Articles
Latest Article
How to Retire: A book review
No book will make me an expert, but I don’t need to be. I just need to feel comfortable with our path and our plans.
Read more
Past Articles
Pricing pressures
By Kyle Tetting A growing number of economists, including many with the Federal Reserve Board, are expressing concern over changing prices. One of the primary roles of the Fed is to combat inflation, but of late there has been more concern over an even more dangerous threat to economic recovery: Deflation. Each month, the Bureau…
Why not to fret (yet) about the deficit
By Joel Dresang Approaching $1.5 trillion, the U.S. deficit is becoming a bigger target for government critics and investors who wonder what the federal budget imbalance means for their nest eggs. “I get that question by clients every day,” says Bob Landaas, president of Landaas & Company. “I try to answer that it’s mostly about…
Rolling over retirement plans
By Kyle Tetting It is no secret that today’s workers overall are not staying with their employers as long as they used to. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median tenure for workers in 2012 was 4.6 years. With all that moving around, many investors leave behind their employer-sponsored retirement plan. While it is…
Monitoring the Markets: What Indexes Tell Us
By Kyle Tetting Each week, we open our “Money Talk with Bob Landaas” webcast with a review of the latest developments on Wall Street and end-of-the-week updates on a few benchmark indexes. Additionally, we regularly field calls from interested investors who want to know what the market is doing for the day, the month or…
Attention: Deficit Disorder
By Joel Dresang The U.S. federal government reached a record budget deficit in 2009: $1.4 trillion –about one-tenth of the nation’s economic output for the year. No one can deny that’s a deep hole to climb out of. Even relative to the size of the economy, it’s the biggest deficit as far back as the…
When Roth IRA Conversions Make Sense
By Art Rothschild Rarely a day goes by this year that I haven’t been asked by a client (or two or three) whether they should convert their traditional IRA to a Roth IRA. That question has taken on greater importance now that Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle has signed into law a bill that allows investors…