Mark Gardner

Comments

• The 2009 CARD act requires the CFPB to send this data to Congress every two years. With the gutting of expertise in this department, let's see if the 2027 report will still be useful. From the 2025 report, we can estimate nearly half (49%) of active general-purpose credit card accounts carried a revolving balance in 2024, meaning interest was being charged on balances carried from prior billing cycles. More strikingly, 13% of general-purpose accounts were in what the CFPB calls “persistent debt”—where interest and fees during the year exceeded half of all payments made on the account.

  Post: Americans and their credit cards

  Link to comment from August 25, 2026

• Our Treasury Department is paying its 30-year mortgage with its credit card via the bond buyback program. The NY Times has an Op-Ed where the author argues for Sumerian-style debt cancellation. Strange times indeed.

  Post: Americans and their credit cards

  Link to comment from August 25, 2026

• One way to appreciate the number: a million seconds is about 11 days, a billion seconds is 32 years, and 40 trillion seconds is about 1.2 million years! But $40 trillion by itself is probably the wrong way to frame the debt problem. The US is a very large and very wealthy country. GDP is about $32 trillion a year and household wealth is around $180 trillion. The more relevant number is debt held by the public, which is roughly 100% of GDP. I don’t think the goal needs to be paying off the debt. We need to stop it from growing faster than the economy. Our government currently spends about 23% of GDP and collects about 17-18%. Close that gap by 2-3% of GDP and, with economic growth, the debt becomes much more manageable. Of course finding that 2-3% is where it gets hard. It probably requires some combination of Social Security and Medicare changes, more taxes, spending cuts, and economic growth. We can do it if we get past our divisive politics.

  Post: Federal debt

  Link to comment from August 20, 2026

• It is not surprising that a large cohort of Americans, the Baby Boomers, have arranged the political landscape to further their interests through the ballot box. It's not a bug but a feature of a democratic society.

  Post: “Gerontocracy” in America

  Link to comment from August 11, 2026

• Before asking when to claim Social Security, we should first ask how retirement will be funded during each phase of retirement. What’s the plan for covering living expenses from early retirement to FRA, from FRA to age 70 if benefits are delayed, and then after age 70? Only after that cash-flow plan is clear does the claiming decision really make sense. For retirees with substantial assets, legacy goals also become part of the equation. I know this is a much more complicated problem than comparing breakeven ages or lifetime benefits, but is this the kind of retirement-income planning tool you would consider building?

  Post: Yet-Another Social Security Spreadsheet Analysis on what Age to Start taking Benefits

  Link to comment from August 4, 2026

• You’ve done an excellent job compiling the booklet. Thank you for providing the framework for retirees to plan their future.

  Post: Before Someone Else Decides

  Link to comment from August 2, 2026

• Larry Swedroe wrote a post on Substack about CAPE ratio that is worth a read: https://open.substack.com/pub/larryswedroe/p/the-cape-that-cried-wolf-has-the?r=9qivf&utm_medium=ios

  Post: Market Indicators

  Link to comment from July 26, 2026

• I was in your shoes a year ago, and you have a wonderful period of exploration ahead of you. Try different things. Reconnect deeply with the people who matter most. Read. Travel. Pick up a hobby you’ve long ignored. Build a modest daily routine that gives your days some structure. Above all, don’t look for a substitute for the status or routine that work once provided. Let this next chapter become something different rather than a replacement for the last one.

  Post: Fear of the Unknown…

  Link to comment from July 26, 2026

• The World Cup is one of the few events that transcends politics, borders, and our everyday disagreements. For a few weeks, billions of people laugh, groan, celebrate, and mourn together. I was lucky enough to attend one match, and it’s a memory I’ll always treasure.

  Post: FIFA Financials

  Link to comment from July 19, 2026

• Nominal values confuse me comparing today with tomorrow. So, I force myself to track everything in real terms including expected returns. So, I end up thinking about inflation related to items that outpace inflation, like healthcare. The ten year TIPS yield is a good benchmark if a particular items seems odd.

  Post: About that inflation in retirement

  Link to comment from July 13, 2026