Movin' On Up: It's Much Harder If You Live in the Wrong Town
The fact that it's getting harder to move up the economic ladder shouldn't come as a surprise anymore. For years, studies have shown that economic mobility in America has declined, both relative to other countries and to our nation's own history. And it's not like there's any lack of culprits -- research has cited a variety of reasons, ranging from the impact of single-parent households to the importance of good schools to the effect of America's thin economic safety net. But recently, a study by economists at Harvard University and UC-Berkeley uncovered another major factor: geography.

In "The Economic Impacts of Tax Expenditures," economists Raj Chetty, Nathaniel Hendren, Patrick Kline, and Emmanuel Saez divided the country into 741 areas, most of which include urban, suburban and rural sections. They then analyzed the degree of economic mobility in each area, noting the relative difficulty that a lower-income child would face as he or she attempted to move up the economic ladder.

The toughest climb in the country is in Nome, Alaska, where a child born into the bottom fifth of households has a 2.2 percent chance of rising to the top fifth. On the opposite end of the scale, a child born in the bottom fifth of households in Gettysburg, S.D., has a 34.8 percent chance of making it to the top fifth.

A few patterns emerged from the research: There's a whole swath of tough-to-move-up-from areas encompassing most of the Southeastern U.S., and a similarly difficult region radiating out from Chicago. On the flip side, there's a huge section of the Great Plains and another sizable section in the West where children born into poverty have a far better than average chance of making it up the economic ladder.

While the study's authors didn't offer any definitive reason for differences in relative economic mobility, they found some interesting correlations. School quality certainly had a significant impact, as did tax rates and numbers of single parents.

READ MORE: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/07/23/social-mobility-geography/

Rewiring the Banker Brain

A culture shift is still needed to reconnect finance with the real economy.
OPINION - Rana Foroohar - Business Time Magazine
If you are in any doubt about how little has changed on Wall Street since 2008, check out this   New York Times story about how banks like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley profited wildly by hoarding and slowing the supply of various commodity metals like aluminum, driving up prices on the global market in the process. It was a truly ingenious profit-making scheme, involving sophisticated arbitrage of complex global regulations, all of which resulted in lots of money for banks, and higher prices for companies and consumers.

This story put me in mind once again of the fact that many of the best minds on Wall Street still spend the majority of their time figuring out new and smarter ways to game the system, rather than how to grease the wheels of the real economy. Just look at the record profits posted by a number of the world’s largest banks last week. The six largest are on track to post a 20% earnings increase in the second quarter of this year. But the vast majority of that money came not from lending, but from trading. While the money spigots to the small and new businesses that create most of the jobs in this country are still tight — like last year, small business lending was down again this year, according to the Small Business Administration — trading profits are way up.

Clearly, finance is still disconnected from the real economy, which is one reason that the regulation battle rages on. A new proposal issued jointly a few days back by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Reserve Board, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency would require some of the country’s largest banks to hold double the amount of reserve capital that they currently do. This has prompted all the usual complaints from the industry about too much regulation. Former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty, now the head of bank advocacy group the Financial Services Roundtable, said the new rules would make “it harder for banks to lend and keep the economic recovery going.”

Putting aside the fact that lending in key areas of economic activity hasn’t been growing, as I noted above, it’s also worth remembering that even before the new rules were proposed, many banks were complaining that they couldn’t lend because there weren’t enough credit-worthy clients to lend to. “You can’t have it both ways,” says Susan Ochs, a former Treasury Department advisor and senior fellow at the Aspen Institute who is doing research on best practices in banking.

Read more: http://business.time.com/2013/07/22/rewiring-the-banker-brain/#ixzz2Zn3j8VO8

14 Ways to Save Money On Groceries

1. Line the bottom of your refrigerator's crisper drawer with paper towels. They'll absorb the excess moisture that causes vegetables to rot.

 
2. To keep herbs tasting fresh for up to a month, store whole bunches, washed and sealed in plastic bags, in the freezer. When you need them, they'll be easier to chop, and they'll defrost the minute they hit a hot pan.

3. A bay leaf slipped into a container of flour, pasta, or rice will help repel bugs.

4. Stop cheese from drying out by spreading butter or margarine on the cut sides to seal in moisture. This is most effective with hard cheeses sealed in wax.

READ MORE:  http://shine.yahoo.com/financially-fit/14-ways-to-save-money-on-groceries-2447559.html

How to Get a Free Credit Score
The Fair Credit Reporting Act gave consumers access to free annual credit reports from the three major credit reporting agencies through a centralized source, AnnualCreditReport.com, in 2003. A free credit score has never been a right.
 
Numerous sites promise "free" scores, but in reality they sign people up for a fee-based credit monitoring product. The score costs nothing only if the consumer cancels the order before the end of the trial period.

Several sites will give you a free credit score or score estimate, such as the FICO Score Estimator at Bankrate.com. Score estimators, which provide a score range, may rely on answers to questions about your credit situation or come from credit report information, while actual scores are computed from credit report data.

None of the free scores and estimates available deliver actual FICO scores, the most commonly used score by lenders. The free scores and estimates do, however, give you an idea of where your credit rating stands.

"At the end of the day, an 'excellent' on one model is 97 percent of the time going to be an 'excellent' on another model," says Ken Lin, CEO of San Francisco-based Credit Karma, a site that provides free TransRisk scores from Transunion.

READ MORE: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/pf_article_108578.html

Budgeting When You Are Broke

Suffering from a lack of cash? It's likely that you don't follow a budget that reflects your earnings. Smart budgeting prevents eviction, increased credit card debt, and ruined credit scores. It's never too late to achieve your financial goals — get started now with these 10 steps to make your financial life less stressful.
Avoid Immediate Disasters
Don't be afraid to request bill extensions or payment plans. These requests are often granted. If your biggest worry is eviction from your apartment, talk to your landlord, but, also, see if you can get extensions on any other expenses to free up money for keeping your home. For instance, suppose that your rent is $650 and you're $200 short. Your bundled phone bill and cable bill is $60, your electric bill is $100 and your cell phone bill is $40. If these bill payments are postponed until your next paycheck, you can pay your rent now and avoid eviction.

Review Credit Card Payments and Due Dates
If you are only making the minimum payments on your credit card(s), you are flirting with a disastrous credit score. However, avoiding credit card payments will only worsen your debt.
For example, suppose that your minimum payment on a $1,000 balance is $40. You fail to pay $40 on time, so you are charged a $35 late fee. In addition, your interest on future charges is charged at the default rate of 25%. Now your credit card is even more difficult to pay off. Before you know it, you have an overwhelming collection of piled up late fees and missed payments.

Prioritizing Bills
Go over all your bills to see what must be paid first and then set up a payment schedule based on your pay days. You will want to leave yourself some catch-up time if some of your bills are already late. If this is the case, call the bill companies to see how much you can pay now to get back on track toward positive status. Tell them you are catching up and going on a stricter budget. Be honest about what you can afford to pay. Sometimes it's instinctual to say you'll pay the full amount on your next paycheck, but you may not have the full amount available after other expenses take their cut.


READ MORE:  http://finance.yahoo.com/news/budgeting-youre-broke-080000891.html