“Don’t tax you, don’t tax me, tax that fellow behind the tree!” This short verse is thought to be attributed to the late Louisiana Senator Russell Long. We recognize that “taxes are what we pay for a civilized society.” At…
We’ve all heard the complaints about the cost of living in the U.S. Grocery prices, for example, are up a punishing 25 percent from just a few years ago. Not to mention energy prices, housing, and so on. Consumer credit…
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”. You might recognize that as the opening line in Charles Dicken’s classic A Tale of Two Cities. That phrase might well apply to the U.S. economy. Despite relatively…
On Friday, May 17, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed slightly above the 40,000 level for the first time ever. This no doubt generated mixed feelings among investors. Many were exuberant this huge milestone had been reached. But certainly, some…
We recently adjusted our clocks by an hour to take advantage of longer daylight hours, a semi-annual ritual that many would like to eliminate. Let’s take a minute to roll the clock back on markets of the past few years.…
You may be familiar with the concept of a “fair” coin being used in a flip. If the coin is “fair,” there is an equal chance of a heads or tails outcome. If you flipped 100 times, you would expect…
No doubt most of you reading this are in the non-billionaire club. Nevertheless, here’s an interesting paradox laid out in the book, The Missing Billionaires by Victor Haghani and James White. Permit me to lay out the puzzle here. The…
Even if you’ve never seen the movie Terminator, you may recognize that famous catch phrase from Arnold Schwarzenegger in his unmistakable Austrian accent. If markets could speak, they might have said the same thing a year ago, “I’ll Be Back!”.…
You’ve no doubt heard of family foundations before, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation or the Walton Family Foundation. You’re probably under the impression that family foundations are reserved for wealthy families. Private foundations across the world contribute…
A friend of mine tells the story of her uncle going in for his annual checkup. The doctor examines him closely, runs a few tests and tells him, “Billy, if you don’t quit drinking, you’re gonna go blind!” To that,…
Are you tempted to buy that latest mutual fund you saw advertised on TV? Beware, it can be costly. And you probably don’t have a clue just how much! Ask the average person how to make money in stocks and…
An experiment I’ve used in presenting to groups of people is to fill up a jar with jelly beans and pass it around the room. I ask each person to estimate the number of jelly beans in the jar, then…
Members of Congress have more bosses than just about anybody else in the United States, over 750,000 to be exact! My bosses live in Rockwall, Texarkana, Sherman, and all across Northeast Texas. They are patriots, veterans, parents, teachers, healthcare workers,…
When Bill Clinton and Barak Obama were president, many members of Congress vehemently opposed their policies and politics. We truly believed they had bad ideas for America, but most of us did not question their mental acuity because we had…
Eighty-six-year-old James Murphy could not have been more pleased to get a phone call about three months ago from Assets International informing him that he and his two siblings were entitled to hundreds of thousands in mineral royalties that they…
