Pick your poison—oil, unemployment, earnings, –the markets suffered through a week of anxiety as investors fretted that we just might revisit the bad old days of 2008. Although I don’t think that is in the cards, I wouldn’t rule out further downside.

With the unemployment rate at 9.5% and an economy that continues to give mixed signals about a recovery, both economists and politicians are talking about the need for a second stimulus plan. I suggest it may be a good idea to first examine why the existing stimulus plan may not be working as well as [...]

As a fairly recent owner of a dog, my wife and I have suddenly taken an interest in how much this pooch is costing us. Sure we love him to death but pets can be expensive and all indications are that those costs are just going to go higher in the future. So if you’re [...]

How many times have I read or heard that the Social Security Trust Fund is in trouble? It’s like a skin rash that won’t go away. This week’s announcement that the fund will run out of money four years sooner than last year’s estimate, in 2037, is just more of the same. Sure, Americans want [...]

Bear market corrections usually end with a bottom. If you have been in the markets long enough you know what to expect. It is a grand finale of sorts where panic roars through the trading floor, grown men cry and fortunes are won or lost in seconds. Volume explodes, stocks markets make new lows, and [...]

The cap on compensation paid to top executives at companies that receive significant taxpayer money was passed this week. I suspect it will be greeted by a resounding round of applause from Main Street. Hopefully, it marks the end of an era that has brought shame, if not repentance, to Wall Street.

Events are unfolding or unraveling so quickly that even the morning’s newspapers are largely outdated by the time I sit down at my desk. Given that, the period between Election Day, the first Tuesday of November, and January 20th, Inauguration Day, worries me. The typical presidential transition requires eleven weeks. That feels like a lifetime [...]

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