Saturday, April 20, 2013

Low-interest-rate environment exposes seniors to fraudsters


http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/low-interest-rate-environment-expose-seniors-to-fraudsters/2013/04/18/63d065dc-9c77-11e2-a941-a19bce7af755_story.html

There are always people in the world that will scam you into taking your money. There are more privacy and protection methods to protect your money and investments nowadays but there is an upward rise in scams on senior citizens. Government regulators and advocacy groups say unscrupulous dealers are taking advantage of a growing fear among seniors that they will run out of money in their final years of life. The FED dropped interest rates in 2008 in efforts to stimulate the economy however this meant a sharp drop in income for seniors. Because of many scams seniors have become more reluctant to hold onto their money instead of investing it. But monetary policy is all about the trade-offs. 

2 comments:

  1. Artificially low IR caused the housing collapse. An effect of low interest rates might be that people will borrow and launder money instead of investing it. Hedge funds kind of do that.

    I think the Fed is doing more damage to the economy than good.

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  2. The government could impose a fiscal policy of an increase in government spending and create some jobs for people to catch these fraudsters.

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