In February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, and at the time, conventional wisdom seemed to say that Russia was so massive and powerful and Ukraine so much smaller and not powerful that it would be a rather short conflict. Sixteen months later, the ultimate outcome still seems rather in doubt . . . particularly after this…
Allegedly, the United States will soon run out of money. Unless Congress quickly votes to increase the amount of debt we are authorized to issue (aka the “debt ceiling”), our country will soon be a very large global deadbeat. The largest global deadbeat in the history of the globe. We say “allegedly,” because every time…
A year ago today, the Federal Reserve began raising interest rates to fight inflation. And since then, the Fed has raised rates eight times (a total of 4.5%). Prior to this, we were in an environment where rates were held artificially low. And it was a wild world. Just like in 2008, when people were…
The most interesting technology grabbing headlines over the past couple of months is called ChatGPT. It is essentially a Google search on steroids. You can ask it anything and it will provide an answer, even answering in the style of your choosing (Southern drawl, Shakespearean prose, biblical, etc.). It can write poetry, solve math problems,…
This past year was the most difficult investment year in a long, long time. During previous bad markets, there were typically other asset classes (bonds?) that offset the decline in stock prices. For example, during the sub-prime mortgage crisis of late 2007 through early 2009, the stock market declined 55%, but there were other asset…
