Your Survival Guy feels life is pretty good, especially after reading The Wager by David Grann. Just thinking about life back in the mid-1700s makes me appreciate the simple creature comforts of today. Being shipwrecked is no one’s idea of fun. And that’s a story that Grann tells with such detail you wonder if he […]
Dividend Paying Stocks and Taxes
UPDATE 9.11.23: I wrote this to you about ten years ago, and it still applies today as much as it did then. Originally posted September 24, 2013. This year the tax on dividend paying stocks for the highest wage earners, thanks to Obamacare, is 23.8%. One way to avoid this tax altogether is to invest […]
RAGE Gauge September: “We’re Moving On,” They Say
Your Survival Guy’s September RAGE Gauge is in, and it’s not pretty. What did you expect me to say? The reality is what it is. It’s the world we’re living in right now. Americans are feeling unsure about the direction of the country. The presidential debate did provide a bit of optimism, but not much. […]
Jimmy Buffett’s Formula for Your Success Is This
When Jimmy Buffett gave the commencement speech to graduates at the University of Miami, he explained his formula for success: Talent is 10%, luck is 20%, work is 30%, and passion is 40%. Hearing that about work and passion, Your Survival Guy exclaimed to himself: “So you’re saying there’s a chance! If I can control […]
Survival Guy’s Trying to Reason with Hurricane Season
“We’re initiating the hurricane protocol,” he said. “We’ll have your boat out by tomorrow morning.” “OK, great, thanks,” I said. And that’s how the call from Your Survival Guy’s boatyard went yesterday. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. If there’s a chance this Cat 5 Hurricane Lee is going to make landfall, I don’t […]
Do You Know What Stagflation, Deflation, and Inflation Are?
Have you been out to lunch or dinner lately and looked at the astronomical prices on the right side of the menu? Did you think, “With these prices, you’d think someone, anyone, would like to take my order?” Then, you get your cheeseburger, in no paradise of yours, and it’s missing one of the fixings […]
Why You Miss Richard C. Young’s Monster Master List
You can learn a lot by asking questions. Here’s some I wrote to you about back in April. Is your advisor a bank? If so, is it lending out your money for a song and paying you peanuts? Fidelity is not a bank. Fidelity is not a publicly traded company. In comparison, Charles Schwab has […]
Black Swan Ripping the Roof Off
“Slow and Steady” is a wonderful way to think about investing. But thinking isn’t acting. It’s thinking. And that type of thinking can get investors into trouble. In other words, investors believe stocks average around X% per year and expect X% to be in their account by year’s end. Which makes investing in the moment, […]
RIP Jimmy Buffett: Death of an American Treasure
Jimmy Buffett—just writing his name makes me think of a different place and time—will be remembered as a pirate who brought his listeners treasure. What a blow it was Saturday morning after learning that he died the night before. In an instant, I knew what it felt like the day the music died. My life […]
Just a Few Problems I See with AI Portfolios: Part II
As I wrote to you yesterday, “How much Artificial Intelligence do you want in your portfolio? Your Survival Guy doesn’t want it anywhere near mine. But AI is already in the sports pages with a recent Ohio high school football recap written with the heart of a Tin Man. How much longer until we have […]
