Questioning the long-term value of a college education has increasingly come into focus over the past decade or more and even more so today. It has come into the crosshairs in recent years due to the staggering amount of student loan debt currently being carried by millions of under-graduate and graduate students. There are numerous […]
Read MoreSocial Security & Medicare – Running out of Money?
Trying to understand how Social Security (SS) and Medicare (MC) are funded and how that funding may run out is not easy to explain nor is it very interesting. I am going to give it a try because the recently heightened awareness of a potential for a government debt default leading to risks that these […]
Read MoreWhere Did All The Workers Go?
It’s not news to anyone that there is a labor shortage in a variety of service, transportation, manufacturing, healthcare services, and hospitality sectors, among others. The common refrain as the pandemic wound down and life started to get back to normal was that the missing workers would return. Clearly that hasn’t happened. Economists’ estimates are […]
Read More2023 Outlook – The Year Income Generation Returns
As the Covid pandemic unfolded in early 2020, interest rates on one-year government debt plunged from 1.5 % to near zero in a matter of weeks. From March of 2020 to near the end of 2021, the one-year rate hovered between 0.05% and 0.12%. Rates that low are almost irrelevant. As the Federal Reserve launched […]
Read MoreThoughts on Upcoming Election and the Markets
A lot has been written about the impacts national elections have (or do not have) on financial markets. Studies have been done over the years to try and determine if changes in political party control of Congress and the White House (WH) lead to subsequent outperformance or underperformance of financial markets. Time has also been […]
Read MoreThe Silver Lining in Rising Interest Rates
For several years now, investors have been living in a world of historically low interest rates. For those in retirement or near retirement, that has not been the best world in terms of conservative income generation with which to live on. It also hasn’t been great for those who are contributing to regular savings accounts […]
Read MoreDiscount Prices – Consumer Products vs the Stock Market
Consumer buying patterns have been studied by economists and sociologists forever. How and why consumers respond to product marketing programs basically comes down to how our brains are emotionally wired. That said, consumer products and services companies of all types have figured out that advertising “discounts” is a tried-and-true method to create a positive emotion […]
Read MoreCommodities Sell-Off / Supply Chain Improving
The supercharged pricing surges across much of our economy and the global economy are showing signs of abating. The news flow on reversing pricing trends is picking up so I thought it was time to take another look at where things are regarding price trends in important commodities and the supply chain situation. Should these […]
Read MoreI Bonds
With surging inflation, there has been a renewed interest in lessor known United States Savings Inflation Bonds, more commonly referred to as I Bonds.
Read MoreInvestor Mindset
The correction in the markets has been hard to bear. In the face of this decline in the markets, our commitment to long term investment strategies has not changed. We are in this for the long haul and our job is to help our clients manage their way through such times as these. “Loss aversion […]
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