Blogging about calculators, financial affairs, technology and good governance.
Welcome to the Pine Grove Software's Financial Reading Room. Here you will find a collection of blog posts written and edited by experts in various fields. We hope they give you something to think about.
As this blog grows, we'll add posts dedicated to individual calculators. Feel free to use the comment space for asking questions or to make suggestions for enhancements to a particular calculator.
A note about the category "Good Governance": When so moved, we'll write an opinion piece about a particular government policy or program. We do NOT intend to write about politics however. The point of the category will be to discuss possible solutions to society's (usually financial or economic) problems. Postings will not be about left or right, Republican or Democrat, but instead about what works, what does not work and what may solve the problem being discussed. Your comments should be written from the same perspective.
Lastly, if you are inclined to write something that fits one of our blog categories, we would love having you write something for us. Naturally, if you have a website, you'll receive a backlink from us. This site was viewed by about 50,000 visitors for each of the past two months (as of December 2011).
Jan 3
Without a doubt, the single biggest issue of the 2012 election cycle will be the problems facing the US economy. Part of the discussion will certainly center around the national debt which currently stands at about $15.1 trillion.
In fact, the conversation about our debt has already started. In The New York Times on January 2nd, Paul Krugman writes in Nobody Understands Debt "the way our politicians and pundits think about debt is all wrong, and exaggerates the problem’s size". On the same day, the Libertarian Jew took another view.
The timing for these posts could not be better. We thought that it would be useful if we could help visitors comprehend the size of the national debt on personal terms. Thus, today, we have released:
The National Debt Calculator. Read the rest of this entry »
Jan 1
Yesterday, I had taken to task the press for not reporting a total number for projected US Federal Government spending in FY2012. I wrote the post before I read yesterday’s Wall Street Journal. In their editorial, “The Spenders Won 2011″ they report the following:
"…total federal outlays are estimated to be $3.65 trillion in fiscal 2012, up slightly from $3.6 trillion in 2011."
At least now we have a paper reporting an amount for total Federal spending in FY2012. (Though it was reported in an editorial and not, as far as I can find, as part of the coverage of the news.)
Do you notice something though?
Here we have two of the country’s leading newspapers reporting on what should be a clear cut point of fact and yet their reporting contradicts each other. Read the rest of this entry »
