Florida and Federal Money for Florida Citizens

My Comments: You may have read about this already. Or some version of it. I’m really not a fan of Rick Scott; I see him as a shill for the hospital industry who got himself elected governor. His ethics, values and focus are not consistent with mine. This was written by a Joan McCarter and …

Continue reading Florida and Federal Money for Florida Citizens

Public and Private Morality

My Thoughts: I read this morning that there are now about 16 candidates from the right whose names are more or less officially in play for the Presidency in 2016. One of the defining characteristics of most of them is their focus on morality, theirs, mine and ours. After reading these comments from Robert Reich, …

Continue reading Public and Private Morality

Scarce Skills, Not Scarce Jobs

My Comments: To some extent, this is an extension of the post I had last week about the riots in Baltimore. I’m convinced they happened more for economic reasons than for racial reasons. I accept both are present, but instead of focusing on race relations to effect a solution going forward, the emphasis should be …

Continue reading Scarce Skills, Not Scarce Jobs

Where Is the Prudence in Macroprudential Policy?

My Comments: A warning: this post is about economics and what our financial future might look like. If you can’t stomach this stuff anymore, then please don’t read any further. But you better hope that whomever sits in the White House the next go round understands it. A version of this article first appeared in …

Continue reading Where Is the Prudence in Macroprudential Policy?

Social Security: Stronger Than Most Realize

My Comments: This article was directed at advisors who provide financial advice to those who are starting to take their Social Security benefits. This includes me, both as an advisor and recipient of benefits. I’ve long maintained that periodic tweaking of the rules, similar to what has happened in the past, will serve to make …

Continue reading Social Security: Stronger Than Most Realize

Hubble and the Cosmos

My Thoughts: I’ve long been fascinated by visions of the cosmos, how it came to be, what’s out there, and reasons that might explain why we’re here. It’s mind boggling and understandable how as society evolved, faith in an unseen hand at work made it possible to grasp the unthinkable. Whatever the case, technology today …

Continue reading Hubble and the Cosmos

An Invocation to Remember

My Comments: I'm rarely asked to offer an invocation at any function I attend. There are always others better suited to the task than I. But if I were to be asked, I'd like to think that I could do as well as Mary Maxwell. She was asked to offer the invocation at an event …

Continue reading An Invocation to Remember

A Bumper Sticker World

My Comments: A conversation this morning with an attorney friend revealed a world which is far more complicated today than seemed possible just a few short years ago. He remarked that tens of thousands of new laws have entered the books across these United States in the last three decades. It’s impossible to know the …

Continue reading A Bumper Sticker World

Death Is Not a Treatment Failure

My Comments: Many years ago a physician friend and fellow golfer told me that when you go to a doctor for a routine physical, it’s his or her job to find something wrong with you. If you don’t want to find that something IS wrong with you, then don’t go. But as the years pass …

Continue reading Death Is Not a Treatment Failure

Sine of the Times

My Comments: Many of you have read my comments about interest rates lately. (Yesterday!) For many, many months, the Fed has used its powers to keep them low to encourage economic growth. Now that growth is again endemic, sooner rather than later, pressures will exist to cause interest rates to increase. The chart at the …

Continue reading Sine of the Times