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 …
Tag: investments
A Major Surge in Atmospheric Warming Is Probably Coming in the Next Five Years
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
The Great Monetary Expansion
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 …
A Stand-in For The Fiduciary Standard?
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 …
GOP Lawmaker Hopes To Halt Fiduciary Push
My Comment: This push by the GOP is, in my opinion, more smoke and mirrors from those beholden to the lobbyists from Wall Street. The crux of this issue is that the people who run Wall Street firms do not want their rank and file representatives, the ones who work with people like you and …
Rate Hike Rally
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 …
Yellen’s problem with US felons
My Comments: We are a nation of approximately 316 million people, of which roughly 30% are “youth dependent” and 20% are “elderly dependent”. This leads me to assume that roughly half of us are capable of employment of some kind. The next assumption is that if the employable number of people is about 158 million, …
The Glass Ceiling on Rates
My Comments: I’ve recently shared this chart with you that shows the historical ups and downs on interest rates in this country going back 224 years. They have been trending down since 1981, a long time. Right now they are nearly zero. When this happened in the past, they began an upward climb until they …
When Patience Disappears
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 …
QLACs Change the Game in Social Security Timing
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
Helping Define Your Financial Future 