Labor Day – Valuing Those Who Work and the Quiet Dignity of Work Itself
I was traveling through southern Minnesota. It was 2:30pm and it had already been a long day. Some days are like that, just a little more taxing than others. The clients and the client meetings had been fine, but the outside world seemed to be crumbling while I drove. Half a world away, Afghanistan was falling to the Taliban, […]
What Capitalism Does
We’re halfway through 2021, and it’s safe to assume most investors are pleased with the performance of their accounts. Financial markets behaved well the first six months of the year and especially favored larger dividend paying stocks. Fine by me as I favor them as well. So, why have financial markets favored larger dividend paying […]
Thoughts About Inflation
Anyone who’s bought anything recently knows… prices are going up. I used to pay about $25 for a tank of gas for my Honda CR-V, now I pay about $35. My grocery bill is up maybe $10 more every week, and the quote I received from my remodel contractor was more than what it would’ve […]
Our Post-COVID Economy
So, what have we won? What have we gained with our lockdowns, breakthroughs in vaccines, loss of life, the distances kept from friends and family? I hope a better world, but I’ll settle for a safer today. Safer than this time last year, maybe not as safe as this time two years ago. So, the world starts again. For myself, […]
2020 Tax Filing Extended – What You Need To Know
Apparently in 2021, the early, tax-filing bird doesn’t always get the worm. Earlier in March, the Internal Revenue System announced they would extend the 2020 tax filing deadline to May 17, 2021 for tax filing, income payments, and also IRA contributions. However, because state deadlines may be different, taxpayers should still contact their local tax […]
GameSTUMPED
As if the year 2020 wasn’t interesting enough for markets, the GameStop and Reddit frenzy made for a unique start to 2021. For those of you who may not know what I’m referring to, here’s a (very) brief summary: an internet chatroom on the site “Reddit” helped influence a surge in the stock price of GameStop, an American video game and electronics […]
Marriage and Paperwork
Many of you already know this, but on December 12th I got married to my husband, Nate. We had a beautiful, snowy wedding day, intimate in that only 15 people were present (originally the guest list was much larger, but as we all know, COVID threw a wrench in our 2020 plans), but Nate and […]
The Failure In Our Public Utilities
Wildfires throughout California last year bedeviled that state’s utility companies. Unable to adapt their power grids, utilities forced upon their customers brown-outs and shut downs of the sort usually reserved for third-world countries. Fires caused by under-maintained systems resulted in deaths and massive loss of property. Some folks made political hay from California’s woes. After-all, […]
What of a Biden Presidency?
Let’s talk about presidents, but let’s not talk politics…. please. President Biden is the seventh president elected to serve during my career as an Investment Adviser, and the twelfth president elected to serve during my lifetime (I was born when America still “liked Ike”). Six Republicans and six Democrats. Out of those twelve presidencies, with […]
A Few Thoughts at Year-End
Over the last 35 years spent in the investment business, I’ve had the pleasure of working with a lot of young people. Two thoughts I often find myself sharing with them are these; First, remember that the most important year of your career will not be this year, but rather next year, and that anything […]