Scott Burns writes that while bumpy the U.S. tax system already approximates a flat tax.  Once you factor in all the different taxes (employment, income, sales, etc), the U.S. is remarkably close to a flat tax system whose marginal rate averages over 40%.

Eva Rosenberg of MarketWatch looks at how lump sum payments for Social Security Disability are taxed.

Is Social Security Disability Income subject to taxation? – Yes, in the same way that retirement Social Security payments are taxed.
Does a lump sum that includes payment for previous years need to be reported in a single year?  – Yes, [...]

United Underwriters Incorporated has released a 2007 tax reference guide (warning pdf). It is a wonderful one stop shop for all the current limits on many tax related issues. Check it out!

While the fees are quite high currently, this is an intriguing concept. Especially if the concept gains traction and some competition arrives in the market place to bring fees down. I suspect there are some situations, where this could make sense.
The firm described is at www.rex-inc.com.

Paul Graham is a venture capitalist who runs an incubator program for technology start-ups. He often writes provocative and interesting essays. His latest essay is an exploration of the difference between wisdom, intelligence and their relation to ones happiness.
He writes “I think it’s important to understand the relationship between intelligence and wisdom, and particularly what [...]

Subprime mortgages are in trouble. Aaron Krowne espects to see a lot of lenders hurt by this and possible affects in the Alt-A and prime mortgage markets as well.

A flare up occurred in December about the integrity of Thomson’s IBIS database of analyst recommendations.
Some researchers got a feed covering analyst recommendations from 1993 to 2002 in 2002 and then got the same feed again in 2004 (i.e., covering the same 1993-2002 period). They discovered that almost 10% of the records had been changed [...]

Here are two great sites for getting quick estimates of real estate values. This can be very helpful before talking to a realtor or in helping to get a handle on estate size. Trulia also has started creating heat maps which allow you to see visually which geographic areas are hot (real estate wise). The site [...]

This article on projecting the next decade’s returns by Ed Easterling of PE cycles fame, came out last November. While I often disagree with some of his solutions, he provides valuable insight into future returns.
Highlights

GDP growth is fairly consistent at around 3%
Corporate earnings as a share of GDP tends to bounce between 6% and 14% [...]

Performance chasing is alive and well.  I suspect if international and especially emerging market stocks had not done so well for the last few years we would not be seeing this trend.
The Financial Times reports that last year, a remarkable 92.5 percent of all US equity fund inflows went into international equities – international funds [...]