Wealth

Lahdi Moutchia's miracle windfall - a $34,757 bank error in her favor - bought her a house in Camden and a car. It must have been fun while it lasted. Moutchia's house in the 1100 block of North 34th Street has been listed for sale, and a Superior Court judge in Camden yesterday ordered that the proceeds from the sale be deposited in an escrow account. The situation that led to her problems began Dec. 7, when she looked at her statement from the Midlantic National Bank/South.

Every sixth grader knows that if you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door. Thus it should follow that anyone who wants to get rich ought to concentrate on making better mousetraps. Well, surprise. A recent study by the Federal Reserve Board implies that if you want the world to beat a path to your door nowadays, you should forget about improving the mousetrap and think instead about improving the path. Today's real wealth-building opportunities, according to the Fed, won't be found in productive enterprises like manufacturing, construction, oil refining or farming.

Lorraine Neff got the Big News by phone. She was a 21-year-old schoolteacher then, living in West Philadelphia and earning about $9,000 a year. "Your mother and I think you ought to know," said her father, that he was now giving her a large block of shares in his prosperous manufacturing company - shares that would ultimately be worth several million dollars. "I was totally unaware of my own wealth," she recalled over lunch at a Center City restaurant recently, and shook her head.

What if humanity disappeared tomorrow? According to Alan Weisman, author of The World Without Us, in an interview with Scientific American, nature would reclaim the planet awfully quickly. In the event of an ecumenical rapture or a 12 Monkeys-style plague, Manhattan's suppressed underground rivers would quickly reclaim the Big Apple's core; mosquitoes would thrive; feral cats would rule the roost; and the Statue of Liberty would wait for an enraged Charlton Heston who, like Godot, would never arrive.

WASHINGTON - The wealth gaps between whites and minorities have grown to their widest levels in a quarter-century. The overall gap between rich and poor also widened, according to an analysis of census data. The Pew Research Center's Social & Demographic Trends project looked at U.S. Census data and found that the recession and uneven recovery had erased decades of minority gains, leaving whites on average with 20 times the net worth of blacks and 18 times that of Hispanics. The analysis offers the most direct government evidence yet of the disparity between predominantly younger minorities, whose main asset is their home, and older whites, who are more likely to have 401(k)

Mary Curtis is getting ready to give it all away. Five decades of hard work as a doctor, five decades of owning homes that were bought cheap and sold expensive, five decades of saving money so that now the nest egg is measured in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Her two children and two grandchildren already have been showered with gifts. Down payments have been made on houses. Two generations of college tuitions have been footed. Trips have been bankrolled to Australia, Hawaii and Japan.

I reply to David O'Reilly's March 2 article on inherited wealth, in which I was quoted. While it is true and, I think, useful for us to understand that wealth does not of itself bring happiness and does bring its own particular kinds of difficulties and challenges, there is more. The root of the isolation, confusion and guilt that plague owning-class people is the same as the root of the difficulties and challenges faced by working-class people: an economic system that is based on acquisition by a few from the productivity of the majority.

On Jan. 15 at Bryn Mawr College, Acel Moore addressed the Main Line Martin Luther King Association. An excerpt: The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s vision of America, a nation in which character would be the test of an individual's worth, not only remains unfulfilled but will probably stay that way well into the 21st century. Yes, a younger generation of blacks and other "people of color" have never experienced the humiliation of Jim Crow laws, have never witnessed segregation, have always had an opportunity to vote.

Ancient truth: Capitalism creates winners, big time, but it also creates losers, without remorse. This was a truth ignored by many during the recent dot-com frenzy. Some of them should have known better; some simply were too young to have the scars that breed wisdom. The recent hemorrhage of paper wealth on Wall Street was a heck of a lesson in Capitalism 101 for young whizzes who - like so many before them - thought their generation was so brilliant, so blessed, so ahead of the curve that the ancient rules had been waived.

Aruby Odom-White earns $175,000 a year as a psychiatrist and has reported a net worth of $670,000. Her husband, Ronald A. White, runs a law firm paid millions doing work for the city. She had no experience selling drinks, food or newspapers. And yet Odom-White was deemed a "disadvantaged" businesswoman in order to gain a lucrative share of newsstands and bar/restaurants at Philadelphia International Airport. It was all perfectly legal. The rules governing Philadelphia's program to assist minority contractors say that neither great wealth nor a lack of work experience is a bar to the wealthy getting concessions work at the airport.

Experts say we're doing a terrible job teaching children how to handle money. But many groups and companies are stepping forward with solutions aimed at parents, teachers, and youngsters. Children get little in the way of formal training about money. "It's nuts. We don't let people drive without taking a driving test. Yet we drop young people into a chaotic financial world without the basic survival skills they need," writer Brett Arends says in a MarketWatch article called "What Should You Teach Your Kids About Money?"

A secure retirement usually depends on years of careful preparation. You need to know what the obstacles are, where to turn for help, and what resources will be waiting for you once you retire. These sites can help. You need to get familiar with the Social Security website. Use it to apply for benefits, including for disability and Medicare. Long before retiring, the site can help you estimate the benefits you'll be entitled to. If, say, you are a victim of domestic abuse or identity theft, you can use the site to block access to information about you. www.ssa.gov Social Security 's "retirement planner" has links that will reveal the age at which you'll qualify for full Social Security benefits, how you'll get dinged if you retire early, and your life expectancy.

Long-term unemployment - being jobless for more than six months - in this bad economy has become a serious national problem. So far, though, nobody seems to know what to do about it. The "scariest thing in the world" is long-term unemployment, says Matthew O'Brien, an associate editor at the Atlantic magazine. In this article, O'Brien says there are two labor markets now: one for people who have been out of work less than six months, and one for the long-termers. And woe be to the latter group.

When describing Tyler Schulte's ability, Seneca boys' lacrosse coach Rob Davidson starts with what isn't obvious by looking at a stat sheet. "He's an incredibly unselfish player," Davidson said. "Even though he has [177 career goals], he's not the kid who takes the ball and tries to get everything he can. "He's the first to take the ball and pass it off to someone else. " And when talking about his hot start to this season, Schulte, a senior attack with 36 goals for the 9-1 Golden Eagles, starts with the other players on the field.

Planning for tomorrow is hard enough. No wonder retirement planning seems nearly impossible for some people. So get all the help you can, starting with these resources on the Web. In the Just Explain It video blog on Yahoo, Jeff Macke talks about the biggest threats to your retirement income. Topping the list are medical expenses. In spite of the evidence all around us, we're prone to not anticipate the inevitable decline of our own health. Remember that Medicare, the government health program for older people, doesn't include vision, dental, or long-term care, Macke notes.

Very last-minute tax help for the DIY crowd is abundant. So, don't panic, even if you've waited until now to start the paperwork. Check out these sites and pages to get the job done. Reasons to wallow. Why do people procrastinate on doing their taxes? This post at Time.com offers some of the reasons. Among them: laziness, a mistaken impression that it'll get done faster and better under pressure, and having gotten away with it in the past. http://ti.me/153uh5c Can't pay the tax?

Cars have been selling well in the economic recovery. And if you find yourself in the market for new wheels, it'll be good to review the rules of the road for financing the purchase of a new or used vehicle. The car site Edmunds.com has a section devoted to auto financing. A current featured article there describes the dangers of "yo-yo financing. " That's when you drive off with the car, but the dealer calls later to say your financing fell through and you need to come sign for a more expensive loan, or make a bigger down payment, or both.

Taxes complicate our lives every year, but changes in the rules may be making this year especially difficult. These sites explain the changes and tell you how to plan and how to cope with tax stress. Higher taxes on dividends, capital gains, and estates didn't turn out to be as steep as feared by some, but there are many changes for 2013. Tax "must-knows" for 2013, detailed by the investment site Morningstar, include reminders about the changing contribution limits to IRA accounts.