Tag: Vanguard

If You’re Self-Employed and Have Zero Employees, You Should Set Up an Individual 401k Plan Before the End of the Year

Financial planners and tax advisors tend to shy away from simple blanket statements. They’re far more comfortable using highly-detailed, multi-faceted statements that, while accurate, nonetheless lose something in the telling due to, ironically enough, their completeness. It’s understandable. After all, the arena in which financial planning and taxation come together […]

I’ve Got a Problem with “No Problem”

Today I was on the phone with a customer service person from Vanguard and, sorry to say, didn’t have a great time of it. Being a customer service rep is a very difficult job. In the late 90s when I worked for E*TRADE (do they still all-cap it? That was […]

Roth Accounts: The Most Underused, but Very Useful, Retirement Tool

During the 12/12/12 concert a few nights ago I was double-screening — with the big screen tuned to one of the many networks showing the event and the little screen tuned into my own little slice of the Twitterverse. It’s always interesting to see non-music folks commenting on music. One […]

Why Vanguard is the Best All-Around Financial Services Provider for Most Folks

When I was younger I had all my dentistry done at the U.C. San Francisco School of Dentistry. I did that because the price was right, and because I had more time on my hands than money. Sitting in that chair, with my mouth propped open and dressed with dams […]

Tommy Lee Jones, Ameriprise and the Double-Deal

I like Tommy Lee Jones, the actor. He can play lunatic nuclear-bomb-thrower as well as wise-old self-sacrificing native American father-in-law hero and everything in between. He also plays cops a lot — good cops. And these days, as time changes his face, he can do a fantastic quiet melancholy without saying a word, […]