Squared Away Blog

Chilling. That sums up a documentary about financial fraud against elderly people premiering tomorrow at the Quad Cinema on 13th Street in Manhattan. “Last Will and Embezzlement” is about fraudsters who seek out vulnerable elderly people suffering from cognitive decline for no other purpose than to exploit their trust and steal their money. It’s not uncommon for these con men and women to be family. By first-time producers Pamela Glasner and Deborah Louise Robinson, the film would’ve benefitted from more reporting and more focus – they try to do too much when they get into court systems and solutions. But the film does what journalism does best: It finds people willing to tell personal gripping stories – not easy to…

Tried-and-true financial frauds – Ponzi schemes, high-yield investments, and “pump and dump” stock scams – have victimized unsuspecting targets for decades, even centuries. These well-known frauds are effective, because con men change their disguises so they won’t be recognized. Six common disguises are detailed in a report I wrote for the Financial Security Project at Boston College’s Center for Retirement Research, which hosts this blog…

You have to admire a financial writer and editor with the guts to put this on his LinkedIn profile: “While many Wall Street people go to Harvard or Yale University to learn about business, Ron went to art school.” The cartoons shown here are in a humorous financial book by Ronald DeLegge 2d, who said he first earned his chops as an insurance salesman at a small Midwestern company that eventually became part of AIG. His cartoons appear in “Gents with no ¢ents: A closer look at Wall Street, its customers, financial regulators, and the media.” Dave Clegg was the illustrator. Enjoy…

“Money Matters,” a play that opened last weekend in Cambridge, Mass., demonstrated the financial wit of its teenage actors at the same time that they – and the audience – embraced the complexities of money. Credit versus debt, income differences among classmates, money and relationships, certificates of deposit, needs versus wants – this only scratches the surface of the subject matter in the Youth Underground theater production, which begins touring the Boston area in February. The actors clearly were having fun, but their performance served as an educational tool that might be replicated. For example, the screenplay was based on the actors and other teenagers’ 80-some interviews of community residents about their financial viewpoints and mishaps. The stories generated ideas…

Money and cheating go hand in hand – now add art to the mix. An art exhibit was inspired in part by the research that found a “robust relationship between creativity and dishonesty” by Francesca Gino at the Harvard Business School and Dan Ariely of Duke University, a behavioral economist who founded Duke’s Center for Advanced Hindsight, the location of the exhibit. What does the art say to you – about financial planning, the scammers who slink among us, or our money culture? Squared Away picked pieces by two of the exhibit’s 22 artists, who are from North Carolina, Israel and elsewhere. The artists’ explanations are included with their work: ……

Occupy Wall Street protesters have made their feelings known about the widening U.S. wealth gap. So, what do the rest of us think? A Harvard Business School professor – Michael Norton – and a behavioral economist – Dan Ariely – teamed up to ask people their preferences when it comes to the distribution of wealth. They found that Americans of all types and political affiliations “vastly underestimated” the magnitude of the difference between rich and poor in this country. At a time many people are suffering in the slowing economy and languishing job market, it’s interesting to see a comparison between what Americans believe about U.S. wealth distribution and the reality they inhabit. The American rags to riches myth endures…

In this humorous Ted video, Graham Hill advocates minimalism as an alternative to consumerism and showcases his 420-square-foot apartment in Manhattan. His living arrangement may seem extreme but residents of Tokyo have been living small for years, and his main point is well taken: he has reduced both his living expenses and his environmental footprint. Hill is a modern Renaissance man. He studied architecture, founded Treehugger.com to take environmental sustainability mainstream, and dreamed up the idea for those ceramic Greek coffee cups, a replica of the paper cups, found in art museum gift shops. “From his New York home, he schemes daily about how he can help humanity avoid rapid extinction,” according to his bio…

Hans-Peter Feldmann, winner of the prestigious Hugo Boss Prize for contemporary art, displayed the precise amount of his $100,000 prize in this wall of overlapping dollar bills on display at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Feldmann’s art often groups similar items found in daily life to unearth their meaning. “Bank notes, like artworks, are objects that have no inherent worth beyond what society agrees to invest them with,” the museum said. “At its core, this formal experiment presents an opportunity to experience an abstract concept — a numerical figure and the economic possibilities it entails — as a visual object and an immersive physical environment.” The exhibit is on display through November 2…

Julie Taylor-Cooper, who worked for decades as an accounting manager, now scrapes by on her late husband’s Social Security checks and a $145-a-week job. Many baby boomers like Taylor-Cooper may not realize there are various strategies for claiming full Social Security benefits that can have a dramatic impact on their retirement security. “There are eight or nine options for retirees, spouses, and widows,” said Stephen Richardson, spokesman for the Social Security Administration. (Full disclosure: SSA funds this blog.) Julie Taylor-Cooper from Over Fifty and Out of Work on Vimeo…

Financial-product complexity isn’t talked about on Capitol Hill, where Congress is arming itself for battle royale over the appointment of Harvard Law School professor Elizabeth Warren to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. But some economics and business professors are sticking up for the financial consumer, who they say faces an “ever-widening set of financial options” and “dizzying amount of information.” “Households are expected to make decisions about pension plan contributions and payouts, to choose from a wide array of credit instruments to fund everything from home purchase to short-term cash needs, and more generally to assume a greater level of responsibility for their financial well-being,” Harvard economists Brigitte Madrian and John Campbell, Harvard Law professor Howell Jackson, and…

Laid off from his job as a software engineer, Ken Wadland did something smart: he downsized. After losing his job in June 2009, it immediately became obvious to Wadland that he could not afford his large house in the Rhode Island countryside. He sold it and purchased a condominium to reduce his housing costs, which are the largest single expense for most households. The financial-services industry barrages baby boomers with tips for saving and investing their retirement nest eggs. But little attention is paid to the strategy of downsizing, an effective way for baby boomers to improve their retirement security by cashing in on the large amounts of equity built up in their homes over decades. “I’d rather not hav…

Rudy Limas, a laid-off truck driver, resorted to applying for unskilled labor jobs – anything to get back to work and support his family. “They look at your age and think, ‘He can’t handle it’ – even though I can,” the 61-year-old Oregon resident said. “They look at your age [and] they’re not going to hire you.”” Limas’ video interview, included in the online project, “Over 50 and Out of Work,” was selected by Squared Away for a series about the particular financial issues facing people approaching retirement age who lose their jobs. Rudy Limas from Over Fifty and Out of Work on Vimeo…