Mark Lund

The recent high inflation numbers have cooled a bit. Last month the Consumer Price Index (CPI) data release indicated prices are increasing at a 5% annual rate. This was a significant decrease from last summer’s spike of 9.1%.1 The CPI is based on an amalgamation of prices paid by consumers in 243 categories across 32

Gold has been fascinating people for thousands of years.1 It never rusts or even tarnishes. And it’s soft enough to be worked into beautifully intricate designs. No wonder ancient rulers wanted their crowns, scepters, and even thrones covered in gold. Gold has been used as a currency for thousands of years. And in more recent

The chance of winning a billion-dollar Powerball jackpot with a single ticket are mind-numbingly small. The odds are roughly 1 in 302.6 million. Put that into a calculator and you get .0000000033.1 By comparison, your chance of being struck by lightning in any given year is 1 in 1.2 million, more than 250 times greater.2

A friend tells the story about asking his neighbor to help him jumpstart an old car. The neighbor, who had pulled his truck into position to provide the power, took the jumper cables out of our friend’s hands and proceeded like he had done this procedure a hundred times before. He attached the black cable

Social Security has always stirred strong opinions. When it was first proposed during the Great Depression, there was vigorous debate about who would receive it, at what age, and how the program would be paid for going forward. In the decades since, the program has been adjusted many times by Congress. They’ve expanded its role,

Many of us have lived through financial downturns that economists call recessions. But there’s a more serious kind of downturn that the experts call a depression. So, what’s the difference between the two? Economists often disagree on exact definitions. But there is an old joke they like to tell: A recession is when your neighbor

Since late last week, there has been a bit of market turmoil related directly to the banking sector; more specifically, that federal regulators closed the 16th largest bank in the US, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). There is more than a little media coverage of the situation, so we won’t over-editorialize the situation or get too