My Comments: I must confess to being tired of all the crap going on in politics, whether its local, state, national or international. Increasingly my opinions, concerns, fears, hopes, expectations, etc., seem irrelevant. The temptation is to walk away and try to ignore it. That’s an emotional response and there’s a parallel with my universe …
Continue reading Barack Obama’s Gamble on the Future of Iran
My Comments: This is a topic about which I know relatively little. But it’s real, people do make money, sometimes lots of it, and over the few years since the crash that started in 2008, some folks have made tons of money. The dramatic opportunities are probably behind us for a while as after several …
My Comments: It’s fairly easy to paint Wall Street as a villain in almost any article that deals with the management of money for the vast majority of Americans. After all, they typically act in their own best interest, which may or may not coincide with what's in my best interest. But that’s the American …
My Comments: I claim no technical expertise regarding meteorological events. But I do get alarmed when certain people get put in critical decision making roles who have less expertise than I do. People like the Senator from Oklahoma who is now the leading advocate in the US Congress regarding what to do about climate change. …
Continue reading A Major Surge in Atmospheric Warming Is Probably Coming in the Next Five Years
My Comments: Dozens of emails cross my desk daily, some promoting stuff that is clearly not relevant, many with a narrow focus that is largely self-serving, few of them truly informative. Those that come from Scott Minerd and Guggenheim Partners are usually worth paying attention to. They’re not too long, and they seem to have …
My Comments: I apologize for continuing to push this issue. But as a fiduciary, I’m bound to give advice that results in what is best for the client, legally, morally and ethically. That Wall Street firms resist this is not in your best interest. Meanwhile, I received an angry call this week from a group …
My Comments: Interest rates and where they are going is a relatively hot topic. For those of you with savings accounts and Certificates of Deposit know, the returns you get are anemic at best. But if you need to borrow money for whatever reason, low interest rates are good. Since there is an expectation that …
My Comments: We’ve talked extensively about the likelihood of a market correction, if not a crash, coming in the near future, maybe this year. What many have not talked about are the implications of a rise in interest rates. This is going to happen, given that they’ve been on a downward trend for twenty plus …
My Comments: If you know about Social Security plannning, as I claim to do, the prevailing wisdom is to delay taking your benefits for as long as possible. The argument is that each year you wait, you increase the size of your payments by 8%, even before the expected annual increase due to inflation. What …
Continue reading QLACs Change the Game in Social Security Timing
My Comments: Social Security payments are a critical financial component of many lives these days. When it began in 1935, there was much gnashing of teeth among the political parties since it represented a recognition by the government that some people needed help. This was in a world recovering from the Great Depression and watching …
Helping Define Your Financial Future 