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PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y. (MarketWatch) — Raising taxes on the top 2% of Americans is tantamount to killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.

The administration wants to let the tax cuts passed under President Bush for the wealthiest Americans expire at the end of this year, while keeping the cuts intact for everyone else.

Effectively this is a tax increase. And while it may seem fitting for the “rich” to pay more in these days of humongous budget deficits, in reality it might well exacerbate our deficit problem rather than ameliorate it.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/killing-geese-that-lay-golden-eggs-2010-08-10

A year after the US economy stopped falling, we are still mired in “the worst labor-market crisis since the Great Depression,” writes Laura Tyson in The New York Times. Voicing the consensus of the left-liberal economic establishment — she’s reportedly a leading candidate to head up President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers — Tyson argues that the US unemployment rate, still stuck at 9.6 percent, is reason to try “a second fiscal stimulus” to raise “aggregate demand.” She’s wrong in a number of illuminating ways.

First, the highest unemployment rates are highly concentrated in relatively few states — largely the ones with the highest home-foreclosure rates. That suggests that the root problems are localized, lingering debt woes — so a nationwide quick fix designed to entice people to borrow more and save less is doubly off-base.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/stimulus_snake_oil_RySPWcspAZ79U9cskrpHUK

1. Plan for rising health care costs.

2. Expect to live longer.

3. Be prepared for inflation.

4. Position investments for growth.

5. Don’t withdraw too much from savings.

https://guidance.fidelity.com/stages/5-risks-to-retirement-pr-2

Here’s the situation: The U.S. economy has been crippled by a financial crisis. The president’s policies have limited the damage, but they were too cautious, and unemployment remains disastrously high. More action is clearly needed. Yet the public has soured on government activism, and seems poised to deal Democrats a severe defeat in the midterm elections.

The president in question is Franklin Delano Roosevelt; the year is 1938. Within a few years, of course, the Great Depression was over. But it’s both instructive and discouraging to look at the state of America circa 1938 — instructive because the nature of the recovery that followed refutes the arguments dominating today’s public debate, discouraging because it’s hard to see anything like the miracle of the 1940s happening again.

Now, we weren’t supposed to find ourselves replaying the late 1930s. President Obama’s economists promised not to repeat the mistakes of 1937, when F.D.R. pulled back fiscal stimulus too soon. But by making his program too small and too short-lived, Mr. Obama did just that: the stimulus raised growth while it lasted, but it made only a small dent in unemployment — and now it’s fading out.

And just as some of us feared, the inadequacy of the administration’s initial economic plan has landed it — and the nation — in a political trap. More stimulus is desperately needed, but in the public’s eyes the failure of the initial program to deliver a convincing recovery has discredited government action to create jobs.

In short, welcome to 1938.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/06/opinion/06krugman.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

Calculator

http://cgi.money.cnn.com/tools/networth_ageincome/index.html

How will the job market evolve in the next decade? As we approach the Labor Day weekend, Fortune takes a look at some of the fastest growing professions in the U.S.

Network systems and data analysts

This occupation’s full title is “network systems and data communication analysts.” And while it’s a mouthful, it is worth remembering as it’s the second-fastest growing occupation in the U.S., according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In simpler terms, these analysts are the folks who design and build the systems that we use to connect to the web, from work or home.

In many ways, these are the folks that make communication possible in our Internet-centric world. So perhaps it’s not so surprising that they are in high demand, and will be for the foreseeable future. BLS’s latest employment outlook report estimates that the profession will grow by 53.4% to almost 448,000 workers between 2008 and 2018.

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2010/pf/1009/gallery.jobs_future.fortune/2.html

Until recently, retirement was an either-or proposition. Either you retired, or you worked. Now an increasing number of Baby Boomers and seniors find themselves somewhere in between, either returning to work after a few years of full retirement, or working part-time, in the oxymoronic stage known as a “working retirement.”

This is a “new life stage,” says Cathy Weatherford, president and chief executive of the Insured Retirement Institute. In a 2010 study that looked at the work patterns of retirees, the Urban Institute found that 26% of men and 29% of women born from 1933 through 1937 had re-entered the workforce in a full-time or nearly full-time position after retirement, compared to 20% of men and 22% of women born two decades earlier.

Full-time retirement is simply more difficult than it was a generation ago. It’s certainly more expensive. Many employers have reduced or eliminated retiree health benefits, and the full retirement age for Social Security benefits (66) is higher than it once was – with more increases on the table. Would-be retirees can play some financial defense as well: The longer you can make money, the less you need to dip into your retirement savings, which has the added benefit of allowing recession-damaged portfolios a little more time to recover.

http://www.smartmoney.com/personal-finance/retirement/how-to-find-a-job-in-retirement/

Congratulations to McDonald’s (MCD). The stock just made a new all-time high today of $75.35. That’s not just a 52-week high, or a post-crash high; that’s an all-time high.

Forty years ago you could have picked up the shares for just 29 cents a piece. That’s adjusted for nine stock splits; four 2-for-1s and five 3-for-2s which equals 121.5-for-1. That’s a gain of close to 26,000% or nearly 15% a year, and it doesn’t include dividends.

McDonald’s has done a great job in turning itself around. In 2003, the shares fell to less than $13. Who would have been brave enough to buy MCD then? I sure didn’t!

Check out this numbers: Yearly EPS has jumped from $2.04 in 2005, to $2.45 in 2006 to $2.89 in 2007 to $3.67 in 2008 to $3.97 last year. EPS will probably hit $4.50 this year and the Street is looking for $4.87 next year.

http://www.crossingwallstreet.com/archives/2010/09/mcdonalds_hits.html

Unless you’re filthy rich, you’ve probably noticed that movie theater popcorn costs an arm and a leg. Still, for some unknown reason, countless consumers shell out the big bucks for this greasy flick-food.

Of course, movie theater snacks aren’t the only budget busters. Just think about the exorbitant cost of greeting cards, printer ink and bottled water. The sky-high price tags on those products are enough to send today’s cash-strapped consumers spiraling into debt. Yet, we continue to cough up the cash for these absurdly expensive items.

http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/110535/6-outrageously-overpriced-products