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We are still in the season of giving, and many of us have given the gift of money to children, grandchildren, and other family members.

Arguably the wildest consequence of the recent pandemic is the remarkable price boom in the US housing market—which, some might remember, went spectacularly bust in the 2008-09 Great Recession collapse.

You may have read that the Social Security trust fund is due to be depleted in 2033, a year earlier than previous projections. This sounds alarming, except for several caveats.

In the first article in this series, we discussed several things you might want to give some special attention to as we close the books on 2021: focusing on core holdings; taking another look at your saving and spending; and paying attention to your mutual fund distributions.

The pandemic has impacted people’s financial lives in ways both large and small.

As 2021 slides toward its close, it’s probably a good time for most investors to do a few year-end “tuneups” on portfolios, financial and estate plans, and charitable or philanthropic strategies.

When the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act raised the standard deduction for taxpayers to $24,000 for couples ($12,000 for singles), and lowered individual tax rates, an unintended consequence was to reduce the tax benefits of making charitable donations.

In our most recent newsletter, we discussed the recent uptick in inflation, as measured in the US economy by the Consumer Price

As anyone old enough to remember the Star Trek television series knows, space is the final frontier. Our military now has a space force. In June of this year, we got a full report from the government on what it knows about UFOs.

The last year and a half in the financial markets has been an interesting period, to say the least. In 2020, the pandemic ran amok through the world economy, eliminating travel for many, including the daily commute to the office. Also in 2020, the S&P 500 delivered an annual return of 15.76%.