Suze Orman

So Nothing Knew beat me to posting Suze's free book offer. This book covers items that are specific to 2009. Since I am a tax geek and routinely read IRS publications for fun, I am all over this. Before this Recession started, 2010 was going to be the most interesting year since JGTRRA (Jobs and Growth Tax Relief reconciliation Act of 2003). The highlight of 2009 (in my world) is that the elderly do not have to take their Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs). In any other year, failure to remove this amount from a retirement account would cause an excess accumulation penalty of 50%. Since 2008 was a really crappy year for investments, this is the time for everyone to recover. Still, the people who actually have to live on these accounts are completely screwed, because they will continue to draw down on the reduced balances. But, as Suze routinely points out, they had no business investing in the stock market to begin with. If they truly needed the money, they should have put it into a less risky vehicle.

Go to Oprah.com and you can download a copy of her latest book FREE, until 1/15/09. I downloaded it to my new external hard drive last night, but I was too tired and cranky to post about it. One of the books I got out of the library is her book The Laws of Money. I'm looking forward to reading both these books.

So please keep in mind that this is random ramblings of a tax geek, and not the opinion of my anonymous BFC (Big Financial Company).