Thank for the charts MJG. This one says it all:

Hi Guys,
Thank you all for facilitating this controversy on income growth and distribution. It is a centuries-old debate that does have a direct impact on our economy, and by easy extension to our marketplace.
Like most of us, I would prefer a more balanced income distribution for individuals or for families, or for whatever measure you wish to impose. The wealth distribution is a perennial problem with the capitalistic system. There will always be winners, but losers are also guaranteed.
I sure don’t have an answer; but neither does anyone else. We are swamped with experimental programs and ideas. Similarly we are overwhelmed with a tsunami of data. Interpreting this data is one challenge, but a zero-order issue is to present this data in an understandable, absorbable format.
Historical charts are a partial solution. Your posts motivated me to seek such charts. Here is a Link to a series that captures the many dimensions of income issues:
http://www.russellsage.org/sites/all/files/chartbook/Income and Earnings.pdf
This chartbook of 11 pages was assembled by the Russell Sage Foundation (RSF) so an agenda is suspect. But the data is credited to the U.S. Census Bureau so it should be as reliable as such data can be made.
These charts slice and dice the real income data into many categories and present both median and mean statistics over time. The data is subdivided by sex and race also.
The reference is made without commentary by RSF (which does have a viewpoint) for a purpose. You get to examine this historical record without RSF influence. Please have at it.
One obvious observation is that inequalities exist. It’s another matter entirely to judge whether these inequalities are warranted or not. Over many years the bottommost rung on the pay scale has remained relatively income flat when adjusted for inflation, while the upper rungs have gained substantially in income. Those are the facts.
These charts are terrific summaries. Have fun with the data. Please don’t shoot the messenger.
Best Wishes.

You mean shit like this?
http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/21604/what-american-pharoah-s-win-means-for-the-market#latest
http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/21596/top-ten-movie-sets-ever-built#latest
http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/21606/your-sunday-night-dinner-cocktail-market-stat#latest

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/i-lost-100-million-and-ive-never-been-happier-2015-06-05?dist=beforebell
They must have been highly leveraged. I think people don't set goals - or the goal is MORE.
Put 10 of the 100 in a safe place.

FYI: Trend is strongest among U.S. and international stock funds, balanced funds
Regards,
Ted
http://www.wsj.com/articles/find-mutual-fund-managers-who-eat-their-own-cooking-1433518014

FYI: (Sorry to see him go, Tom is an outstanding financial writer !)
Regards,
Ted
http://www.wsj.com/articles/what-i-learned-in-14-years-on-the-funds-beat-1433537708

FYI: Fund makes changes amid lackluster short-term results compared with the glory days.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.wsj.com/articles/mighty-columbia-acorn-fund-withers-1433544725

FYI: Lists are frequently out of date, and don’t say much about overall strategy.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.wsj.com/articles/what-a-funds-top-10-holdings-dont-tell-you-1433732625

FYI: Risk doesn’t mean danger—it just means not knowing what the future holds. That insight resides at the core of risk management for companies, whether in managing the potential downside of an investment or putting a value on the option of waiting when making irreversible decisions. In this video, Peter L. Bernstein also explains why in the real world the most sophisticated mathematical models can sometimes fail.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2015/06/peter-l-bernstein-on-risk/print/

" 29 percent of such households don’t have a pension."
What is surprising is that 71% do have a pension.

If I read the article correctly, I think it claims 29% of the 50% that don't have retirement savings also don't have pensions. The percentage of all households that don't have a pension could be even higher.

Yes, that is what I'm surprised about. 71% of those that don't have retirement savings have a pension. I think that number will decrease over the years.
If a person is 55 now and they started working at 20 - that was 1980. 401Ks started to become popular then and pensions were not.

Seniors have a lifetime of experiences to tap. If the rubber should ever meet the road and there is not enough tread on the tires, many may show their "resourcefulness" and do what needs to be done.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-28/worldwide-elderly-crime-rates-increase

@MJG It's unlikely that Rothschild ever said "buy when there's blood in the streets" and there never was a Rothschild who became a baron until 1885. Many of the quotes ascribed to the Rothschild family are apocryphal and falsely used by anti-Semitic web sites as evidence of a global conspiracy: grammarphobia.com/blog/2013/04/waxing-rothschild.html

"... more than half (51%) will be investing more assets in their checking/savings accounts ... Forty-four percent plan to invest in money market funds ..."
Sounds like many are choosing to lock-up a portion in ultra-safe investments. Not an incorrect use of the term (investing) - but a somewhat unusual use. Carried to its logical extreme, anyone with a checking account would be considered an "investor."
Brings to mind the cliche, "The rich are different than you and me. They have money."

" 29 percent of such households don’t have a pension."
What is surprising is that 71% do have a pension.

If I read the article correctly, I think it claims 29% of the 50% that don't have retirement savings also don't have pensions. The percentage of all households that don't have a pension could be even higher.

Has anyone approached owning a single stock as an alternative to a mutual fund, but for more of the same reasons (diversification and cost)?
Here are some examples of stocks that act like mutual funds:
-Conglomerates - A conglomerate is a company that owns two or more companies that are in different industries (General Electric for example) seem to fit the bill as single stocks that are made up of multiple divisions or companies. Motley Fool put this list together of Diversified Conglomerates:
diversified-conglomerates

and The Street Ratings this shorter list,

-Berkshire Hathaway's holdings might resemble a mutual fund as suggest by this article:
warren-buffett-is-a-mutual-fund
and,
better-than-index-funds-buy-a-conglomerates-stock

" 29 percent of such households don’t have a pension."
What is surprising is that 71% do have a pension.

FYI: Half of U.S. households headed by a person 55 and over haven't stashed away any retirement savings..
And while old-style pensions will help some of them put food on the table, 29 percent of such households don't have a pension.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/yourmoney/ct-marksjarvis-0607-biz-20150605-column.html

@Crash: SFGIX is a winner, winner, chicken dinner. If I were to own a EM Fund, it more than likely would be this one. YTD performance in excess of 10% while EM category average at 2.5%.
Regards,
Ted

It looked like credit-sensitive stuff held up o.k. last week, as long as duration wasn't too high, but interest-sensitive asset classes.... not so much. EM bonds also ended the week sadly, with some funds doing poorly and some funds hanging tough. Apply these factors into fund analysis of last week's performance and you pretty much have it done.
I'm expecting more bumps for EM bonds for the remainder of June. Ukraine and Greece will be obvious "effectors," but I'm wondering when Venezuela (and possibly even China, as an outlier) might come into play. Jeff Desjardins of Visual Capitalist blogged some info-bits to go with his eye candy about the deteriorating condition of the Chavez bolivar last week:
http://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-demise-of-the-venezuelan-bolivar-continues-chart/
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@ Dex posted "Earlier this week, the ECB chief stoked a rout in bonds after he told investors Wednesday to “get used to periods of higher volatility,”
Adding to that perception:Market Perspectives from Acropolis Posted on June 5, 2015 by David Ott
"Naturally, I headed over to our bond guys, Ryan and Cliff to see what they thought. Ryan flatly said, ‘Dave, we’re just watching volatility.’ He is absolutely right.
The chart above shows the yields on a year-to-date basis and from that perspective, yields are high. If we, as Sherlock Holmes says, widen our gaze, to one year, we can see that, in this context, yields are off of their lows but still not particularly high.....
We can see that there are wide differences between the highs and the lows, which gets back to Ryan’s point – bond yields have been volatile, but, really, there’s not much to see here.
...Of course, we’ll have to see where things go from here, but it’s far, far too soon to say that these are the higher interest rates we’ve been waiting for over the past six or eight years."
http://acrinv.com/interest-rates-rising/