Don’t look now but with prices gone mad you can finally get something for nothing with your cash. Look at this yield curve. Lots to love. Get your lazy money off the couch. Get it earning some money. If you need help let’s talk. … [Read more...]
Archives for December 2022
SEC Signals Greater Regulation of Crypto “Casinos”
After the catastrophic collapse of the world's second largest cryptocurrency exchange, FTX, the SEC's Chairman, Gary Gensler, has signaled that his commission will be taking a harder line on cryptocurrency exchanges, tokens, hedge funds, and broker-dealers. Gensler made the comments about cryptocurrencies in an interview with Yahoo! Finance. When interviewer Jennifer Schonberger asked Gensler why the SEC didn't enforce the rules on the books regarding the collapse of FTX, Gensler responded: We are enforcing. The Securities and Exchange Commission, I couldn't be prouder. And it started under … [Read more...]
The Unintended Consequences of Governments Trying to Help
In 1986, President Ronald Reagan told assembled reporters in Illinois that "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’” He was talking about farm policy at the time, but the same types of unintended consequences that made 1980s agricultural policy a mess are being employed in labor markets today. Callum Borchers explains in The Wall Street Journal how a new initiative by New York on pay transparency could actually hurt pay equity by enticing firms to make the hiring process even more opaque. He writes: Almost every day, someone … [Read more...]
Your Survival Guy’s Christmas at Fort Wilderness
When I was a kid, we traveled across the country in a 21-foot Winnebago Brave (yes, we were). When I think about how we celebrated Christmas early to spend Christmas day at Fort Wilderness in Walt Disney World, it brings a smile to my face. Writing to you from New England, where snow has been slow to catch on, it’s nice thinking about those more tropical memories. Which brings me to investing. Memories don’t always happen without a plan. You invest in your family, and you believe that it will pay off down the road. That’s certainly been the case for my parents, who put my sister and me … [Read more...]
The IRS Is Putting Its New Army to Work
The Wall Street Journal's editorial board explains that the IRS will be putting its new army of 87,000 employees to work, turning out the pockets of regular Americans searching for their unreported side hustle incomes. They write: There’s a new job for those 87,000 new employees at the Internal Revenue Service, and it isn’t chasing billionaires. It’s digging around to discover if you reported that extra $600 you made from selling grandma’s heirlooms at your garage sale. The IRS is reminding Americans that the reporting rules have changed for payment-card and third-party payment network … [Read more...]
Vanguard Does a U-Turn on Investor Activism
After receiving pressure from investors and others, Vanguard has announced that it will withdraw from the Net Zero Asset Managers (NZAM) initiative. Brittany Bernstein reports in National Review: Vanguard announced Wednesday it is pulling out of the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative, an investment-industry effort to encourage fund firms to reach net zero emission targets by 2050. “We have decided to withdraw from NZAM so that we can provide the clarity our investors desire about the role of index funds and about how we think about material risks, including climate-related risks—and to … [Read more...]
Mike Rowe Alarmed at American Men Leaving the Workforce
You know that Your Survival Guy is a fan of Dirty Jobs host, Mike Rowe. Rowe is a proponent of the kind of hard work that made America the world's greatest economy. Rowe has recently raised the alarm over news that 7 million American men are no longer looking for work and have left the labor pool. Rowe recently discussed the problem with Brian Kilmeade. Watch the interview below: You can see on my chart below the long-term decline in male labor force participation in America, which has dropped from a peak of 87.4% in 1949 down to 68% today. During the same period of time, female … [Read more...]
FAILING UPWARD: Incoming Chicago Fed President Was Wrong about Inflation
Austan Goolsbee, a former Obama administration economist who currently teaches at the University of Chicago, has been tapped to replace Charles Evans as the President of the Chicago Federal Reserve. As Nick Timiraos reports in The Wall Street Journal, Goolsbee was among many economists who blamed supply chain issues for the rampant inflation of the last two years while discounting the role played by excessive fiscal stimulus. Timiraos writes: In the summer of 2021, Mr. Goolsbee was among the many economists who argued that increasing inflationary pressures were being driven primarily by … [Read more...]
BE PREPARED: Army Responds to Terrorist Attack Near Fort Bragg
The Army is working to respond to the results of a terrorist attack on a power station near Fort Bragg in North Carolina. Many soldiers and their families have been affected, and the power outages could last for some time. Residents of Moore County, including the Army personnel there, are facing a cash-only economy, with electric payments systems knocked out, and many are relying on local assistance for food and water. They could be facing days without electricity. The Army Times reports: Tens of thousands of people braced for days without electricity in a North Carolina county, which … [Read more...]
The West to Build Energy Future without China, Russia
The developed world is working to carve out an energy future that isn't reliant on Russian oil and gas or on Chinese solar panels. Camilla Hodgson reports in the Financial Times: Solar power is undergoing a boom as the energy crisis drives a shift to renewable energy following the war in Ukraine and is expected to surpass coal power by 2027, the International Energy Agency has forecast. Renewable energy overall will become the largest source of global electricity generation by early 2025, the IEA said, and the world will add twice as much renewable capacity from 2022 to 2027 as in the … [Read more...]