Yesterday I received the yearly home valuation from the county.  Basically, they come up with an “appraisal” of your homes value as a tax basis for property taxes.

Home valuations from my county very closely match the actual market value of the homes, which is nice, until you have to pay your property taxes, at which point the value of your house is too high.  (The only time you want the value of your house to go up is when you want to sell.  Kind of cynical, isn’t it?)

This years valuation came in at $207,000 which is an increase of about 4.1% over last year, but down by about 0.15% compared to the increase the …

A couple weeks ago a post about the new dollar coins sparked some debate on whether the coins will ever replace the paper currency equivalent.

EmptySpaces at “Adventures In Money Making” came across a few golden Georgie’s and kind of liked the “In God We Trust” engraved around the outside edge of the coin.  He also mentioned that he couldn’t understand why people were selling them on eBay for more than $1.  After all, you can go to the bank and “pay” a single dollar for each coin they give you, and they don’t even make a profit on the transaction! 

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It has come to my attention that my in-laws have some additional Form 1099’s that have not been included on this years taxes.  The bummer of it all is that… our taxes have already been filed.  Hence, the problem.

While the total dividend from my wife’s Disney stock amounts to a total of $4.95 for the entire year, it is still being reported to the IRS as income, thus I should too.  While it will take the IRS quite a while to figure out I haven’t included this on my return, they will come asking for their money, eventually.  And I’m sure they’ll kindly request interest on that whopping …

The yen carry trade has been a hot topic recently, both in the global markets, and thanks to Winston, on this blog as well. 

To preface this, it is widely assumed that the unwinding of the yen carry trade is what’s prodding the bears to pinch-hit for the bulls in markets all over the world.

So I thought I’d do a little research on just what exactly a “carry trade” is. 

Carry trades refer to the practice of investors borrowing in a low-yielding currency, such as the yen, and reinvesting in higher-yielding currencies and assets, such as, well, anything carrying a higher yield than the …

It seems the slide continues, although Blue-chips tried hard to make a comeback earlier this afternoon, only to be pounded back into submission by world events, subprime mortgage snafus, among other things.

Gold and crude oil continue to sell off, which for some would be worrysome, but I’m thinking this is a buying opportunity for both.

After all, gold is a hedge against the US dollar and the economy, and I am starting to see the forest through the woods.  Housing is still in question, and these subprime mortgages are sure to lead to a credit problem, albeit not a personal one but an economic one.

Oil, while falling on questionable demand, is going …