April 2020

Headlines, Mulch, and Evangelical Misery

  Toilet paper aisles may be sparse, but one thing we’re not lacking is opinions on the pandemic.  Everyone’s got their take and a pet conspiracy theory to go with it. Here’s mine: From a human standpoint, the United States has done a great job mobilizing (or immobilizing in this case) the populace into an emergency response stance.  300 million people united in confirming their pact with the rest of society and backing that bond with (in)action is a feat.  Economically, this thing is a mess.  The Fed’s solution has been to fire the bazookas and let God sort’em out.  That’s not my preferred option, but considering the government is what shuttered the economy (and now we KNOW they can do that – more frightening, the government KNOWS it can do that now, too), the government needs to provide some support.  What’s the future look like health-wise and for the…


9 Ways to Wait Out the Remainder of the Quarantine

Depending on how prepared you were, the early days might have been manic, establishing supply lines and hoarding toilet paper.  As churches and bars (trying to cover all bases here) stopped regular service it sank in that this was something that would last weeks, not days.  Now you’ve reached the end of the internet and you hold a strong opinion on Tiger King.  Here are 9 ways to wait out the remainder of the quarantine.  Some are productive while others are just stress relievers.  Regarding links: I don’t get anything from anyplace I’m linking to and I’m not endorsing anything, but hopefully they are a good place to start if something catches your eye.  In no particular order: Password Manager Now is the perfect time to set up a password manager.  You’re already cruising a ton of websites and logging in to buy groceries and rent Rise of Skywalker.  Stop…


This is Who You Are

Regarding the stock market, “If you don’t know who you are, this is an expensive place to find out.” wrote Adam Smith.  Everyone says they are investing for the long term.  The joke is that “long-term” means only until the next bear market for a lot of people.  Were you a long-term investor on 12/31/2019?  Are you still?  Did you rebalance your portfolio?  Panic sell?  Panic buy?  Just panic, but leave the portfolio untouched?  Or maybe you haven’t looked at the particulars because a three month time period doesn’t mean much to you?  Look at your actions this year.  This is who you are. This is Who I Am After the 4th quarter of 2018 when the market ALMOST dropped 20%, I tweaked my rebalancing approach.  That’s not entirely true.  While I rebalance quarterly if needed, I didn’t have a rebalancing approach for big market drawdowns.  Seat-of-the-pants may have been…