffett or books that have stuff like “diversify your 401(k).”

via blogs.wsj.com

 

Beyond the 401(k): Seniors must work longer - Sep. 15, 2010

Alicia Munnell, and the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College have been leaders in the retirement planning public policy space for years.   Along with Moshe Mivelsky, whom I quoted earlier in the week, Alicia has been a key part of the intellectual debate on how our country should prepare for retirement.  

Wade Dokken

Beyond the 401(k): Seniors must work longer

 

By Penelope Wang, senior writerSeptember 15, 2010: 3:19 PM ET

 

(MONEY Magazine) -- After 30 years studying pension systems around the world, Alicia Munnell knows what works -- and what doesn't. As head of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, she warned early on that 401(k) plans would fail to provide the level of income that retirees would need. Not many agreed with her at first.

But by 2006, Congress, other academics, and much of the financial services industry had concluded that defined-contribution plans had some serious flaws. The result: the Pension Protection Act, which mandated 401(k) reforms such as encouraging auto-enrollment and the use of target-date retirement funds.

Those measures, however, aren't enough to fend off a coming crisis, Munnell argues.

With savings and housing wealth below peak levels, workers are less prepared for retirement even as Social Security deficits are expected to balloon, threatening future benefits. How to fix the mess? Munnell, a former economics adviser to President Bill Clinton, calls for broad changes in America's retirement system. She shared her ideas with senior writer Penelope Wang.

Let's start with Social Security. There's a lot of discussion now about how to ensure its solvency. What's your view?

There's no silver bullet. Certainly higher payroll taxes have to be part of the discussion. If people understood the tradeoff, which is either having lower Social Security benefits in the future or putting in more money now, they'd be willing to put in the money.

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With 401(k) balances so low, people will be increasingly relying on Social Security in the future. If payroll taxes are raised 1.9 percentage points, split between workers and employers, Social Security would be solvent for 75 years.

Raising the retirement age for full benefits to 70 or higher is something that's being talked about a lot now.

It should be on the table. We are living longer, and jobs are less physical, so we can work longer. The age for full benefits has been pushed to 67 from 65. So it makes sense to index the age of full benefits to longevity in the future.

There are some problems with doing that, however. One, about half of those claiming benefits claim early, at 62. So if the full-benefits age goes up, the early-retirement age has to rise too.

“We are living longer, and jobs are less physical, so we can work longer. The age for full benefits has been pushed to 67 from 65.”

Alice Munnell

Then there's the issue of older people who have health problems or whose skills have eroded and cannot get jobs. They might need to rely on an expanded disability option. That's not an easy or costless thing to create. But those kinds of fixes have to be included. Otherwise people will retire at 62 with very low benefits, and by the time they get to 80, they may be in bad financial shape.

What about other fixes, such as lifting the earnings cap on Social Security taxes, which is now $106,800?

I can see raising the maximum taxable income back to where 90% of wages are covered, where it used to be, vs. 83% now. But if we tax higher incomes, we have to decide whether to provide benefits for the additional taxes.

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Paying out more in benefits reduces the positive impact the additional revenues would have on the system's solvency. But not doing that would break the link between contributions and benefits.

It's better to provide some benefits, so the basic promise of the system remains intact -- that there's a relationship between how much you pay in and what you ultimately collect. Otherwise you change the nature of the program from universal insurance to something that is for other people, not for you. The government programs that work best are those that work for everyone.

Another proposed fix is to change the way benefit increases are set, indexing them to general price increases rather than to wage hikes, which tend to run higher than the inflation rate.

Doing that would provide lower benefits than were promised. Social Security ties benefits to earnings; the system was designed so the average worker would get 40% of pre-retirement wages.

Advocates of price indexing say, "It's really just the dollar amount that matters, and your benefits will keep pace with inflation." But with price indexing, recipients would end up with a lower percentage of their pre-retirement earnings. That's not a minor change.

 

Given the problems with Social Security and 401(k)s, you've proposed a new national savings plan. How would it work?

Let me be clear: I'm not at war with 401(k) plans. A lot of money has been spent putting that system in place, and it would be crazy to rip it apart and not build on it.

As for expanding Social Security, we've got about the right amount of pay-as-you-go financing. [The system is based on the premise that payroll taxes on current workers can support the benefits paid to retirees. If there's a shortfall, Social Security will tap its reserves, or "trust fund."] Still, if you add the Social Security benefits people are going to receive to what they're likely to get from 401(k)s, it's not enough. We need to fill the gap with a third tier of savings.

I envision something that provides an additional 20% of pre-retirement earnings through a defined-contribution system, which would be paid out as an annuity at retirement. Saving in the plan should be mandatory, with the money managed by private financial services companies and invested conservatively -- mainly in fixed-income assets like inflation-protected securities.

Conversely, you would take more risk with Social Security funds.

It makes sense to invest in stocks in the Social Security trust fund [instead of government bonds, as done now]. That's the place to put risky investments, since that risk can be smoothed out over generations.

To the extent that stocks deliver decent returns, people will have to contribute less for Social Security than they would have to otherwise -- and that would free up money for them to contribute to the new savings tier. I'm open to discussion about the details. I just need people to be persuaded that we need a bigger retirement system.

What if stocks perform poorly? Wouldn't that jeopardize Social Security?

Over the very long run, stocks will reflect economic growth and should give you a better return. Canada has done this successfully.

Of course, there will be rough patches. So Social Security should have an automatic adjustment mechanism, as some European countries have. If we have a prolonged bear market or a big increase in life expectancy, everyone will know that benefits will be adjusted down.

In the end, investing in equities will make Social Security more secure; Congress would find it harder to use its funds to pay other obligations because the money will be in the stock market, not government IOUs.

Regulators may require 401(k) plans to offer an income option at retirement, such as an annuity. Is that a good move?

 

It's very hard to figure out how much of your nest egg to withdraw each year when you don't know how long it has to last. Turning some of your savings into annuity income, which never runs out, would be good.

But people in the United States generally hate annuities. They like their piles of money, and they don't want to give them up for flows of income. It's partly irrational, but not entirely. Annuities tend to be expensive. So we have to be careful that the offerings are reasonably priced.

I can see a federal role in backing annuities. Especially after the AIG debacle, consumers will have to be persuaded that if they buy an annuity, they're not running a high risk their money will disappear.

Now that the real estate bubble has burst, what role do you see for homes in retirement planning?

Homes are going to be a solid asset, but not with a really high return, just as they were 20 years ago. That said, housing is still the major asset that most middle-income families own. It's probably bigger than anything other than their Social Security benefit. In the past, people didn't want to tap their home for income, but that's going to be a luxury they can no longer afford.

You can downsize and move to a cheaper area, but people have enormous emotional connections to their homes. That leaves reverse mortgages. But the options we have now are clunky and expensive. We need a vehicle that allows people easier access to their home equity. This is an area where financial innovation would be very useful.

You've been a big advocate of working longer.

Finding or staying in a job is tough today, so I feel a little self-conscious saying this. But it's really good to keep working if you can. By taking Social Security benefits at 70 instead of 62, you'll get 75% more. And if your earnings keep rising, your benefit could be twice as high.

Having a higher monthly benefit that's inflation-adjusted and lasts as long as you live is a wonderful thing. Your 401(k) will also have more time to grow. And you'll have a shorter retirement, so your nest egg won't need to last as long.

More people now say they'll work longer. But many still end up retiring early. Some are laid off or become ill. Too often, though, people simply get mad at their boss, or they get fed up after a long business trip. So they pack it in, and then they're stuck with their decision.

If you can get used to the idea of working longer, and manage to stay on the job, it will be good for you, and we, as a society, will be better off.  

via money.cnn.com