The INSIGHTS Blog

This January our national government will have an almost complete turnover of power from one party to the other. Let’s see what most likely stays the same, what changes and what might get smashed.

I’ve written about this on several occasions. I keep coming back to it because it’s important. Somehow Republicans have managed to cement themselves in the public’s mind as the better party for the economy. It’s a myth that’s really far from the truth and understanding this could be very important to your financial health.

In the worldwide community of investment professionals there’s a lot of talk about discipline.  Humans are emotional creatures.  We like to think our decisions are logical.  Almost certainly that’s because we use logic in the decision-making process.  But often the use of logic is less in making the decision and more in justifying the decision that you made based on emotion.  And so, in these cases logic ends up masking the emotional basis for our decision. 

In recent years, many Republicans have taken to complaining about the Biden Economy. They see that as a negative and complain about how bad things are, forgetting - intentionally or unintentionally - the last recession was during President’s Trump’s term in office, unemployment remained below 4% longer than at any time in the last 50 years, and inflation in the US is lower than the rest of the G-7 nations. Emotions, political opinions, and investing don't mix.

Many of you may not know that in addition to being a Financial Advisor, I am also a freelance professional photographer. When I photograph a wedding, I take two cameras, a wide variety of lenses, at least two of each kind of light, four light stands, and so on. Wherever possible, I have at least two of everything, and sometimes more. The reason I do this is because things break. And they are most likely to break when you are using them.

In George Orwell’s classic novel, 1984, he imagined numerous linguistic manipulations. The fictitious government wanted everyone to use Newspeak. As Orwell imagined it, the government imposed a way of speaking in order to control people’s ability to think critically. In May a Guardian/Harris poll about the economy was released. It found that 56% of Americans think we’re in a recession. I have to stop right there and after I’m done shaking my head, point out that no, we are not in recession.

We’re emotional creatures, whether we wear our emotions on our sleeve or not. And when it comes to our money and personal finances, our emotions don’t magically go away. Quite the contrary. Money is personal and it can be very emotional.

There have been 16 recessions and 1 depression. The Great Depression and 12 of the 16 recessions started during Republican administrations. Further – either a recession or a depression occurred during every Republican administration of the last 100 years. Why?

This November you are going to make a choice about who you think is better for the economy, a Republican or a Democrat. There are other reasons to choose one way or another, but I have no expertise about defense, security, education, immigration, etc. So, I will restrict the discussion to the economy.

In the 1980s I was a real estate entrepreneur.  I bought apartment buildings in need of attention, gave it to them and in a few years sold the buildings at a profit. In 1982 I purchased my biggest ever building, a 90-unit apartment building in West Philadelphia. It was in need of a great deal of repair, but it was also mostly occupied by rent-paying tenants. The building was originally built in 1928 and it turned out that there were decades of deferred maintenance.

On our death beds who thinks, “I really wish I had more money”? The race is not about who dies with the most money. It’s always been about how much can we enjoy our lives and provide enjoyment for others. How much did we love and were loved? Only a fool faces death wishing they had more money in this moment. All of which begs the question – why build that nest egg?

I graduated Germantown High School in Philadelphia in 1968.  That might have been the least momentous thing to happen that year.  In so many, many was 1968 was a very ugly year.

For a long time Garrison Keiler hosted a weekly variety show on Public Radio called Prairie Home Companion.  It was set in the fictional Minnesota town of Lake Wobegon “where all the women are strong, the men are good looking, and the children are all above average.”  If you think about that sentence, you will realize very quickly that nothing about it could possibly be true.  The definition of average means that all the children cannot be above average.