Your Survival Guy

Preparing your investments and family for when disaster strikes.

Disclosure

Biden Said He’d Only Tax the Rich, but This Will Hurt Everyone

By

You can read here about the negative impacts of a Biden administration tax increase on dividends. In summary, a higher tax on dividends motivates companies not to pay them. My take? Stock-rich executives and the largest shareholders don’t want to fork over half the payout in taxes. Pinar Cebi Wilber writes in The Wall Street Journal: The Biden administration has released a flurry of tax proposals, including a headline-grabbing tax hike on capital gains that would apply retroactively from April. Dividends would be subject to the same treatment, according to a recently released Treasury … [Read more...]

Oil Shock: Countries with the Largest Oil Reserves

By

I found this eye-opening. From Zerohedge.com: Oil is a natural resource formed by the decay of organic matter over millions of years, and like many other natural resources, it can only be extracted from reserves where it already exists. The only difference between oil and every other natural resource is that oil is well and truly the lifeblood of the global economy. The world derives over a third of its total energy production from oil, more than any other source by far; and, as Visual Capitalist's Anshool Deshmukh details below, as a result, the countries that control the world’s … [Read more...]

Inside Real Estate Market: This Bubble’s Popped Baby

By

Your Survival Guy’s been watching lumber prices. I reported here and here that much of the increase was due to a bottleneck at sawmills. (There’s plenty of trees, just no excess capacity at the mills creating finished lumber.) Lumber futures reached a high of $1,711.20 per thousand board feet in May. On Tuesday, July futures were down to $1,009.90, off 41% from the record high. Ryan Dezember reports in the WSJ: The rapid decline suggests a bubble that has burst and the question is how low lumber prices will fall. Even after tumbling, lumber futures remain nearly three times what is typical … [Read more...]

COVID Was a Retirement Stress Test: Did You Pass?

By

You're probably feeling pretty good about your retirement after getting tested by COVID-19. You've been saving until it hurts your whole life. That's why my favorite investment is Y-O-U. Relying on yourself to work to make money, and then investing to save it, is the best way to ensure that an inflated stock market, or a pandemic crash, don't determine your destiny. You have read my warnings about the number of people who are confident in their retirement plan. At near record highs, the numbers beg some skepticism. New data have come out from CNBC that suggest at least some retirees are … [Read more...]

Americans Fleeing High Tax States for Growth Corridors

By

You already know that America's growth corridors are where the action is for businesses who want to keep their own money and thrive. The Census has confirmed as much, and the economic numbers do too. Now the IRS is coming in with another analysis to put the final nail in the coffin for high tax states. The Wall Street Journal explains that new IRS data show vast income losses for high tax states, with low tax, growth corridor states the winners in the migration trend. Allysia Finley and Kate LaVoie report: New IRS data compiled by research outfit Wirepoints illustrate the flight from high- … [Read more...]

Profit and Power Drive Environmentalism on Wall St. and in Washington

By

It used to be rare that regulators in Washington D.C., and money men on Wall St. would find common cause, but that has changed in an era when the government is so big, its subsidies alone drive the profits of many businesses. Big Wall St. firms like BlackRock have found a way to turn Washington into a profit machine. The Biden administration is loaded with former BlackRock employees. Do you think they left their high-paying jobs on Wall St. to do what's best for the farmers of Iowa or the fishermen of Maine? No, they came to Washington to grease the skids for policies that will make … [Read more...]

EGO: BlackRock CEO Goes Woke with Investor Money

By

You have read about Larry Fink using your money for everything but profit. His use of ESG investing, i.e. using investor funds like a piggy bank to push his environmental and social agenda, hurts Fink's trustworthiness. It's not about investors, it's about Fink's ego. At Real Clear Markets, Peter Flaherty has written a brutal takedown of Fink and his self-promotional behavior. He writes: Last week, Exxon Mobil, one of the world's largest publicly traded international oil and gas companies, lost a critical board fight with Engine No.1, a “woke” small investor group. The win was predictably … [Read more...]

You Invest, They Win: America’s Woke Money Men

By

While Joe Biden wants to raise your taxes, even when you're dead, the woke hedge fund and endowment managers are reaping the rewards of their special treatment. They're using your money for everything but what you need, profit. In a lengthy piece at The American Mind, J.D. Vance, (author of Hillbilly Elegy, and probable candidate for Senate in Ohio where he grew up and runs his business) explains how endowments and funds avoid taxes and use that subsidy as ammunition to attack America itself. He writes: Finally, the allocators of capital themselves are going woke. Across our country we have … [Read more...]

Biden Is Planning To Rob the Dead

By

Americans know that Joe Biden wants to raise their taxes, but they might not realize he'll be coming for their money even after they're dead. In The Wall Street Journal, Richard Rubin and Rachel Louise Ensign outline Biden's plan, writing: President Biden has proposed raising the top capital-gains tax rate to 43.4% from 23.8% and taxing appreciated assets at death as if they had been sold. Under current law, appreciated assets held until death escape the income tax. Heirs pay capital-gains taxes only when they sell and only on gains since the prior owner’s death. Tax lawyers are looking … [Read more...]

If This Man Thinks Inflation is Back, Worry

By

You have been telling me about the inflation you're seeing in your life. It's not good. Inflation can throw all the calculations of a well-planned retirement into chaos. Even people who are still working need to readjust in the face of higher prices. When those old dollars you saved after working hard aren't worth as much as you'd thought they'd be, life gets trickier. Now, Roger Bootle, the man who officially declared inflation dead in a 1996 book title The Death of Inflation: Surviving and Thriving in the Zero Era (no relation to my monthly Survive & Thrive newsletter, which you can … [Read more...]