Years ago now, in 2009 and following, I joined a small minority of economists critical of the Zero Interest Rate Policy chosen by Ben Bernanke and others in charge of the Federal Reserve Bank (Fed) to cure the Mortgage Bond crisis. The current crisis is a direct consequence of over [...]
While it will be several weeks before we have a clear picture on total retail sales this holiday season, we do know that it started very poorly with November sales numbers, typically the highest month of the entire year, actually dropping .6% when compared to October. Many on Wall Street have interpreted [...]
Recently the crypto industry was rocked to its core with the collapse of the third largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world FTX, and the still developing scandal revolving around the alleged securities fraud committed by its founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. With a value as high as 32 billion weeks [...]
With Halloween less than a week away, I thought there would be no better time to write an article on the undead. Yes, that’s right. This week I am going to opine on the topic of zombies and warn you all that a zombie apocalypse could be right around the [...]
In the 1980 presidential election debates, Ronald Reagan began his famous quip, Well . . . There you go again! Sometimes it seems we cannot learn from our mistakes. Today I will connect some dots of seemingly unrelated ideas and decisions that have made life in these United States more [...]
This past week on a straight party line vote, Democrats passed the Inflation Reduction Act. Among other things, the law will attempt to fight climate change and lower carbon emissions here in the US at a cost of roughly 370 billion. As someone who believes in the importance of stewardship, [...]
Over the past few years there has been a growing lifestyle movement amongst the Millennial and Gen Z groups called the FIRE movement. FIRE stands for Financially Independent Retiring Early. The basic strategy of this plan is to make and grow as much money as you possibly can early in [...]
While the stock and bond markets likely await their next downward legs and we are beset by political ads, I would like to talk about the state of citizenship in these United States. As a student of history, I remind myself regularly that our nation has suffered through presidents even [...]
Some folks talk about the good old days and seem to wish they could return to a younger period in their lives. I do not wish to return to any previous time—I would just make different and perhaps worse mistakes! But it seems to be an especially perilous world right [...]
A week ago today, I was sitting in a lounge chair, soaking up the sun somewhere between Miami Beach and the Bahamas. As a celebration of school being out and summer arriving, my family embarked on a week-long cruise of the Caribbean. The level of professionalism, and customer service employees [...]
