You probably know exactly why people want to abandon the big cities of America. They look at rural states and towns with low taxes and low cost of living, and they see the freedom they expect America to provide. But in the big cities of America, when the government tries to solve problems of high rents and lack of housing, it actually makes them worse. The Wall Street Journal's editors explain how big-city governments are actually hurting their residents with overregulation of the housing market, writing: In a December 2019 working paper, Harvard and University of Pennsylvania researchers … [Read more...]
Don’t Let Tax-Free Wag Your Fixed Income Investments
When you read about crap muni bonds issued by Chicago, you see why they do not belong in your portfolio. The Editors at The Wall Street Journal write (abridged): In January Chicago shaved $310 million off this year’s deficit by issuing another $1 billion in sales-tax bonds to refinance outstanding GO bonds. Investors didn’t seem to care that the new bonds are subordinate to the previous tranche. Tax-exempt bonds maturing in 2040 yielded 2.4%, which is on par with the 30-year Treasury. We know investors are hungry for yield, but are they famished? Chicago’s budget woes are mounting, and … [Read more...]
You Invest, They Win: Ray Dalio Lives his “Best Life” on Your Fees
The founder of the largest hedge fund in the universe, Ray Dalio, tweeted this from Burning Man: Just back from Burning Man. Reminds me of Woodstock with better art (installations) and less good music. What a great vibe and what amazing creativity! Photo is with my pal and coworker Jeff Taylor at his great music camp Root Society. If you go next year, 1-5am is best. Are these the guys you want running your money? You invest, they win. But hey, it’s not about the money. It’s about saving the planet man. Because if it’s about the money (Dalio has a personal net worth of $19 billion) then … [Read more...]
Escape the City: Live Small, Cheap, and Safe in America
After decades of urbanization, Americans are beginning to rebel against the "bigger is better" mentality of city-living. Seeking a smaller, more affordable, sustainable, and secure lifestyle, some are venturing out from the mega-cities in search of a different life. A number of techniques have become popular in an effort to save, especially scaling down the size of one's home. Living small and saving big is even better when it's coupled with living in a state that treats you more like a human than an ATM machine it can withdraw money from. Carey L. Biron explains this trend at Thompson … [Read more...]
Your Retirement Life: Living Small and Saving Big
One of the first things you notice when moving from a high-tax coastal blue-state to a low-tax red-state is how much farther your money goes. You can buy a bigger house for example, but you don't need to. I’ve been following the small house movement for years and I enjoyed this piece written by Katherine Roth for the AP on finding one the “right” size. She writes: With the current trend toward de-cluttering and downsizing, there are plenty of books about how to winnow down possessions to the few that are truly necessary and loved. This book shows how you can live well once that’s … [Read more...]
You Need to Be Vigilant About Protecting Your Money
Despite the many protections offered to investors by the FTC, the SEC, the FDIC, and other alphabet soup government organizations, people are still tricked every day into giving away their hard-earned money. Last Friday, Jeff and Paulette Carpoff, two hucksters out of California, pleaded guilty to charges related to a Ponzi scheme they had been running hawking imaginary solar equipment. You need to be vigilant about protecting your money. Jacqueline Sergeant reports for Financial Advisor: According to the complaint, between 2011 and 2018, the Carpoffs offered and sold investment … [Read more...]
Alaskan Native Sees Right Through Goldman Sachs’ Righteous PR Stunt
In The Wall Street Journal, Mayor Harry Brower Jr., an Alaskan Native, calls out Goldman Sachs for the firm's recent PR announcement that it will no longer finance new oil projects in the Arctic. Brower pierces right through Goldman's argument that it is helping indigenous peoples with "stakeholder engagement." Brower is the mayor of the North Slope borough, a massive land area populated by many Alaskan natives, including Mr. Brower. Goldman, like BlackRock, is virtue signaling to its favored constituency, wealthy investors living in the elite enclaves of New York and San Francisco. Neither … [Read more...]
Your Survival Guy: The Koch Brothers’ Real Estate Empire
Your Survival Guy enjoyed this story in the WSJ: “The Koch Brothers Are Sitting on a Real Estate Empire Worth Hundreds of Millions” Katherine Clarke writes (abridged): Billionaire brothers Charles Koch and the late David Koch became known for their financial support of conservative and arts causes. But they, and their two brothers, Bill and Frederick, quietly built another legacy: hundreds of millions of dollars worth of high-end real estate. The four brothers have amassed some of the world’s most spectacular private homes, including a large waterfront compound on Massachusetts’ Cape Cod … [Read more...]
Don’t Let Your Retirement Dream Community Become a Nightmare
When it comes to your living situation in retirement, there are developments (literally) that may turn your idyllic retirement community into an “anywhere in the USA” suburb. As liberal states like California, crush the middle-class, neighboring states such as Idaho, and towns west of Boise like Star, pick up the slack, explains Dan Frosch in the WSJ: Over the past nine years, Star’s population has doubled to more than 10,000. Most of the growth has come from people like the Turnipseeds who uprooted from the West Coast to the greater Boise area—known as the Treasure Valley—drawn by the … [Read more...]
Cutting Carbon Emissions Won’t Stop Forest Fires
This week, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink told investors that his company, the world's largest asset manager, will make "sustainability"--corporate code for climate change reactionism--the "new standard for investing." Holman W. Jenkins explains in The Wall Street Journal that the climate change hysteria surrounding weather phenomenon like the Australian and Californian forest fires is misplaced. He writes: What about Australia’s and California’s wildfires? Some won’t want to hear it, but climate policy is not a solution for the problems of forest management, especially the need for controlled … [Read more...]
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