Debt Ceiling: What happens if our Nation defaults?
In light of the escalating debt crises in Washington, I have recently been asked by several clients why this keeps happening, and what will happen if a deal doesn’t get struck? Today, I thought I would give a very brief explanation for why our politicians are seemingly always arguing about [...]
Managing Risk
The late great baseball legend, Yogi Berra, is credited with this quotation: It is tough to make predictions, especially about the future! If there were a perfect field for applying this, investing must be it. Our viewpoint (and that of our favorite economists at First Trust Advisors, LP) remains that [...]
Credit card debt burdening more Americans
A recent survey from Bankrate made headlines recently with some startling new information about the financial condition of the average American. According to the study, a record number of people now have more credit card debt than they have emergency savings. In fact, over a third of all respondents (36%) [...]
Beware of those promising quick riches
This probably won’t come as a shock to those of you who regularly read my column, but I am a big fan of talk radio. While making the commute to and from work each day I enjoy getting information about what is happening both locally and nationally through this medium. [...]
ChatGPT could not only change how work is done but who does it
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the potential dangers posed to US white collar jobs as technological advances continue to make it easier to outsource these jobs to countries where labor is significantly cheaper. While I do believe those dangers are real, another potential threat to our labor [...]
Confused about ESG? : PART II
The promises of ESG do not match the performance Ours is a world of paradox. Things like facts you recently thought were settled long ago are now suspect or judged to be incorrect based upon eyes of the beholders. (We will not dwell upon the fact that the most recently [...]
You Need A Partner During Scary Times
The past month or so have been quite volatile with the recent failures of several regional banks include Silicon Valley Bank. While things have seemed to stabilize in the past couple of weeks, it did serve as yet another reminder that the world of finance can be a scary one. [...]
Are American White Collar Jobs at Risk?
As our economy has increasingly become globalized over the past several decades there have certainly been many winners and many losers here in America. While I would argue that increased international trade generally has been a net positive for the prosperity of our nation, it is also a fact that [...]
Confused by ESG? : PART I
In the 20th Century, many important investing principles developed including asset allocation for diversity and the efficient market hypothesis. More recently, politics has risen to cause a shift in the desired measurement of economic welfare. The trendy newcomer is ESG. What is that? ESG is the acronym of Environmental, Social [...]
Blog Post 3/14: Government Induced Crisis #?
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 [...]