Earlier this week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced there were 9.286 million jobs available in the United States during April 2021. This was/is easily an all-time high, not even close. However, employers seem to…
Category: Common Cents Archive
This morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced the US economy created 559K net, new payroll jobs during May 2021. While this is a pretty gaudy number in absolute terms, it was still comfortably less…
In 2019, I compared the passing societal discourse in the United States to the disastrous Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China during the 1960s and 1970s. Unfortunately, I don’t feel as though the situation has noticeably…
About two months ago, I added Bitcoin to the data points we discuss during our morning call with client advisors. While we haven’t purchased cryptocurrencies for our clients, yet, they have been the topic of much…
This past Wednesday, around lunchtime, a couple of co-workers of mine and I found ourselves in Brentwood, TN, in a rental vehicle with the gas light illuminated. The estimated range before the car ran out of…
This morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced the US economy created 266K net, new payroll jobs during April 2021. Ordinarily, a number like this would elicit a shrug of the shoulders. It is pretty…
Yesterday, Bloomberg News leaked a story about the Biden Administration’s plan to increase the long-term capital gains tax rate for ‘high income earners’ to 39.6%. Couple this with the 3.8% surtax to help fund Medicare, and…
As anyone who has recently filled up their gas tank, made improvements to their home, built a house, or bought an appliance will tell you, inflation is back in full force. Their receipts don’t lie. Neither…
Over the last couple of months, Bessemer, Alabama, has made the headlines more times than it has in the last three decades combined. Once a largely blue-collar, middle-class suburb of Birmingham, the city has experienced declining…
People have continued to ask me how the explosion in deficit spending in Washington will ultimately impact the US economy. It is a great question, one which is on a lot of peoples’ minds, and for…