Retirement Investments in the USA Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Retirement Investments in the USA - Essay Example Some of them may look good on papers but in practice, it may not bring dividends to the retired people. Some other investment plans are exempted from tax at the time of investments, but on maturity, people were forced to pay heavy amounts as taxes. This paper analyses benefits and drawbacks of various retirement options available in the United States at present like the IRA, Roth IRA, SEP IRA, 401k and Roth 401k etc. Â  IRA refers to Individual Retirement Accounts whereas Roth IRA (named after its legislative sponsor William Roth) refers to an Individual Retirement Arrangement (IRA) allowed under the tax law of the United States. Â  Kennon (2010) has mentioned some of the major advantages and disadvantages of IRA’s and Roth IRA’s. In his opinion IRA’s are attractive because; IRA taxes are paid only on earnings, it is available to everyone without any income restrictions, funds can be used to purchase a variety of investments like stocks, bonds, certificates of deposits etc (Kennon). Some of the retirement investment options available in America at present are constrained to ordinary people because of the income restrictions. For example, Roth IRA schemes are available only to a particular community who earns more. The investor in IRA’s need does not worry much about the taxes as the tax is calculated based on the earnings rather than the principal amount. For example, it is possible that an investor in an IRA scheme may gain or lose heavy amounts because of the fluctuations in the stock market. Only the persons who gain something from their investments need to pay taxes whereas th e losers need not pay anything as taxes in case of IRA’s. Â  The major drawbacks of IRA’s are related to the withdrawal rules according to Kennon (2010). Investments in IRA’s cannot be continued by an investor when he crosses the age of 70.5 years. Moreover, an investor needs to pay 10% penalty if the funds were withdrawn before the age of 59.5 years (Kennon).

The Building of the Panama Canal Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

The Building of the Panama Canal - Research Paper Example The birth of the Industrial Revolution in which big machines were available for earth moving finally made the dream of Panama Canal into a reality. This is the subject of this paper - how the canal went from an idea to be an engineering marvel. Spanish colonizers were among the first to realize the need for a passage through the small isthmus separating the two vast oceans. What they did was create a land route that will connect ports on both sides of the American land mass on either side. This was a time when it was technologically impossible yet to actually construct the canal; prior to the opening of the said canal, ships had to travel south all the way to the Drake Passage around Cape Horn at the tip of South America. The Panama Canal saves a total of 12,500 kilometers (7,800 miles) of extra travel equivalent to an estimated 30 days of sea voyage. The canal not only saves time but puts ships out of harms way when they had to travel south before, where strong typhoons are quite common. Elimination of unnecessary extra days at sea also puts sailors at ease. The land route became known as the Camino Real (and later on, the Las Cruces trail) and this route was the one used to lay down a railroad track; this extended from Colon on the Atlantic to the Pacific side terminus (in present-day Panama City) and was built 1850 to 1855 and ran for 47 miles. Besides the Spaniards, some colonizers from Scotland also attempted the same objective but failed. The railway was a marvel at that time, considering all the primitive engineering technology, lack of investment capital and the challenges of working in a tropical jungle environment marked by diseases like malaria, dysentery and cholera. The French Project – France is considered as the initiator of the Panama Canal with a comprehensive engineering study to build a sea level canal.1 The French were emboldened with their recent completion in building the Suez Canal of Egypt and its builder