• vanguard.com - low cost investing
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• fidelity.com - low cost investing

If you took economics classes, you probably learned about the “Rule of Threes.” As business competitors slug it out over time, they typically end up with three strong competitors. Yes, there are exceptions, such as Coke and Pepsi in the soft drink industry. When the government grants a monopoly, there is just the cable company and satellite company. But in the long distance telephone industry, there was always AT&T, MCI and Sprint. With domestic cars, it was GM, Ford and Chrysler. In the investment industry, the three bigs are T. Rowe Price, Vanguard and Fidelity. These companies cannot stand each other, so they keep cutting commissions for customers. As a result, you can’t go wrong having your savings with any of these three companies. Vanguard is the least expensive of them all. T. Rowe. Price is next and Fidelity is a smidge more pricey. It’s because there are three that the prices are so low. And it’s great news for you!

When men buy clothes, it doesn’t take long. Men are typically fast shoppers and the sizes clothes come in are pretty standard. But for women, it’s almost impossible to tell if something fits just by size. Much of it is a marketing ploy for women, meaning women will buy something if it’s labeled a size smaller because it makes them feel good. But that item may be a totally different size in another store. And apparently the cause of it all is women themselves. Half of women hate trying on clothes because they never know what it going to fit and it can be a pretty defeating experience. The L.A. Times looked into this topic and found a company that carries 33 different size 8 clothing items. Clark thinks women should have standardized sizing as well. With mass customization, tt would cut down on costs and make clothing much easier to try on.

Is there a housing bubble or not? Economists at the FDIC are concerned about this happening because taxpayers had to spend about $500 billion the last time it happened. Economists have been analyzing the real estate markets and they found that out of 360 plus markets, 55 of them are in a boom. That means that one in seven markets have seen very large run-ups in housing values. When it’s happened before, one in six of those markets had a decline of at least 15 percent. And that decline stuck around for about 5 years. That would mean that if a house is worth $200,000 today, it would still only be worth $170,000 five years from now. Clark doesn’t say these things to scare you. He just wants you to be aware if you’re living in these areas or planning to move to one of them. If you’re going to be in that area a while, you shouldn’t worry about it. But if you’re “speculating” as they say, it may get ugly for you.

Wal-Mart is under assault from every direction again. In most papers these days, unions are attacking the mega store for treating its employees very poorly. So, is it deserved? The average Wal-Mart worker earns $9 and some change an hour. About half of the workers have health care. On the other hand, workers at Sam’s Club, which is owned by Wal-Mart, earn about $12 an hour. And Costco Wholesale, workers get $16 an hour on average and almost all employees have health care. Consumers are calling on Wal-Mart to pay higher wages and offer more health coverage. Clark thinks it’s not something Wal-Mart should be forced to do. The market will determine what Wal-Mart does. The company has very high turnover and many disgruntled employees. At some point, Wal-Mart will have to do something about that if it realizes it’s hurting the business. But people are not being forced to work there. They can find jobs that offer better benefits elsewhere if they want.