Alejandro E. Gonzalez, Financial Professional, AXA Advisors

08/23/2016

America's economy has a problem: Workers just aren't producing as much as they once did. Some blame social media. (I'm typing this up after hours for the record lol). Employees might feel as if they are hard at work, but if they are tweeting and Facebook messaging their friends, thats not doing much to boost the economy. "What do we produce? We just go around texting each other," Carl Icahn, a prominent hedge fund manager told CNN. For more info, click on the link below...on your spare time of course.

http://money.cnn.com/2016/08/23/news/economy/us-economy-low-productivity/index.html?iid=hp-toplead-dom

America's economy has a problem: Workers just aren't producing as much as they once did. Worker productivity is at its lowest level since the 1970s.

08/04/2016

Investors better get ready. It's shaping up to be a busy day on Wall Street. As expected, the Bank of England slashed interest rates for the first time in seven years and a deluge of earnings will keep everyone busy. What are you watching?

08/02/2016

Winning 18 gold medals is a historically unique feat, but you can learn a lot from the habits Phelps developed along the way. Find out what he did every day for six years to become an Olympic legend.

Spend some time with U.S. Olympic men’s swimming coach Bob Bowman, as I recently did, and you’ll understand why some people go from good to great in a chosen...

04/29/2016

So, how's your retirement plan looking? It's never too early to start putting money away for retirement, but if you're like most Americans, you tend to spend for the present. By how much are Americans cutting retirement short? By a whopping $1.7 trillion, with a T.

That figure represents 12% of the $14 trillion in U.S. retirement accounts. So why does this happen? According to Bloomberg there are two main biases: present bias - where you live for today, and exponential bias - where you don't quite get just how great compound interest can be (believe me, its great).

How many people fall prey to these biases? Quite a lot: researchers found that around 70% of subjects underestimated the growth of an asset and 55% preferred less money today than plenty more money in a year.

As it turns out those who were more biased tended to have less money in their retirement accounts. Moral of the story: biases may be costing retirees $1.7 trillion.

Check out the Bloomberg article below for more details!

http://bloom.bg/1QF7kaZ

Economists discover we're pretty shortsighted, and it's costing us.

04/21/2016

If you didn't know, now you know: women are about to have their day on American paper money. Of course, in order for a female American hero to be placed on a bill, a founding father must be cut. This time, Alexander Hamilton dodged the bullet. He was on the chopping block at first but thanks to the Broadway hit "Hamilton" it's now Andrew Jackson who will be replaced on the $20 bill - by the famous abolitionist Harriet Tubman.

As it turns out one of Hamilton's supporters is former Fed chief Ben Bernanke, who believes Hamilton was one of the best American economic policy makers of all time.

Andrew Jackson, on the other hand, recently ran into some bad press when an NPR special examined his role in forcing Native Americans from their homelands. Oh, and he was a slaveowner - which makes the case for an abolitionist to take his place even more fitting.

Here's the link for the Boston Globe article on how "Hamilton" helped shape policy on US Currency
- https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/theater-dance/2016/04/20/theatercurrency/6U8jFcGhyoo0AnFdobT3dN/story.html

04/06/2016

Thinking about tying the knot soon? These days, some couples are spending half their annual incomes on weddings. According to The Knot's Real Weddings Study (what a fun name), released yesterday, the average cost of a wedding rose 4.6% in 2015 to an all time high of $32,641.Goodness gracious.

Just for fun heres are a couple other things that cost around $33,000: the Tesla 3, a year of instate college tuition or treating 60 of your friends to tickets to this past Monday's NCAA tourney championship game.

04/06/2016

Take a step toward being "ultra-productive" by following these 15 tips from over 200 experts.

I recently interviewed over 200 ultra-productive people including seven billionaires, 13 Olympians, 20 straight-A students and over 200 successful

04/05/2016

Wow! Honored to have had the chance to impact the lives of children after speaking at the Emerson Elementary Career Day. Receiving letters like these is truly inspiring!

"We may not be able to prepare the future for our children, but we can at least prepare our children for the future" - FDR

03/16/2016

March Madness is finally upon us, America! Did you know that the NCAA basketball tournament surpasses even the Super Bowl in gambling terms. Americans will bet $9.2 billion (only $262 million in legal wagers, but who's counting) on the brackets in 2016, according to the American Gambling Association.

So, what are your odds at a perfect bracket? A mere one in 9.2 quintillion. It's easier to win back-to-back Mega Millions lotteries, buying one ticket each time. Good Luck!

03/12/2016

Buying a home is a big decision, so you'll want to do your due diligence. Consider these important factors when it comes to your mortgage in 2016.

There are plenty of good reasons to buy a home in 2016. Mortgage rates are still historically low, rent is increasing faster than home prices, and buying a

03/09/2016

Happy 7th Birthday to the US bull market! Despite an exacting start to 2016 the bull market for US equities marked its seventh birthday on Wednesday, the third-longest bull run on record.

03/07/2016

Being frugal doesn’t have to mean giving up things that make you happy. Here are some tips from accomplished savers on how to meet your financial goals without sacrificing your lifestyle.

We as a nation have a lot to learn about saving more of our hard-earned money. Consider that half of Americans don’t have enough cash on hand to cover a