You’ve probably heard, in campaign speeches by Democratic Presidential contenders, that almost half of all Americans couldn’t cover a $400 emergency expense. Senators Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have all told audiences some version of this line. Basically, they’re saying that many of us couldn’t afford to pay for a flat tire or […]
Chances are that you know that the Social Security trust fund is due to run out of money or “deplete its reserves” by the year 2035. Fixing social security depends on some forecasts, including economic growth, number of workers who remain in the workforce and the number who retire. The clear point is that Congress […]
Luck or Skill? There’s an ancient question in the investment markets, which is affecting the marketplace in a variety of ways: is an active manager’s investment performance the result of luck or skill? The layperson’s answer would be obvious: anybody who has expertise and works hard at something should, eventually, produce results superior to what […]
Sometimes the popularity of a particular investment is driven by unexpected forces. One example, is the so-called SALT (state and local tax) limitation that was imposed in the recent tax legislation, which basically says that you can only deduct $10,000 on your federal tax return for state taxes, including state income and local property […]
We’ve been hearing for years that the Social Security trust fund will run out of money in 2034, and a close reading of the Social Security Administration’s Trustee Report projections ( https://www.ssa.gov/oact/TRSUM/ ) show what this would mean. The Estimates By that time, based on estimates of the number of people earning an income […]
Shifting Economic Balance Ever wonder how the balance of the world’s economies have changed over the last 120 years? Here’s a really interesting snapshot (see graphic), which shows the size of many countries’ stock markets at the beginning of the 1900s (as a percentage of the total), and as of the start of this year. […]
