Articles and Podcasts from MaxiFi's Founder, Laurence Kotlikoff

Upside Investing lets you set a base living standard floor and experience only upside risk from investing in the stock market.

In sum, Wall Street's Bucketing Strategy is a bad joke. Its focus on the market's high average cumulative return or the high chance of doing well, on average, is akin to basing your financial plan on dying precisely at your life expectancy -- at the date at which people like you will, on average, die.

Investing these days is really tough. Fortunately, economics-based financial planning offers clear ways to invest at risk while limiting or, indeed, eliminating your living standard downside.

The safest investment these days is paying off your debts, including your mortgage.

The best way to hedge this risk used to be to purchase not a nominal, but a real annuity - one whose payment would be adjusted upward each year in light of that year's inflation.

“House poor” is a common expression used to describe people who are wasting too much money on housing, leaving them with too little to spend on everything else. But it can also refer to those who are getting too little housing bang for their buck.

The risk premium on stocks has rarely been higher. Yes, there are investors who think that stocks are safe in the long run. If this were the case, no one would be buying bonds guaranteeing negative real returns.

Laurence Kotlikoff shares 5 key insights from his new book, Money Magic: An Economist's Secrets to More Money, Less Risk, and a Better Life.

Mortgage rates are up to 5%, and some fear a valuation bubble. Even so, it's a good time to buy.

Rich or poor, young or old, black or white, red or blue, financially literate or not, the vast majority of us are financially sick. We save too little, borrow too much, retire too soon, take Social Security too early, and bank on dying on time. Indeed, many of us seem to have a financial death wish. Consider these facts about today's workers.

The Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension Offset (GPO) are two particularly nasty pieces of Social Security work.

The above chart, based on an S&P study, reached my inbox by way of Torsten Slok, Apollo's Chief Economist. Torsten produces The Daily Spark - a terrific financial blog providing important insights into our financial world, all in bite-sized chunks.

Everyone is scared of dentists, medical tests, and financial planning. I get the first two. But financial planning? Done right, it can uncover a gold mind.

Tens of millions of retirees are facing a retirement financing crisis. They saved too little, retired too early, took Social Security too early, and will die well beyond their expiration dates.

Student loans total a colossal $1.74 trillion with 43 million Americans owing, on average, $38,000. The loans swamp the $1.14 trillion in outstanding credit card debt, whose average balance is a far smaller $6,864.

When it comes to motivating us to change our financial behavior, Dave Ramsey is simply the best.

Like much of the world, Wall Street is psyched about AI, specifically using its deep learning to help sell “advanced” advice and financial products.

Here's another stomach-turning story of Social Security incompetence and bureaucratic cruelty.

On November 5th, Anderson Cooper interviewed me on 60 Minutes together with nationally syndicated journalist, Terry Savage, and three Social Security clawback victims. These are just three of the 2 million plus Social Security recipients Social Security is clawing back each year!

You can go from house poor - spending too much or at least more than you'd like on housing - to becoming house rich and you don't necessarily need to downsize your home to extract more value from it. In our case, we upsized our home while still netting a big sum.

We're in the worst economic downturn in our nation's history. Everyone is being financially impacted. But there are secret ways to survive financially.

The coronavirus is scary enough, but for far too many of us, it's becoming a financial nightmare.

These days mortgages are big enough financial and tax losers that you can potentially do better paying them off than contributing to your 401(k)!

Optimizing retirement outcomes means funding the highest standard of living, both before and after retirement, with a smooth transition in between. Planning for that economics-based outcome, known as “consumption smoothing,” is computationally intensive. But a recent technological breakthrough, which does that smoothing using uncertain asset returns, gives advisors a tool that improves portfolio choice.