Joe Biden and the Democrats in Congress are trying to kill the Right to Work laws passed in 27 of America's states. Those laws protect workers from forced unionism, and Biden wants to take that freedom away from American workers forever using a proposal known as the Pro Act. Mark Mix explains at Real Clear Markets: The “PRO-Act” would make it easier for union bosses to capture entire workplaces with little worker support, and kill all 27 state Right to Work laws so workers everywhere could be forced to pay union dues or fees just to get or keep a job. The bill would radically reduce … [Read more...]
Archives for April 2022
Are the Days of Getting Rewarded for Taking Reckless Risks Over?
Jason Zweig writing at the WSJ points out that taking bigger risks to make up for lower prospective returns may not pay off. Emphasis is ours. With U.S. stocks off more than 7% and the bond market down almost 9% so far this year, many investors seem to feel they have to take more risk to catch up. In fact, you should take less. In unforgiving markets, it’s harder to recover from mistakes. Over the past decade or more, stocks, bonds, real estate and cryptocurrencies—just about every asset—boomed. You often got rewarded for reckless risks and, even if you got punished, rising markets helped … [Read more...]
Retirees Can’t Keep Up with Biden’s Inflation
You've heard from Your Survival Guy that you need to save til it hurts, and that if you love what you do at work you should keep doing it. I'm not saying those things for no reason. Retirement is getting harder by the day as inflation drives up the cost of living. Americans on fixed incomes are having a hard time keeping up. Rodney Mock and Larry Gorman, two professors from Orfalea College of Business at Cal Poly, explain the predicament many seniors find themselves in today with inflation surging. They write in The Hill: If one does not account adequately for inflation, visions of retirement … [Read more...]
Raise Taxes to Lower Inflation?
After jamming an unneeded stimulus program through congress and turbo charging inflation, Biden and his allies on the left have come up with a plan solve the inflation problem they helped create. They want to raise your taxes. The WSJ points out the folly in such an approach. The same policy wizards who brought you soaring inflation are now offering what they claim is a solution to inflation: Raise taxes. Our advice is to consider the source and the economic record their previous advice produced. Democrats are desperate to salvage something from their Build Back Better agenda after Joe … [Read more...]
The Dangers of a Federal Reserve Digital Currency
At the Cato Institute, Norbert Michel explains how central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) are about control. He writes about the dangers of such a creation: As a starting point, I want to distinguish between a wholesale CBDC and retail CBDC. With a wholesale CBDC, banks can electronically transact with each other using a liability of the central bank. Because that is essentially what banks do now, transact and settle (electronically) using reserve accounts held at the Fed, there aren’t very many new and interesting wholesale CBDC policy issues. (Basically, the Fed has had a wholesale CBDC … [Read more...]
Who will be the next FAANG to fall?
The FAANG stocks have dominated market headlines and driven a significant portion of the return on the S&P 500 over the last five years. But the sheen finally appears to be wearing off. The first signs of a change in sentiment started with smaller growth firms or the ARK Innovation ETF type stocks. Think Zoom, Docusign, Teledoc, Roku, etc. The ARK Innovation ETF peaked in February of last year. It fell sharply in the second quarter of last year and today it sits 67% below its all-time high. The FAANGs were spared in the early stages of the technology / high growth bust and some … [Read more...]
Young’s Retirement Compounders Clearly Dominate!
Two decades ago, I developed the Retirement Compounders (RCs) as a portfolio to hold through thick and thin. Concentration is on dividends and on compound interest. Expectations are justifiably modest. The Prudent Man Rule overrides all. This year, 2022, has caught most investors unprepared. The results have been pretty horrifying. Here is what I mean: The S&P 500 Total Return: -12.0% YTD. The NASDAQ: -20.0% YTD. By contrast the RC’S have held steady .The story line here, as it always is, Dividends. The Retirement Compounders (dividends/compounding-based): … [Read more...]
The IRS Wants to Count Your Pennies
Did you sell those old baseball cards on eBay? How about those crochet designs you've sold on Etsy? What about those cheesecakes you've been selling to your neighbors on Venmo? If you made more than $600, they'll be sending your name to the IRS. Laura Saunders reports at The Wall Street Journal: Now that your 2021 taxes are done—or at least under way—it’s time to focus on a key tax change for 2022 affecting millions of Americans making money through platforms like eBay, Etsy, Airbnb, Venmo and Uber. This change, which is beginning to ripple through e-commerce, tightens the tax reporting on … [Read more...]
BMW Sticks to Familiar in EV Transition
BMW is sticking with its existing models in the transition to EVs. Unlike some competitors, BMW will offer existing models powered with electric, hybrid, or internal combustion engine. Competitor Mercedes is using an entirely new chassis for the electric version of its flagship S-class sedan. The FT has more. The two identical BMW saloons driven slowly on to a stage in Munich last week were met with confusion from the assembled crowd. Until an executive at the launch event pointed to them individually, it was unclear which car was electric, and which carried a traditional petrol … [Read more...]
The Anti-ESG Movement Has Begun
You have read here, here, here, and elsewhere from Your Survival Guy about the dangers posed by ESG investing. Now a movement of investors is working hard to push back against it. An initiative fostered by the Job Creators Network Foundation, the Free Enterprise Project, and Second Vote, has created The Boardroom Initiative "to defend shareholders, employees, and communities from “woke” policies at corporations and ensure corporate accountability." In a press release they explain: By increasingly wading into the culture wars, companies threaten shareholder returns and retirement security for … [Read more...]
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