Finance

Economic Turnaround

Posted on:Thursday, May 9th, 2013

Last night, the Dow and S&P reached all-time highs. If that’s not a telltale sign that our economy is stabilizing, I don’t know what is.

Look around you. Are your peers still struggling to find jobs?

Over the last several years, our country was hit by a wave of confusion above anything else. Technology and the web started not only replacing jobs, but it also made some of us lazier and more distracted during the workday. Now that we all have had the time to adapt to these changes, we are using these, what once were “frightening,” developments to our advantage. We’re becoming more efficient and simultaneously less distracted.

If you take a step back and take an unfiltered gander at where we are today, you’ll be more excited than ever about our future. We have the most innovative and game-changing companies leading the markets, new ones being spawned every day, more jobs being created, better trainings on specific skills, and (slowly) improved education systems for our children.

I’ve always said that our problems stemmed from unpreparedness. We have sadly never known what we are good at as a country.

I’d like to consider today/this month/this year the pivot point for all of us. It’s where we all focus more on our output so that we take the appropriate journey that gets us to THAT goal. This starts with good parenting, proceeds with healthy socializing, and concludes with a strong knowledge base in a skillset that the market values.

Let’s be good at that. Let’s make sure we are training ourselves to fill (or create) the jobs we need and ENJOY. If we do that, the Dow and S&P will only continue to rise from here.

Polarization of Wealth

Posted on:Friday, May 25th, 2012

The gap between the rich and the poor is the highest it has ever been since 1929.

From the above graphs (albeit from 2001), you can see that 1% of the country occupy almost half the pie, while 80% are forced to fight over the last tenth of it.

Is this disparity in the distribution of our dollar fair? Is it sustainable? Should it be regulated?

While I agree that hard workers should be rewarded accordingly, I do feel that something has to give here. We can’t continue to walk-by the homeless individuals sleeping on the street on our way to the office every morning. We also can’t continue paying undeserving CEO’s of large companies both huge salaries and wealthbuilding stock options.

What’s my big idea?

Set an annual cap for each income source per household.

It’s true that the wealthy invest and build their riches strategically over time. Since that’s the case, most brilliant and well-diversified individuals won’t be impacted tremendously by this change. Some will just have to take less of a salary or earn less in dividends from that one single source.

Where would all the excess funds go?

The surplus would become Government money. And I don’t mean this in an “increased regulation” way. These funds would be treated separately to help increase jobs in the public sector. More teachers; better education programs; more technology incubators; more charitable organizations – All in all, MORE JOBS!

Rewards For the Rich

And those that reach their cap? They wouldn’t have to pay any income taxes on that specific income source.

Thanks for the charitable donation, Warren Buffet! The rest of the country appreciates your benevolence!

Retiring the Penny

Posted on:Thursday, May 24th, 2012

Canada already did it.

Maybe they retired their penny for any of the following reasons:

• It costs 2.4 cents to mint a penny. In other words, creating the product is an operation functioning at a loss.
• Average wage in the U.S. is $17 an hour. That means it only takes two seconds to earn one penny. We don’t need to transact at that level anymore.
• Pennies aren’t accepted by many machines (i.e. tollbooths, vending machines, etc.).
• Eliminating the penny would not have an impact on the overall value of cash.
• The penny is worth less now than ever before in history.
• It’s a hazardous piece of zinc that children can accidentally swallow.

Perhaps we’re holding out for the benefits that pennies bring to charities. Who doesn’t donate their loose pennies in the open jars at the grocery store? Although even that charity doesn’t want to have to deal with a heavy load of metal, every little bit counts – even in the form of pennies.

Give it a few more years. As more people continue to use debit/credit cards more often and digital innovation evolves into a more accepted form of mobile payments, I foresee the end of of the penny.

At least that’s my two cents.