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Friday, August 24, 2018

I converse with clients and prospective clients all day, almost every day. It's what I do. It's how I learn, and how I provide service. It is not, however, how I build or manage portfolios. For the better part of the past two years,...

 

Friday, August 17, 2018

David Cameron was Prime Minister of The United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016. During his tenure, tax rates were lowered, regulatory burdens on business were reduced, the national budget deficit was cut by nearly 70%, welfare was reformed,...

 

Thursday, August 2, 2018

For upwards of 100 years, oil has been the world's preeminent energy source. For much of that time, until the late 1960's, America was the foremost producer and exporter. Then, thanks to a prolonged period of over-regulation and price...

 

Friday, July 27, 2018

A Review of The Telomere Effect, by Elizabeth Blackburn, PhD and Elissa Epel, PhD, Grand Central Publishing, 2017. I finished reading The Telomere Effect, by Elizabeth Blackburn, PhD. and Elissa Epel, PhD. on April 25, 2017. I...

 

Friday, July 20, 2018

When Pigs Fly It's been a while since I commented on one of my favorite industries, namely energy. I've been diverted by my new fascination with age-related science and biotechnology. I hope you've gotten some value from recent posts...

 

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Friday, July 13, 2018

In the July edition of our print newsletter Flourishing, I said that I expect biological science and clinical medicine to stage a breakout similar to the transformation we’ve seen over the past fifty years in information...

 

Friday, July 6, 2018

As I’ve said before, Donald Trump wasn’t my first choice to be America’s forty-fifth president. Watching the Republican primary debates, I gave him no chance at being the nominee, much less Commander-in-Chief. But,...

 

Friday, June 29, 2018

“One of the most promising new fields of science and medicine is the area of cell therapies and their use in regenerative medicine. These new technologies, most of which are in early stages of development, hold significant...

 

Friday, June 22, 2018

Sometime in early July, Sweetie and I will become great-grandparents to one Ruby Ann Mae Stelter Ingalsbe. She will be the firstborn daughter of our firstborn granddaughter. Ruby is a lucky girl. She will have a family who loves and...

 

Friday, June 15, 2018

The word "Hero" has many connotations. And, real heroes - as opposed to sports legends and movie stars - rarely think of themselves that way. If they do, it's only after their actions have been lauded by people they respect. Even then,...

 

Friday, June 8, 2018

When I was fifteen years old, the furthest thing from my mind was what my life would be like at seventy. I thought I would go to college and study engineering. I wanted to build roads and bridges, perhaps because I-70 was under...

 

Friday, June 1, 2018

Silicon Valley, among other American centers of technological innovation, is infamous for its high percentage of immigrant (notably from India and China) engineers and scientists. Many American companies also utilize call centers...

 

Friday, May 25, 2018

I will never forget the day that I decided to grow up. I was seventeen years old, and in my senior year at Hays High School. I had been caught sneaking out of school to smoke a cigarette. My punishment was that I received an...

 

Friday, April 20, 2018

Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook have been in the news lately. That’s not unusual, but this time it wasn’t about Zuckerberg being filthy stinkin’ rich, but about his using Facebook to further political ends – some...

 

Wednesday, April 18, 2018

Barbara Bush was the wife of an American president and the mother of another, a distinction shared only with Abigail Adams, whose husband John and son John Quincy were America’s second and sixth presidents. Like Abigail Adams,...

 

Friday, April 6, 2018

“It isn’t that China cannot hurt the Americans on trade, just that they can’t without causing themselves catastrophic damage. It is an America-sneezes-China-gets-Ebola sorta thing.” ~Peter Zeihan, March 25, 2018...

 

Thursday, March 29, 2018

Last week I mentioned two books by Peter Zeihan, The Accidental Superpower (2014) and The Absent Superpower (2016). The second of those two books was written during the 2016 election season, and published in the days after it was known...

 

Friday, March 23, 2018

Today, I’m following up on my recent posting The President’s Trade Gambit. Specifically, I’ve just read two books that touch on this subject (nationalism/protectionism) from a geopolitical and historical perspective....

 

Friday, March 16, 2018

In the most recent edition of our print newsletter Flourishing (watch for it in your mail), I gave the Trump Administration a pat on the back for favorable economic policies during their first year in office. Since that was written,...

 

Saturday, March 10, 2018

I’m writing this post on the afternoon of February 21, 2018. Contrary to my own best advice, I’m watching the stock market. A couple of hours ago, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) was up 150 points. Suddenly, a...

 

Thursday, March 1, 2018

If you are below a certain age, the moniker ‘Indispensable Man’ may not be familiar to you. But, for those of us grew up in the 1950’s and earlier, the title is synonymous with the name George Washington. (I attended...

 

Friday, February 16, 2018

“Life is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes. You must look into that storm and shout as you did in...

 

Tuesday, December 19, 2017

Tip: How Much? Check your Social Security earnings and see an estimate of your benefits on the Web site, www.ssa.gov. Social Security’s been a fact of retirement life ever since it was established in 1935. We all think we know...

 

Friday, November 17, 2017

“Often people ask how I manage to be happy despite having no arms and no legs. The quick answer is that I have a CHOICE. I can be angry about not having limbs, or I can be thankful that I have a purpose. I chose gratitude.”...

 

Wednesday, November 1, 2017

In the last two weeks’ emails, I’ve whined about the growing generational divide between those who receive Social Security benefits and those who are forced to pay them. As one who is now both paying and receiving, I think...

 

Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Last week, I opined on the future of Social Security. I predicted that future retirees (perhaps some in the boomer generation) with substantial income from other sources would be “means tested”, meaning that their benefits...

 

Friday, October 13, 2017

This chart shows the so-called Full Retirement Age (FRA), which is the age at which you’re entitled to your full monthly Social Security benefit, a pension based on your earnings history. Many boomers see their FRA as the time...