Curious Cat Investing, Economics and Personal Finance Carnival #31

Welcome to the Curious Cat Investing, Economics and Personal Finance Carnival. The carnival is published twice each month with links to new, related, interesting content online.

• Long Term Care Insurance – Financially Wise but Current Options are Less Than Ideal by John Hunter – “The questions about long term care insurance are not about the sensibility of the coverage abstractly, it is very wise. But the complexities, today, in the real world make the question of buying more a guess about what coverage you will actually receive if you need it.”
• Figuring Out The Real Price Of College by Jacob Goldstein – “For the current school year, the average sticker price for tuition and fees at a private, nonprofit college is $28,500, according to a report from the College Board.
  The average price students actually pay is less than half that — $12,970. That’s almost identical to the $12,650 that students paid, on average, in the 2001-2002 school year. (These are inflation-adjusted dollars.) Of course, this is just the average. What students actually pay varies wildly.”

Marina Bay Sands Casino, Singapore. Singapore added their first two casinos in 2010 and have already the 2nd most gambling revenue of any area: after Macau and ahead of Las Vegas.

• The Philippines Astounds the Skeptics by Bruce Einhorn – “Much of the credit for the good feeling should go to Aquino and his efforts to tackle corruption and improve the country’s infrastructure… As wages rise in China, the Philippines has a chance to attract investment from companies looking for low-wage alternatives, but the country’s notorious culture of bribery remains a major obstacle to growth”
• Periodic Table Of Dividend Champions by David Van Knapp – the post looks at the 105 stocks raising dividends 25 straight years and looking at current yield and dividend growth rate highlights 34 for further study by an investor “Similarly, some investors may be interested in stocks that have a low current yield coupled with a high rate of dividend growth.”
• Why You Should Teach Your Kids Personal Finance Now – “We all want the best for our kids, and although our focus is generally on getting them into a good school and insuring their health, parents also need to take the time to focus on proper financial education. Not only with teaching proper finance skills keep your kids from becoming a consumer debt statistic, but it will also allow them to achieve their future financial goals more easily.”
• Canada’s only experiment in guaranteed income – “For a four-year period in the ’70s, the poorest families in Dauphin, Manitoba, were granted a guaranteed minimum income by the federal and provincial governments… Only two segments of Dauphin’s labour force worked less as a result of Mincome—new mothers and teenagers. Mothers with newborns stopped working because they wanted to stay at home longer with their babies. And teenagers worked less because they weren’t under as much pressure to support their families.”
• Why France Has So Many 49-Employee Companies by Gregory Viscusi and Mark Deen – “Once a company has at least 50 employees inside France, management must create three worker councils, introduce profit sharing, and submit restructuring plans to the councils if the company decides to fire workers for economic reasons… The cost of labor isn’t the main problem, it’s the rigidities… With 2.9 million people out of work—the worst joblessness in 12 years—France may need to overhaul its rigid labor laws.”

Related: Investing dictionary – personal finance articles and books