We’re Number One!! The U.S of A, the greatest nation on earth, is soon to become number one in yet another category. Only this time I’m afraid it’s a rather dubious distinction. We are about to become the highest levier of income tax on corporations in the entire world. That’s right, Japan, the previous taxing [...]

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Good Morning, I thought I’d pop in with a brief message since today’s market could be a bit volatile and I’ll be out of town and out of touch (and since it’s normally my practice to message you on days the market takes the bigger than average hit). Why might I think today could offer [...]

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It’s midweek, 6:45am, Fresno, California. An incredible triple-digit number of individuals (including my 21 year-old son Nick and his best buddy since seventh grade Victor) anxiously await their turn outside Fashion Fair Mall. What they’re after is a free meal consisting of a Chick-fil-A sandwich and an icy-cold Smart Water. A scary picture indeed, in [...]

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As it’s become my practice here to question the proclivities as well as the motives of today’s market gurus and politicians, I am compelled, continually, to check my own capacity for objectivity. Are my commitments to long-term buy-and-hold investing (while rebalancing and massaging certain sectors) and free-market capitalism well-founded? Do I consider the possibility that [...]

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• From F.A. Hayek’s 1944 book The Road to Serfdom: “Yet though hot socialism is probably a thing of the past, some of its conceptions have penetrated far too deeply into the whole structure of current thought to justify complacency. If few people in the Western world now want to remake society from the bottom [...]

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Coming off the worst recession in 80 years, the U.S. economy managed a 41,000 private sector jobs increase for the month of May. If we stop there, one might have expected a nice rally when the number made the headlines last Friday. But alas, no such reward; in fact the market tanked as reality didn’t [...]

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