Our Articles and Podcasts

These articles and podcasts by our President, Laurence Kotlikoff, may provide ideas for improving your finances and guide your use of MaxiFi Planner.

Articles and Podcasts

Advisorpedia
Economics-Based vs Conventional Financial Planning

An enormous gulf separates conventional and economics-based financial planning. I am going to briefly lay out the differences.

Finally, A Safe Way To Play The Market — Upside Investing!

Upside Investing lets you set a base living standard floor and experience only upside risk from investing in the stock market.

Substack: Economics Matters by Laurence Kotlikoff
Upside Investing -- Invest At Risk Without Risking Your Base Living Standard

In sum, Wall Street's Bucketing Strategy is a bad joke. Its focus on the market's high average cumulative return or the high chance of doing well, on average, is akin to basing your financial plan on dying precisely at your life expectancy -- at the date at which people like you will, on average, die.

Substack
This Is Not Your Grandfather's (aka Wall Street's) Investment Advice

Investing these days is really tough. Fortunately, economics-based financial planning offers clear ways to invest at risk while limiting or, indeed, eliminating your living standard downside.

Advisorpedia
Making a Million Dollars for My Friend in an Hour

Everyone is scared of dentists, medical tests, and financial planning. I get the first two. But financial planning? Done right, it can uncover a gold mind.

Next Big Idea Club
Money Magic

Laurence Kotlikoff shares 5 key insights from his new book, Money Magic: An Economist’s Secrets to More Money, Less Risk, and a Better Life.

House Poor

“House poor” is a common expression used to describe people who are wasting too much money on housing, leaving them with too little to spend on everything else. But it can also refer to those who are getting too little housing bang for their buck.

Wall Street Journal
A Home Is Your Castle Against Rising Inflation

Mortgage rates are up to 5%, and some fear a valuation bubble. Even so, it’s a good time to buy.

Substack
Drowning In Student Loans?

Student loans total a colossal $1.74 trillion with 43 million Americans owing, on average, $38,000. The loans swamp the $1.14 trillion in outstanding credit card debt, whose average balance is a far smaller $6,864.

Now Is a Good Time For Roth Conversions

The risk premium on stocks has rarely been higher. Yes, there are investors who think that stocks are safe in the long run. If this were the case, no one would be buying bonds guaranteeing negative real returns.

Advisorpedia
The Smart Way to Choose Your Money Manager

The above chart, based on an S&P study, reached my inbox by way of Torsten Slok, Apollo’s Chief Economist. Torsten produces The Daily Spark — a terrific financial blog providing important insights into our financial world, all in bite-sized chunks.

Advisorpedia
How to Delay Social Security’s Windfall Elimination and Government Pension Offset

The Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension Offset (GPO) are two particularly nasty pieces of Social Security work.

Advisorpedia
Dave Ramsey. I Love Your 7 Steps, but Not Your Social Security Advice

When it comes to motivating us to change our financial behavior, Dave Ramsey is simply the best.

Advisorpedia
Let Greed, Not Fear Motivate Your Financial Planning

Rich or poor, young or old, black or white, red or blue, financially literate or not, the vast majority of us are financially sick. We save too little, borrow too much, retire too soon, take Social Security too early, and bank on dying on time. Indeed, many of us seem to have a financial death wish. Consider these facts about today’s workers.

Advisorpedia
Can AI Improve Your Finances?

Like much of the world, Wall Street is psyched about AI, specifically using its deep learning to help sell “advanced” advice and financial products.

Advisorpedia
When House Rich Is House Poor

Tens of millions of retirees are facing a retirement financing crisis. They saved too little, retired too early, took Social Security too early, and will die well beyond their expiration dates.

Advisorpedia
Social Security Sues Down Syndrome Child for $85K, Cuts off Healthcare & Benefits

Here’s another stomach-turning story of Social Security incompetence and bureaucratic cruelty.

Advisorpedia
Social Security Reclaims $34K from Disabled Blind Worker: Uncovering 23-Year 'Overpayments'

On November 5th, Anderson Cooper interviewed me on 60 Minutes together with nationally syndicated journalist, Terry Savage, and three Social Security clawback victims. These are just three of the 2 million plus Social Security recipients Social Security is clawing back each year!

Mortgages Can Protect You Against Future Hyper Inflation

The best way to hedge this risk used to be to purchase not a nominal, but a real annuity — one whose payment would be adjusted upward each year in light of that year's inflation.

Given Current Rates, Cashing Out Your 401(k) to Pay Off Your Mortgage Can Make You a Bundle

The safest investment these days is paying off your debts, including your mortgage.

Getting House Rich — My Personal Story

You can go from house poor — spending too much or at least more than you'd like on housing — to becoming house rich and you don't necessarily need to downsize your home to extract more value from it. In our case, we upsized our home while still netting a big sum.

Five Financial Secrets to Surviving The Greatest Depression

We're in the worst economic downturn in our nation's history. Everyone is being financially impacted. But there are secret ways to survive financially.

Forbes
Should You Take Social Security Early To Weather Coronavirus?

The coronavirus is scary enough, but for far too many of us, it's becoming a financial nightmare.

Does Prepaying Your Mortgage Beat Contributing to Your 401(k)?

These days mortgages are big enough financial and tax losers that you can potentially do better paying them off than contributing to your 401(k)!

The Major Technology Breakthrough to Guide Portfolio Choice

Optimizing retirement outcomes means funding the highest standard of living, both before and after retirement, with a smooth transition in between. Planning for that economics-based outcome, known as “consumption smoothing,” is computationally intensive. But a recent technological breakthrough, which does that smoothing using uncertain asset returns, gives advisors a tool that improves portfolio choice.

At Last! Portfolio Guidance Base on Expected Utility Maximization

Expected Utility Maximization figures out how aggressively or cautiously you should spend and invest your money to produce the highest lifetime happiness averaged over all the different living standard paths you may experience.

Are Target Date Funds Off Target?

Target date funds can be far off target. They can be far too risky when young and far too safe when old. The proper fiduciary default investment is TIPS (Treasury Inflation Protected Securities), not a target date fund.

Making It In LA on $75K

$75K sounds like a great starting salary for a college grad. It's surprisingly not, especially if we're talking making it in LA.

The 70% Replacement Rate In Retirement Is Rubbish

As Kitces suggest, many if not most practitioners interpret the replacement rate rule of thumb as an income replacement rate. Interpreted in that light, this couple's replacement rate is not the vaunted 70%, nor the often higher 85% figure bandied about. Instead, it's zero or essentially zero in seven of the eight cases considered.

The 4% Retirement-Asset Spend-Down Rule Is Rubbish

Conventional financial planning uses two rules of thumb. One is the 70% replacement-rate, retirement-spending rule. The other is the 4% retirement-asset, spend-down rule.

Talking Alimony

Over 4,000 people divorce each day in our country. Some do so after many years of marriage and in the context of very unequal spousal incomes. Such divorces often require alimony to achieve a fair settlement. The question is how much alimony should be provided and for how long? Economics and advanced software can help answer these questions.

Business Radio X
Retirement Tips Radio: Laurence Kotlikoff with Maxifi Planner
Social Security Is Mailing Out Incorrect Benefit Statements

You can’t rely on Social Security to provide accurate information on your options. In my experience, over half of what Social Security staff tell people is either flat out wrong, incomplete, or misleading. But now I've come to lear that you can't even rely on Social Security's benefit statement to be accurate.

Prepaying Your Mortgage Is a Huge Financial Winner

These days mortgages are financial and tax losers. If you have the cash to immediately pay off your mortgage, you can potentially make a bundle with zero risk.

Are You One Of The 11,000 Widows Social Security Cheated Out Of A Collective $130 Million? If So, Here’s How To Sue At No Cost

Two years ago today, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) released their report A-09-18-50559 which estimates that over 11,000 widows have been cheated out of more than $130,000,000 — an average of over $10,000 each .

Can Paying Off Your Mortgage Make You A Bundle?

Cashing out your 401(k) and using the proceeds to pay off your mortgage lets you borrow at a low rate and invest at a high rate and do so at no risk.

Laurence Kotlikoff, author

Our President, Laurence Kotlikoff, is a Professor of Economics at Boston University. He founded Economic Security Planning, Inc. in 1993 to build economics-based financial planning tools for use by households and financial professionals. Kotlikoff is a prolific writer whose financial planning columns, including his Ask Larry blog, have appeared in a long list of leading publications. His co-authored book, "Get What's Yours -- The Secrets to Maxing Out Your Social Security Benefits," was a NY Times Best Seller.

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