The first full month of #hottakeoftheday is behind us. The takeaway: “Some days you hit the nail on the head. Some days you accidentally put the hammer through the wall.” Perhaps Eleanor Roosevelt said it better: “Do what you feel in your heart to be right - for you'll be criticized anyway.” And anyway - people have short memories. Remember Christmas Eve day when the world economy was collapsing, interest rates were rising, stocks were tanking and the best thing about Christmas was that the market was...

Some days, you feel like the Ray Dalio of your generation. Other days, you wonder why you got out of bed. I am just grateful to live in a country where I have the opportunity to do both. And I can trust the results of our elections or say and write whatever comes to mind without fear of anything other than looking silly (which clearly I am fine with) What is happening in Venezuela is shameful. And I know writing that doesn’t make it...

Venezuela sanctions. China negotiations. Government back to work. I’ll leave those to reporters today. I’ve seen three shows on Netflix in the last two weeks that have blown my mind. “Tony Robbins: I’m Not Your Guru”, “Fyre” and “Bird Box”. Different. Intense. Surprising. Definitely worth watching. And I’m not just saying that because I own Netflix in the #SIUIndex ... although if you upgrade your subscription to the HD streaming, I won’t stop you....

I wrestled all day yesterday with the subject of corporate share buybacks. Are they “good”? Are they “bad”? What does that even mean? You can spin yourself in circles debating the impact on share prices, companies and shareholders. And then I came across the chart below. To state the extremely obvious - the thing that bankrupts companies are not share prices going to zero - it’s not being able to pay your debt. Executing buybacks and not paying down corporate debt may jack earnings per...

Would you interview this guy? Neither would I! And it’s me. (It was for a party - I promise). You might not care how you dress or appear to other people but I promise you - they care a great deal. The lesson - don’t limit your potential because of a misdirected sense of fashion or need to express yourself in a unique and external way. Conform! You can dress anyway you like after you retire! In the meantime - if you feel compelled to make...

I put money in my sons 529s this year so I had my financial planner do some modeling. Apparently- they want to go to Michigan and Harvard. How cute. The planner came back, handed me the model and told me it will cost $390,000 per kid. Not a typo. I’ll send the model if you want. Think about that! What job with what degree pays that debt? At 5%, you have to make $30,000/year before tax just to pay the interest! Way back when, I...

800,000 government employees miss their 2nd paycheck today. I’ll bet if you asked them December 15 how “secure” they felt with their jobs and their income, almost all would have said “very secure” (it’s the government, after all!) How many months of income do you have socked away for a surprise “shutdown” in your employment?

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I am deleting my Twitter account today. Why? The “student in the MAGA hat video” was the tipping point for me. The source of the video was a “schoolteacher”. This industrious “schoolteacher” tweeted 130 times a day; had 40,000 followers and got 2.5 mm views of the video. Guess what?! The schoolteacher is actually a blogger in Brazil who’s video post hijacked CNN this weekend. Sure. CNN is to blame for picking it up and not asking “is this really news?” but the post got...

Wouldn’t it be refreshing if every right leaning person in the US had to watch CNN for a week while every left leaning person had to watch FOX News? And then go for dinner with someone they disagree with - to talk and to listen. Conversation is the most important part of democracy. You could argue it would benefit everyone to hear a view different than their own. I argue that the biggest benefit of “crossing viewership” is that networks would have to generate real...