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Average American workers miss out on $1,336 annually of “free” money. According to Fidelity Investments, that is the amount that workers fail to receive in 401(k) employer matching funds every year. This is due to insufficient salary deferrals by working people, who are not contributing enough to reach the employer’s contribution matching limits. Failure to […]

August’s release of the July Producer Price index (PPI) showed an increase of 1.0% for July, following an increase of 0.8% in June. The earlier Consumer Price Index (CPI) showed annualized gains of over 6% and accelerating. Gasoline at the pump is up about $1.01 per gallon since this time last year. Inflation is here, […]

Americans everywhere are talking about the elephant in the room, but Congress and the Biden Administration remain in denial. Ditto the Federal Reserve (FED). That beast is inflation, and only Americans of a certain age can remember the last time consumer prices escalated with the ferocity we are experiencing today. Our current situation was not […]

Social Security is going broke. It needs to be fixed, and quickly, or future benefits will be sharply reduced. That would be extremely unpopular among the high-voting population we affectionately call “Seasoned Citizens.” Currently, that population is about 61 million strong. Congress created the Social Security System, and, unfortunately, only Congress can fix it. For […]

Bank accounts of millions of Americans received a boost in July, as IRS issued the first round of payments under a new Child Tax Credit program. Roughly 60 million parents received Child Tax Credit payments in July, and others may be eligible. The new payments range up to $300 per child for eligible families. Similar […]

On July 9, 2021, President Biden added to his impressively high stack of Executive Orders (EOs), signing a three-part plan purporting to improve opportunities for workers. The stated goals are: (1) limit or ban Non-Compete Agreements (NCAs), (2) eliminate unnecessary occupational licenses, and (3) allow HR professionals to share more information. Before the ink dried […]

Today we look back at our blog posting from February 26, 2020, at the beginning of the Coronavirus pandemic. At the time, we issued a mass email to clients and friends, and also discussed these points on the Van Wie Financial Hour. How did we do in the face of that uncertainty? We’ll dissect the […]

Not everyone starts a tech company and becomes a billionaire. But Peter Thiel did, after his 1998 startup Confinity became successful and valuable. Within 3 years of startup, the company was handling over $3 Billion in annual online payments from over 10 million commercial customers. His success was rewarded and in a novel and unusual […]

On Tuesday, June 15, 2021, financial media was frantic with headlines claiming retail sales had fallen 1.3% compared to the prior month. This lead most economic reporting for a couple of days, and was surprisingly negative, given the true situation. Negative economic news from the mainstream media during this Administration is rare, so we wondered […]