» Posted by Martin Weil on July 31, 2008

In order to take advantage of the $250/500K exclusion on capital gains?

Not so fast.

According to Calculated Risk, the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 just passed includes a little noticed provision that limits the ability to make this conversion. In addition to the current requirement of owning a vacation or other rental property for five years and declaring it as your personal residence for two of those five, sellers will now be required to multiply the available capital gains exclusion by the ratio of years as personal residence divided by years owned. Thus in the case where someone owned for five years, lived in for two of those five, the capital gain exclusion would be 40% of the $250/500K allowance.

» Posted by Martin Weil on July 21, 2008

The title of this Sunday NY Times article pretty much sums it up.

» Posted by Martin Weil on July 18, 2008

Pakistan investors stormed out of the Karachi Stock Exchange, smashed windows and cursed regulators after the benchmark index fell for a 15th day, the worst losing streak in at least 18 years.

Police surrounded the exchange after hundreds of investors stoned the building and shouted anti-government slogans. Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, which imposed and then removed a 1 percent daily limit on price declines this week, had attempted to halt a slide that wiped out $30 billion of market value in three months, threatening to undo a 14-fold rally since 2001.

From The Big Picture

» Posted by Martin Weil on July 17, 2008

Kiplinger's Personal Finance's current column on retirement income has four little-known tips on increasing your benefits under the Social Security program. These may not apply to all, but they are well worth a look.

» Posted by Martin Weil on July 14, 2008

Eerily reminiscent of Ross Perot's 1992 Presidential bid, T. Boone Pickens throws himself, and his fortune, into the energy/imported oil crisis. Maybe he read my July 1 post.

» Posted by Martin Weil on July 11, 2008

But this just made me feel better

» Posted by Martin Weil on July 01, 2008

Guess who is getting richer as we get poorer...

That's the sovereign investment funds of Saudi Arabia (SAMA), Abu Dhabi (ADIA), Qatar (QIA) and Kuwait (KIA).

So excuse me if I vent for just one moment. WHAT IN GOD'S NAME DO WE THINK WE ARE DOING? Trillions of dollars spent on an occupation of Iraq, for which I for one see little economic, let alone diplomatic, return any time soon. Meanwhile, our nation's wealth (note that's yours and mine) bleeds out of every pore into the hands of folks whose own agendas are not necessarily in sync with our own. Is there not something desperately misguided about our nation's priorities?

We now return to our regular programming.

Graph and data courtesy of Brad Setser.