REMINDER: All investment, economics, and finance related material now appears at the new IaconoResearch.com. For the time being at least, this has become a personal blog covering a variety of mostly unrelated topics.

Here’s another chart derived from the Federal Reserve’s latest Z1 Flow of Funds Report showing an improving situation for homeowners – home prices having now stabilized a bit with outstanding mortgage debt on the decline, partly due to losses being taken by banks.

Just think how much lower both of those curves would be if not for the government’s homebuyer tax credit and freakishly low mortgage rates that have combined to support home prices while banks continue to be in no particular hurry to kick non-paying “homeowners” out of their houses, thus wiping out the mortgage debt and realizing the loss.







Unretire?

I don’t think I’ve ever had any dreams about having to go back to work, that is, to unretire and return to the world of cubicles and self-assessments as detailed in this story at Fortune. But, every once in a while I have this bizarre dream that I’m still at work and wondering why.

You retired. But that was then. Now things have changed, and you want — or need — to return to the workforce. Jumping back in may seem daunting, but it doesn’t have to be, says Age Wave CEO Ken Dychtwald, an expert on boomers and aging … Here’s Dychtwald’s advice on how to make your way back onto a company payroll without too much stress.

Reframe what work means

Having to go back to the office when you dreamed for years about puttering in your garden or volunteering can be frustrating, even depressing. But retirement isn’t all it’s cracked up to be either. For most productive, well-educated men and women, an average of 25 years of “leisure” can be terribly isolating and boring; returning to work may turn out to be a blessing after all. Remember that work is good not only for the cash flow but also keeping the mind and spirit sharp.

Don’t play the youth game

This is an area where people make a lot of mistakes. They dye their hair (if they have any), get some hip, new, young clothes — even though they might not fit — and try to use the jargon and style of youth. That doesn’t work. A better idea: Go on the offensive and sell yourself as a mature person. Stress your capacity to make smart decisions, your good judgment in managing people, your contributions in brainstorming and business development, and your lifetime connections. This is your advantage.

How thoroughly depressing… I’m probably going to have a dream about this now…

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Rise Asset Prices, Rise!

It looks like it’s going to be a long road back to the asset-based economic prosperity that we once knew in the U.S., the Federal Reserve’s latest Z1 Flow of Funds Report showing that they really need to get on the ball at the central bank and get something inflated fast.

Note how after the stock market bubble burst in 2000, the inflating real estate bubble quickly picked up the slack and the overall value of household assets simply paused for a couple years during the transition. Fast forward to the more recent bursting of the housing bubble and it’s clear that, not only was the damage far more severe, it’s been slow going getting back to 2007 level “wealth”. Stocks are trying to pick up the slack and the bond market is swelling, but it just doesn’t seem to be enough. What a way to run an economy…

Everything’s Going Up in China

While economies in Europe are struggling mightily, due in no small part to budget cuts and other austerity measures in the south, and the latest statistics in the U.S. indicate the still-nascent recovery may be stalling, everything seems to be going up in China these days and that’s not necessarily a good thing. This New York Times report provides the details.

Fresh data from China on Friday further cemented the view that the country’s giant economy continued to power ahead in May — though a marked rise in inflation also raised the pressure on Beijing to step up efforts to damp the booming pace of growth.

Friday’s figures, part of a monthly flood of statistics from Beijing, showed consumer prices rose at their fastest rate in 19 months, at a pace of 3.1 percent from a year earlier. Across China, workers are beginning to strike for higher wages, which could cause inflation to rise further.

Industrial production and retail sales also powered along forcefully, figures showed Friday, while data out on Thursday revealed imports and exports both topped analyst expectations by a wide margin. Property prices continued to soar in May.

You can see why policymakers think it’s much easier to “fix” things when they’re running too hot rather than too cold, though, that theory may be put to the test in China. While they’re moping around in Europe, complaining about how government pay and benefits are being slashed, over in China, some are protesting about (and getting) higher wages while others cram into the many shops selling gold coins and bars to try to get out in front of what looks like it might be a nasty inflation problem, exacerbated by the now rising wages.

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A Setback for Retail Sales

Well, today should be another fun-filled Friday for financial markets, what with more talk of a double-dip recession by economic pundits after today’s roundly disappointing retail sales report, adding to the change in momentum of last Friday’s weak labor report. The consensus forecast for May was a small gain but shoppers pulled back sharply instead.

The Commerce Department reported that after an upwardly revised gain of 0.6 percent in April, retail sales fell 1.2 percent in May, paced by a 9.3 percent drop at building material stores. Plunging sales at Home Depot and Lowes no doubt had something to do with the expiration of both the government’s appliance rebate program and homebuyer tax credit.

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