I spent a bit of time this weekend catching up on some personal finance reading and was struck by the MSN Money page:
The title of the articles are:
Earn under $57,343? Watch out - this article ends with the cheery line:
Bottom line: Unless there are some real wage gains for working stiffs -- soon -- we're heading for a recession.
Don’t wind up divorced and destitute - this article has the following happy statistic:
Yet the reality is that women are far more likely than men to suffer financially when their marriage unravels. According to the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University, a woman's standard of living will drop by as much as 27% -- compared to 10% for men -- after a divorce.
At risk: your home-mortgage deduction - My favorite gloomy tax change prediction:
Health benefits paid by employers for their employees are now tax free. This tax benefit is not nearly as visible as the mortgage deduction, but it is very valuable. The panel wants to tax employer-paid health-insurance premiums above $5,000 a year for singles and $11,500 for family policies. So, if your company paid premiums worth $14,000 for you and your family, you would pay tax on the excess over $11,500 -- or $2,500.
Is a condo a money pit? - Favorite quote of this article:
Don’t let the surge in prices fool you: The condo craze is all bubble. Worse, living in a condo can be maddeningly complex -- and costly.
The articles themselves are very informative - I just find it funny how much doom and gloom they have chosen to feature. Are negative articles more popular? Or are things really so bad and I am just too stupid to realize it? Is chicken little right? Is the financial sky really falling?Labels: Recession Obsession |
Doom and gloom sells more than happy and cheery. That's why the evening news is always about crimes and less about feel-good stories. News story promos are always about drugs that are now deadly to you, or hidden carcinogens in your house - watch at 10 to find out what it is!, etc... it's a shame really.