2024

Fiduciary Duty: The Bedrock of Trust in Our Business

August 5, 2024

In the wake of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis (GFC), the financial services industry underwent a comprehensive review, leading to significant regulatory reforms. Among these, the emphasis on fiduciary duty for Registered Investment Advisors (RIAs) emerged as a critical differentiator…

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Mortgaging America’s Future

July 29, 2024

Short term drama tends to distract attention from long term thinking. There is no current shortage of short-term drama when it comes to American daily life. So, we should ask: what long-term issues are being downplayed, or outright ignored, as…

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Cybersecurity Snafu

July 22, 2024

Last week a significant IT outage rippled through global systems, which ironically was triggered by a defect within a software update made by the global cloud cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. The update caused approximately 8.5 million Microsoft 365 cloud devices around…

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A Burning Out Consumer?

July 15, 2024

In the summer, conversations with friends and acquaintances often lead to the topic of travel plans. With schools on break and the days warmer and longer, many families opt to hit the highways or the tarmac in the summer months.…

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A Storm Is Brewing

July 8, 2024

Last Tuesday, Hurricane Beryl made landfall on Grenada’s Carriacou Island in the Caribbean as a Category 5 storm. This event marks the earliest recorded Category 5 hurricane to develop in the Atlantic, signaling a very early start to the hurricane…

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The Value of the Roll: Equity Rollovers in Business Sales

July 1, 2024

Selling a business is a challenging decision. Often, the seller is so committed to their business that they would like to continue to benefit from growth after the sale. There is a solution: an equity rollover. An equity rollover occurs…

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China from the Inside

June 24, 2024

The following “Weekly” has been contributed by a Chinese citizen living in Shanghai. We are keeping the name of the author anonymous. “China is a large country with a long history and many people.” This sentence succinctly summarizes Chinese society.…

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Fertility Rates, Immigration Policy, and the Have-Nots

June 17, 2024

Demographic trends in the industrial parts of the developed world are fascinating to follow. Several factors contribute to a country’s ability to grow and expand its GDP, including the availability of health, housing, education, and leisure resources. Historically, a major…

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The Politics of Apartment Rent

June 10, 2024

Recently a major landlord company in Atlanta was raided by the FBI as part of a nationwide investigation into apartment rent price-fixing. What began in 2022 as a class action suit by renters in several states has now escalated into…

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Who are you, man, who are you really?

June 3, 2024

In the 1987 movie Barfly, Micky Rourke’s character is a soul-searching alcoholic who hangs out in bars pondering life’s mysteries. “Who are you?” a patron asks. “Ah, the eternal question” is Rourke’s response. On the 1976 album “One More from…

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