Passive income

For those of you who are unaware passive income is unearned income generated from investments, properties or side hustles. It’s a steady flow of cash not earned from active work, such as traditional employment or full-time entrepreneurship. There are a few...

Voting

I have voted in almost every election since I was 18.  I know I missed one, mainly because I too ill to go out and vote.  I may have missed more, but I am out there for primaries and the lovely non-advertised District elections. But with the upcoming presidential...

Franchises

Franchises were slapped hard by the pandemic; it is expected that franchises will have only a modest 2023. The industry recovered most of its losses from the pandemic in 2021, but growth slowed in 2022, as franchises faced several headwinds, such as inflation and...

Bank Failing banks and loans.

I had a client asking me what happens when a bank fails, and you have a loan with them. If your bank fails, you still owe whatever outstanding loan balances you have. You’ll simply continue to make your loan payments to a new bank or FDIC-run intermediary. This...

FDIC

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is a United States government corporation that supplies deposit insurance to depositors in American commercial banks and savings banks.   The FDIC was created by the Banking Act of 1933, enacted during the Great...

Why no checking account

In the last statistics I can find is from 2019, there were 7 million US households do not have a bank account. So that is over 18 million people (2.6 per household) without a checking account out 328 million or 5% of the population in 2019. The reason are believed to...

Glass Steagall

The Glass-Steagall Act effectively separated commercial banking from investment banking and created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, among other things. It was one of the most widely debated legislative initiatives before being signed into law by President...

Gold standard

The Gold Standard was a system under which nearly all countries fixed the value of their currencies in terms of a specified amount of gold, or linked their currency to that of a country which did so. The gold standard was the basis for the international monetary...

Social Security at 62 vs 66 or 70

I have clients asking me regularly if they should start taking their Social Security at 62, 66 or 70.  So, I look into my crystal ball (yes, I have one just for this) and then ask them how long they are going to live. The longevity issue is the crux of the issue.  To...

Travel

If you’re planning your summer vacation… My wife and I keep talking about it but can’t seem to pull the trigger.  She has time constraints and now we have adult children issues.  Ceremonies to attend. Yes, I also have some time constraints as well, but I have a...

Old

No matter how good or how bad you feel, it strikes you dumb when you get your first unrequested solicitation for Long Term Care Insurance… This just happened to me.  Granted it may not have been the first, but it was the first I noticed.  I got it courtesy of the...

Comic Strips

Comic strips of yesteryear were a way to FastTrack fame and fortune. Comic strips are a dying medium trapped in another dying medium. I am a long time fan of comic strips, I had followed Bloom County and Drabble in the past.  I also actively read collections of the...

Attack of the 1099-K’s

In 2021, Congress felt that everyone was not paying their fair share of taxes so they enacted more information reporting. Third-party settlement networks, such as PayPal, Square, Venmo and eBay, must send Form 1099-K to payees who are paid over $600 a year for goods...

Used Cars

The Auto industry is slowing production based upon the impending recession, so if you are looking to buy a car new or used, be prepared to spend more than planned.  The fewer the cars on the lot, the higher the sale price. The limited production is also driving the...

AI

I am not fan of AI.  Yes, I watch to too many movies and TV Shows and my views on AI have been affected by them, I Robot; Terminator; Matrix; even Mr. Robot… We humans are short sighted, greedy and narrow minded, tunnel visioned people with our own interests front and...

EV

However you feel about electric vehicles, our government wants you to buy one.. Congress has made up some arbitrary fuel economy rules and the only way to achieve these are a shift to a platform that I don’t believe is sustainable. First less look at the materials:...

Hard Sciences

The US is in the usual position of not having enough math and hard science majors graduating college to meet our needs. In a recent article focusing on Electrical Engineers, it is suggested that the states provide more funding is needed to fill all of the slots. I...

Cash

Money, money, money was everywhere and readily available during COVID.  PPP and EIDL saved a number of businesses including a number of my clients. Bank were more willing to lend, it was not difficult to get your hands on cash With the constant increasing of interest...

Expiration of Tax Reduction

The current tax code has been in place since the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) was signed into law in late 2017. Most provisions, including personal income tax rates and brackets, expire at the end of 2025 unless Congress acts. The 21% corporate tax rate and long-term...

The Industrial Revolutions:

1st Industrial Revolution – The first Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain in the mid-to-late 1700s when innovation led to goods being produced in large quantities due to machine manufacturing. (Steam, water, mechanical production equipment) 2nd...

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