There are some events that have a generational impact on our nation. Some, like the 9/11 attack or Pearl Harbor, brought our nation together. Others, like the Vietnam War or the election of Donald Trump, pulled us apart. Clearly, the coronavirus is one of these events. While it’s easy to [...]
I’m a planner, I always have been. Perhaps it’s my pessimistic nature, but generally speaking, I assume things left to chance will turn out badly. For that reason I live by the credo “hope for the best, but plan for the worst.” As you might imagine, threats like the coronavirus [...]
Coronavirus is spreading around the globe and the world stock market has pulled back from the recent strong rally that started in the second half of 2019. It’s natural to be concerned from a health and wealth perspective. We have seen similar experiences in the past with SARS, bird flu, [...]
What a difference a year and a decade make! Last year at this time the market had quickly dropped 20% lower over recession and trade war fears. Fast forward a year and we are at all-time highs with record holiday spending, signed a newer version of NAFTA, and about to [...]
According to the Senate Special Committee on Aging, financial exploitation cost seniors nearly 3 billion annually. Although it is hard to obtain exact numbers because according to Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt only 1 in 24 cases gets reported. Since scammers are constantly changing their tactics, a comprehensive list of [...]
You might have noticed in recent years that the prevalence of payday loan storefronts has started to wane. According to the most recent information from the Missouri Division of Finance, since 2015 approximately one-third of active payday loan businesses in the state have closed. Even better, over the past decade [...]
Knowing how polarized we have become as a nation I usually make a concerted effort to avoid overtly political issues in my columns. But, as an unapologetic capitalist I felt the need to comment on the recent congressional approval of a $15 federal minimum wage and its potential economic impact. [...]
Last week, some family members and I drove to northern California and back. Never doing things the easy way, we drove 1900 plus miles in the first two days, enjoyed two days with extended family members, and drove 1900 plus miles on Friday and Saturday. Like the terrible joke about [...]
It was a little over a year ago that I opined on the sad news that a beloved part of my own childhood Toys R Us would be permanently shutting its doors. Recently, Sears declared bankruptcy and it would appear that another priceless piece of my childhood might soon be [...]
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards, observed Soren Kirkegaard, 19th Century Danish philosopher. Therefore, we must examine at least briefly what occurred during 2018 in the worldwide financial markets. As noted in prior columns, probabilities were high that it would produce a stock market [...]
