Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
President Trump is pitching a new way to crack the housing crisis by letting Americans tap their 401(k) savings to buy a home, framing it as a path out of becoming a “nation of renters.” The idea lands at a moment when both home prices and retirement insecurity are already squeezing households. I see why…
Retiring on the equivalent of a $200,000 lifestyle is not just about hitting a big round number in your brokerage account. It is about translating that annual spending target into a concrete nest egg, then stress testing it against market swings, inflation and your own longevity. To do that, I start with the classic rules…
Dave Ramsey is trying to shock Americans out of what he sees as a dangerous complacency about retirement. His latest message is blunt: Social Security will not rescue you, and treating your 401(k) like an afterthought could leave you working far longer than you planned. Instead of obsessing over benefit formulas and retirement ages, he…
Medicare is inching toward covering the blockbuster weight loss drugs that have reshaped obesity treatment, but the path it has chosen is narrow, technical, and full of caveats. The new rules and pilot programs promise access for some older adults while leaving others to navigate a maze of diagnoses, prior authorizations, and cost sharing that…
Social Security is heading toward a built‑in cut that would hit retirees’ wallets even if politicians never vote on a single benefit reduction. Once the program’s main reserves run dry, current law automatically trims monthly checks to match incoming tax revenue. For typical retirees, that means losing hundreds of dollars a month, with some households…
Health savings accounts are built on a simple promise: put money in, get a tax break, and use it later for medical bills. The moment Medicare enters the picture, however, that clean story gets complicated, and the risk of an expensive mistake rises fast. I want to walk through what really happens to your HSA…
Required minimum distributions were supposed to be a guardrail that kept tax-deferred savings from becoming permanent tax shelters. In 2026, they are functioning more like a slow leak in retirees’ finances, forcing withdrawals on the government’s schedule rather than the household’s needs. The result is higher tax bills, surprise penalties, and a growing sense among…
Retirement planning is full of comforting shortcuts, and few sound more reassuring than the idea that you just need a fixed number of “paychecks” saved to be set for life. The so‑called 240 paycheck rule promises clarity, but the reality behind it is far more complicated. I want to unpack why this rule can be…
For many retirees, the hardest part of a 401(k) is not the saving, it is what happens once the paychecks stop. The move that people in their 70s say they regret most is not a single bad investment, but the way they pull money out of their accounts. Instead of following a clear strategy, they…
Required minimum distributions are one of the few retirement decisions that come with a hard deadline, yet the calendar still leaves you a lot of room to maneuver. Whether you pull that money in January or wait until December can shape your cash flow, your investment growth and even how much stress you feel about…