Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
President Donald Trump’s push to let Americans raid their 401(k)s for home down payments is being sold as a shortcut to the housing ladder, but Peter Schiff argues it is more likely to torch retirement savings than build real wealth. He sees the plan as a way to encourage buyers to overpay for homes at…
For many baby boomers, the hardest part of retirement is not what to buy, but what to finally let go of. I see the same pattern again and again: clinging to big-ticket assets out of habit or emotion, even when the numbers and the lifestyle trade-offs clearly argue for selling. Here are five things boomers…
Spouses in their seventies and eighties are quietly holding up a large share of America’s long-term care system, often with little pay, minimal training, and their own health problems. As care needs stretch from months into years, the combination of unpaid labor, medical bills, and lost work can hollow out even carefully built nest eggs….
Retiring on a budget in 2026 no longer has to mean giving up walkable neighborhoods, good hospitals or a lively social calendar. I focused on cities where housing, healthcare access and everyday costs line up with what fixed-income retirees say they value most, while still offering enough culture and community to avoid feeling squeezed. From…
Required minimum distributions and Roth conversions are colliding with a very different tax landscape in 2026, and the stakes are higher than most retirees realize. The core tension is simple: the government is forcing taxable withdrawals out of your accounts at the same time that new rules and extended tax cuts are tempting you to…
Retiring on just $100 a week for everyday spending sounds extreme, but the core idea is less about deprivation and more about stripping your lifestyle down to what actually matters. By attacking the biggest budget categories with a few disciplined habits, it is possible to get surprisingly close to that figure without feeling like every…
Most people still treat retirement like a birthday party that arrives on a fixed date, usually tied to a government rule or a company benefit chart. In reality, the calendar matters far less than whether you have enough invested to replace your paycheck without running out of money. The single number that decides when work…
Retirement savers are about to see some of the biggest 401(k) changes in years, driven by a mix of Trump-era policy shifts and new Internal Revenue Service rules. Contribution limits are rising, investment menus are being reimagined, and a key tax break for higher earners is set to shrink just as new ways to tap…
Elon Musk is telling people not to worry about their 401(k)s because artificial intelligence will eventually make money almost beside the point. Anthropic’s CEO Dario Amodei is warning that the road to that future could grind up workers and destabilize society. The clash between those two visions captures the central tension of the AI boom:…
Retirees who want to support charity and shrink their tax bill often hear that they can “give their RMD to charity and avoid the tax.” That idea is directionally right, but one procedural misstep can turn a smart move into a costly surprise. If you take the money into your own hands before it reaches…