As cost of severe storms increase, you must be prepared
The past few weeks have seen multiple hurricanes ravage the southeast portion of the United States, with states like Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas worst hit. I wish I could say the severity and frequency of these storms are anomalies, but sadly they are becoming the norm. According to the [...]
Going with economic data or going with your instincts
This past Friday, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics released its job numbers for September. To the surprise of many experts, the labor market added 254,000 jobs. This was substantially higher than the projected 150,000. Revisions to July and August numbers resulted in an additional 72,000 jobs for those months [...]
If you’re retired you may owe less state tax in 2024
I know many of you don’t want to hear this, but it’s about that time of year again. Time to start thinking about end of year tax planning. If you are retired or receiving Social Security benefits there are actually some things to be excited about as you project what [...]
Benefits of Capitalism
Two weeks ago I wrote about socialist thought creeping into our American life and psyche. One gentleman took my point about unconstitutional actions, like President Biden’s foolhardy and self-serving attempts to forgive everyone’s student loans, as a sign I disapprove of poor people. He proceeded to give me examples of [...]
Quality vs. Quantity: that is the question
There has been a debate raging for many years amongst associates in our firm about whether it is better to pay more for items of higher quality because they work better and last longer, or to buy lower priced items and pocket the difference in price. Regular readers can probably [...]
Socialism and Capitalism
One of the topics of American culture surfacing recently is that of increasing percentages of young people embracing socialism as a desirable policy for our future, as much as 40 plus percent. This is not terribly surprising to me since students do not most likely receive much if any financial [...]
The wrong way to lower prices
Recently while visiting my parents, my oldest son Ethan uncovered large amounts of the baseball cards I collected as a kid. While not a huge baseball fan himself, he does like money and recognized some of these cards might be valuable and began sifting through them to find cards he [...]
Focusing your attention on something real
While I am generally never afraid of sharing my faith in these columns, I also am cognizant of the fact that my beliefs aren’t necessarily shared by all of my readers so I try to keep my articles as secular as possible. However, recently my pastor, Neil Chesshir of One [...]
Delaying some taxes
As you know, death and taxes are a permanent feature of this present world. One good general principle is to delay paying taxes as long as possible, but other factors can override the tax considerations. After the past few years of changes, one must begin taking Required Minimum Distributions (RMD) [...]
Fed rates are static; Why are privates rates dropping?
Since March of 2022 the Fed has raised interest rates nearly a dozen times with the last quarter percent hike happening more than a year ago. Despite Chairman Powell’s insistence that rates must remain high to curb inflation, interest rates have been falling in recent weeks. In fact, according to [...]