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Who isn't thinking about the environment these days? The Live Earth global series of concerts, the hit documentary film "An Inconvenient Truth," and the selection of Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize have pushed environmental concerns to the forefront of political and social agendas.
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Did you know that the global economy could hinge on your maxed-out MasterCard? As we hit the height of the holiday season, 'tis the time to shop. And consumer spending as a whole drives about 70 percent of the U.S. economy. But that engine is threatening to stall out. For those of you who haven't been reading the business pages, here's a recap: U.S. housing prices, after rising like mad for nearly a decade, have gone into a slump. In turn, the value of mortgage-backed securities, a financial innovation that traded intensely during the housing boom, has been called into question.
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Today's teenagers, like generations before them, are looking forward to financial independence. But are they really prepared, intellectually, for the responsibilities of adult life? And how do boys and girls differ when it comes to thinking about their financial futures?
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How bad is the current financial crisis? It will probably enter the record books as the second-worst in the last hundred years. The worst was in the early 1930s, when thousands of banks failed and the mortgage market shut down entirely. It hasn't shut down this time, thanks in large part to federal institutions created during the '30s to deal with that crisis.
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Most people stay at a company less than seven years. Most young people stay at a company less than two. So why are companies still set up for people who stay 40 years and climb the ladder? It makes no sense, and frustrates nearly all workers.
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There are important lessons to be learned from the dollar's fall. That doesn't mean I know what will happen to it next year. This shouldn't be as surprising as it seems -- it's hard to predict short-term price movements for any asset. Think about it: If we all knew that the stock market would be up 10 percent next year, then who would be selling stocks at lower prices now? Any rational seller would either wait to get the higher price at the end of the year, or demand a chunk of that 10 percent premium immediately.
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"It's all relative." You've probably heard this before, and it's true of everything except right and wrong. But it's especially true of economics, and it's doubly true of all the recent scare-talk about the economy. Simply put, the media and the short-sellers on Wall Street are trying to scare us into having a recession. Since the nice people who read this have some interest in facts and figures, here are a few reasons why things aren't so bad.
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For the US stock market, I predicted an 8% gain and greater gains for foreign markets. December still has two weeks to go, and given the recent volatility, the market could end the year anywhere. But as of now, the S&P 500 Index is up 6.3%, while foreign markets have done significantly better. The foreign developed markets, represented by the EAFE Index, have returned 15.6% and the emerging markets continue their torrid pace, chalking up a 42% gain. Last year, I said that if US stocks climbed less than 8% in 2007 it would be due to $3 a gallon gasoline and the dollar falling below $1.45 per euro.
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Apparently, compensation plans can do odd things to the stock market. Consider the January Effect, a market trend in which small-cap stocks start to rise in value at the end of December and continue through early January. It's typically thought to occur because of year-end selling to create tax losses or recognize capital gains; or because of so-called "window dressing" by portfolio managers.
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What you don't do by the end of this year could end up costing you plenty next year. A combination of market forces and the phasing out of certain tax benefits makes it extra-important to grab every tax advantage you can right now. So before you completely check out for some holiday R&R, take a few minutes to make sure you have your portfolio fine-tuned to minimize that federal tax bill due next April. Offsetting Pending Fund Taxes Even though fund returns are shaping up to be less than stellar this year -- through November, the average equity fund is up less than 5 percent -- the taxable distributions made by funds is expected to be even higher than last year's $23 billion. How can that be?
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