How Big Has The US Wealth Disparity Become?

How Big Has The US Wealth Disparity Become?

I came across some data from the Federal Reserve that compares the ownership of assets in the U.S. by wealth percentile (the top 1%, the next 10%, the next 40%, and the remaining 50%). To add some flavor we’ll name these cohorts the Elite, the Successful, the Middle Class, and the Working Poor. Here’s a…
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Will Future Recessions Become Shorter?

The recession that began in February 2020 as a result of the COVID pandemic officially ended in April 2020 according to the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a private nonpartisan economic research organization. (From the vantage point of 2021 this should come as no surprise). That makes the two-month COVID recession the shortest in…
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You Can’t Have Rights Without Responsibilities

The U.S. is currently facing another surge in COVID cases, hospitalizations, and even deaths. Sadly, this is occurring while the country is awash in vaccines that have shown remarkable efficacy. I’m concerned that the proliferation of this virus could have a highly deleterious effect on our economy and our investment portfolios, not to mention our…
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The Impact Of Higher Inflation

Inflation is in the news again after a long hiatus. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported in May that the broad inflation rate rose 4.2% over the past 12 months, the largest increase since 2008. Exactly what is inflation, and how does it impact investments? Simply put, inflation (and its negative twin deflation) is…
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Which Political Party Is Better For The Economy?

David Leonhardt, a reporter at the New York Times, recently reported on research from two economists at Princeton University, Alan Blinder and Mark Watson. The two researchers statistically compared economic performance under all American presidents since Harry Truman and found that growth was better under Democrats than under Republicans, regardless of whatever measure was used.…
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Beware of Political Math

Last week the U.S. Commerce Department reported that its estimate of the third quarter’s real gross domestic product (GDP) increase over Q2 was an annualized 33%. One immediate and unsurprising outcome was a slew of pre-election ads by Donald Trump touting his economic prowess. Putting aside the fact that it’s just an estimate that will…
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