“I’m proud to be paying taxes in the United States. The only thing is — I could be just as proud for half the money” -Arthur Godfrey There is some debate about how large the US income tax code is. If you are just talking about the literal statutes, it […]
I spoke at the Trust Advisors Forum conference in Pinehurst earlier this year on the topic of Millennials and investing, and one of the things I discussed was some of the emerging technology and apps in the world of personal finance. This included Robinhood, the trading app that targets millennials […]
I was up in Houghton, MI a couple weekends ago to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Applied Portfolio Management Program (APMP), a program I was a part of when I was a student at Michigan Tech and now serve on the board of. The program allows students to manage […]
I never got to go to summer camp. Sure, there was 5th grade camp, where I spent weeks raising money selling overpriced candy bars so I could join my fellow classmates and our teacher in the middle of winter somewhere so we could, I don’t know, learn how to make […]
There are two basic types or retirement accounts. The first is the tax-deferred type. This is your traditional 401(k) or traditional IRA. Money that goes in is pre-tax or tax-deductible, the funds grow tax-deferred, and then you pay income taxes on the distributions in retirement (after age 591/2). The second […]
I recently received an email from Marcus—Goldman Sachs’ relatively new entrant into the online banking business—saying they increased the yield on my savings account to 1.80%. Synchrony Bank, the online bank formerly part of GE Capital, had upped the yield on their high-yield savings accounts to 1.75%, and Marcus simply […]
Now I am Become GE, the Destroyer of Wealth There was an article in the Wall Street Journal last month about a gentleman by the name of Gary Zabroski. Mr. Zabroski was a lifer at GE, putting in 40 years at the company and retiring as a punch press operator in […]
“Can I ask you a question?” “Sure!” “Are you happy?” “Well, I got a boat, good friends, and a trampoline. You tell me.” That was a revelational series of dialogue from the 30 Rock episode where fictional GE executive Jack Donaghy went to Liz Lemon’s high school reunion and realized […]
To say Amazon — a stock I like, by the way — has disrupted the retail industry would be an understatement. They are gutting brick and mortar down to the studs, and they haven’t stopped there. The Whole Foods acquisition was a major shot across the bow for the grocery […]
One of the biggest frustrations for an investor is when you identify a company that you think will be truly disruptive to an industry, only to find out it’s not publicly traded. Remember how cool you thought Facebook was after you first set up your profile? It sure would’ve been nice […]
© 2025 · EmeraldSpark Investments, LLC.