Most investments can be categorized as either debt investments or equity investments. In an equity investment, you buy an asset and your profit is related to the performance of that asset. If you buy a taco stand, your profit is based upon the net revenue of the taco stand. If you buy a thousand shares…
The simplistic view of government regulation envisions idealistic regulators forcing regulation onto unwilling business. The reality though is that businesses often seek government regulation in order to gain unfair competitive advantages in the marketplace. Established Companies Established firms in an industry often seek regulation in order to discourage new competitors from entering the market. This…
The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is engaged in a major campaign to increase membership by unionizing the employees of “fast food” restaurants. As part of this effort, it is providing staff, training, and funding for activists who are promoting an increase of the Federal Minimum Wage by either 50% or 100%. This increase would…
The national debt of the United States is barreling out of control and American politicians appear completely unwilling to anger prospective voters by honestly saying “The American taxpayers cannot afford to give you everything you want.” The US national debt is currently 16.8 trillion dollars. That number is too large for most of us to…
Once a month the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) publishes a report on the state of unemployment in the United States. The major news organizations scan through the report highlights looking for “the unemployment rate” so that they can announce it to their loyal audiences. The number which the BLS promotes as “official” unemployment rate…
The US government works very hard… at making themselves look good. One of the ways they do this is to represent truly horrifying data in the best possible light. The number which seems to be manipulated more than any other number is the “official” unemployment rate — the headline rate which the government touts in…
Stock market transactions suffer from two “information asymmetry” issues. The first is that professional traders know more about almost everything related to stock trading than retail investors. This is not due mainly to academic degrees in finance; mostly it is because these guys live, eat, breathe, and sleep trading. The burn-out of full-time professional traders…
Brick and mortar retailers have long complained that state and local sales taxes put them at a disadvantage against Internet-based retailers. When a resident of La Mirada California buys from a local store, they pay a 10% sales tax on their purchase. This includes sales taxes from the city of La Mirada, the county of…
We tease the current “Millennial” generation of 18-31 year olds because so many of them are still living at home with their parents, whereas at the same ages we were either living in apartments or buying our first homes. On the other hand, they are saving a considerable amount of money that we effectively wasted…
The failure of Detroit shows what happens when a government increases taxes and regulation beyond the point where individuals feel that they are worth putting up with. As residents abandoned Detroit for parts of the country with less onerous government, the population fell from 1,849,568 to just 713,777. Those who left were the taxpaying residents,…
Calculating the RoI (Return on Investment) on a rental property can be a bit more complex than it first appears. In the most simple view, if you purchase a property for $100,000 and rent it for $700/mo, your gross annual income from the property is $8,400 ($700 * 12) and your RoI is 8.4%/yr. The…
There is an old saying in poker, “If you can’t spot the sucker at the table in the first 30 minutes, you are the sucker.” In the world of ForEx (Foreign Exchange) trading it’s even easier to spot the sucker. There are two different types of ForEx traders. One type are the professional traders who…