In what can only be described as a major shift in US monetary policy, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell announced late last week that the Fed will no longer attempt to keep inflation consistently at 2%. Instead they will attempt to hold inflation rates to an average of 2% over [...]
If you have been to any retail store in the past few months you have probably noticed a sign on the cash register that says something like “due to coin shortage exact change required” or “cash not accepted due to coin shortage” When I first saw one of these signs [...]
Amazon recently announced its plan to acquire many vacant Sears and J.C. Penney department stores in malls across America to use as distribution centers to assist in speeding up product deliveries to suburban customers. While not publicly announcing this, it would not surprise me if part of this strategy will [...]
One of the skills required to beating the stock market is having the vision to see what will likely happen next and not to focus on what already has. Generally, current market performance reflects what investors believe market conditions will look like six months from now. One of my favorite [...]
In my columns I often advise people to take the time to plan for the unforeseen. This week I have a personal story about something that happened to me last week that will hopefully serve as motivation to some of you as well. One week ago Friday I took my [...]
2020 has certainly been one for the history books. It seems like in all aspects of society we are more divided than ever before. Recently, this divide has manifested itself in silly debates about masks, garage pull-ropes, Russian Facebook ads, flag etiquette, and statues of Columbus. While many of these [...]
Pat Farrell, Owner of Sibley Orchards, once told me “The more you talk with people of different viewpoints, the clearer your own perspective becomes.” That simple statement has carried with me and seems to be very appropriate for the times we are living in right now. In our current information [...]
President John Adams once said, a problem is just an opportunity in disguise. Generally speaking, it is often during a crises that innovation comes. We need not look back too far in time to find primary examples of this. In 2003, during the height of the SARS epidemic, it was [...]
Several months ago, when Covid-19 was first starting to spread domestically, I wrote a column about the importance of having a plan in place should the virus get really bad here in the area. In all of my planning, the one thing I didn’t think to do was get a [...]
This is a scary time, not only has the coronavirus done great harm to our population’s physical health, it has also delivered a crushing blow to our financial health as well. While I am hopeful that the worst has now passed, the economic impact of this global pandemic has been [...]
