Consumers are the foundation of the U.S. economy and today's chart plots data (reflecting median spending, and adjusted for inflation) from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) for 12 different consumer categories over a period of nearly 75 years to show the changing way in which Americans spend their money.

I recently revisited the fascinating tactic Professor Sheena Iyengar of the Columbia Business School proposed at BlackRock’s recent Retirement Roundtable in New York to help investors save more for retirement [and what she proposes is easy to implement, and extremely effective].

Interest rates have bottomed and will rise substantially during the next decade OR interest rates won't rise because rising rates would crash governments, economies, derivatives, equity markets and more.

I’ve always said that personal finances are more important than portfolio management, but I still think there’s probably not enough people writing or providing education on the topic so I’m going to make a concerted effort to write more about personal finance in the coming year and, to that end, here’s my list of 20 personal finance rules:

Neither the White House nor the CBO have adequately considered the real impact of the very deficits they themselves are projecting. While they admit the deficits will be off the charts they fail to connect the dots from that admission to its obvious natural consequences — no fewer than FIVE ominous, vicious cycles.

Humans will do almost anything for gold. In fact, they will even suspend themselves 2.5 miles into the Earth – braving extreme temperatures, armed thieves, and constant seismic activity – just to mine a 30-inch gold reef. Welcome to another day at Mponeng, the world’s deepest gold mine.

When I look strictly at what’s actually going on in the world, I have to think that gold will go to at least $2,000 in this cycle and there are very credible scenarios in which it could go to a multiple of that number. Why am I so bullish for the yellow metal? Let me tell you why. Words: 469

Collectively, our net worth reached a new high in nominal, real, and per capita terms according to the Fed's Q3/16 estimate of the balance sheets of U.S. households released last Friday. While we are living in the weakest recovery ever, and things could and should be a lot better, it is still the case that today we are better off than ever before.

There has been a need for clarification for how gold bullion can be used for investment purposes by Muslims for a long time and this uncertainty has kept Shariah-compliant offerings at a minimum, and many investors restricted by the type of gold bullion transactions they are able to partake in, with most focused on jewellery and coin offerings. The introduction of the Shariah Gold Standard now gives as many as 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, 25 per cent of the population, far greater access to the gold market than they have had since the birth of modern finance.

If you earn $250,000 a year does that mean you are rich? The answer is “no” – and it turns out that the actual statistical relationship between income and wealth is surprisingly low.