Key Numbers as You Plan for 2024 Are you familiar with how our federal tax code originated? In 1909, progressives in Congress attached a provision for an income tax to a tariff bill. Hoping to kill the idea for good, conservatives proposed enacting such a tax as they believed 75% of states would never ratify a…
Happy New Year! I trust everyone had a wonderful holiday season. Whether you reached your personal goals last year or faced challenges, a new year brings new opportunities and a fresh start. More and more, people are using their credit cards to pay for trips and holidays. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this.…
You know Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, and Vixen…but do you recall the most famous reindeer of all? I’m referring, of course, to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. And yes, I know what you’re thinking: everyone knows Rudolph. But do you know the actual story behind everyone’s favorite flying deer? Until recently, all I knew were the…
The end of the year will be here in no time! Here are 15 year-end questions for you to consider. Not all will apply to you. Some of you will have others specific to your situations. Are my estimated tax payments current? Should I make a Roth or IRA contribution before year-end? What about…
Questions You Were Afraid To Ask The only bad question is the one left unasked. That’s the premise behind many of my recent letters. Each covers a different investment-related question that many people have but are afraid to ask. In the next few messages of the series, I want to address some questions I’ve…
Thanksgiving Proclamation November 5th, 1963. Exactly one hundred years after Abraham Lincoln issued his first Thanksgiving proclamation – officially cementing it as a national holiday – President John F. Kennedy gave a Thanksgiving proclamation of his own. It was an address brimming with gratitude for our country’s past and optimism for its future. Here…
Happy Veteran’s Day! When Dr. Harold Brown was young, he dreamed of flying. So, he worked hard as a “soda jerk,” making ice cream sodas at the local drugstore every afternoon to save up enough money for flight school. Eventually, he amassed a grand total of $35…enough for seven lessons. It was the…
What Are the Potential Benefits? What Are the Drawbacks? If you own a traditional IRA, perhaps you have thought about converting it to a Roth IRA. Going Roth makes sense for some traditional IRA owners, but not all. Why go Roth? There is an assumption behind every Roth IRA conversion – a belief that income…
We’ve all watched as Hamas, a designated terrorist group (per the U.S. and European Union), launched an appalling, unwarranted, and gut-wrenching attack on Israeli citizens. For many, real emotions surface and have their place. But for today it may be interesting to see how the last 23 geopolitical events since Pearl Harbor have affected…
The concepts in this Wall Street Journal article are not understood by most Americans. If they were, it’s hard to believe we would allow it. Here’s the short version of the latest scheme to lay more debt on the American public. The twelve Federal Reserve member banks have accumulated almost $93 billion in…