Prices have been increasing at rates not seen for over 40 years. Simply put, what cost you $15 thirty years ago, will cost you $60 today. A few prices (gasoline) have fallen recently, housing prices are settling down, and some travel costs are down. But they are the outliers. Food prices are going up fast. (However, meat prices are down.) While analysts note the CPI (consumer price index), which tracks prices on about 80,000 products and services, has apparently peaked. That doesn’t guarantee that prices are headed down.The Federal Reserve has undertaken policies to rein in inflation and is expected to raise interest rates in an effort to moderate demand — those things you borrow money for (house, car) become more expensive — which should push sellers to stabilize or reduce prices.We’ve he

Is the stock market going to crash? Who knows? Depending on which forecaster you follow the answer is maybe yes, maybe no. One thing is certain, however, the market’s going to fluctuate. In any event, it’s better to be prepared for a crash, just in case.There’s no specific definition of a crash. The regulators may halt trading for 15 minutes if the S&P 500 drops 7% or more in a single session, and this has not happened often. The best we can do to define a crash is: a severe and sudden drop in stock prices. The good news is that this is usually followed by a bull market.The most famous crash was in 1929. (Contrary to popular belief, it did not cause the Great Depression; but that’s a topic for another article.) The market took about 20 years to recover. Other crashes occurred in 1987 (

Someone once asked the Oracle of Omaha, Warren Buffett, why doesn’t everyone invest like you do and become rich? His answer was that few have the patience that he has. Most want instantaneous riches and that only happens with relatively few people. Good advice when the stock market falls-patience.It does get painful. Day after day you watch the value of your stock market investments drop and take another chunk of profit out of your portfolio. What to do? According to the experts the number one rule is: patience and don’t panic!Panic selling is a normal reaction when any investment takes a dramatic drop. However, that may not be the best action to take since the market is cyclical and will inevitably rebound. Panic sellers often miss out on the subsequent rebound; long-term patient investor

Photo by engin akyurt on UnsplashShould these be in your portfolio?Let’s get the definitions out of the way. TIPS are Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities which have been issued by the U. S. Treasury since 1997. IABs are Inflation-Adjusted Bonds issued by the U. S. Treasury and other countries. TIPS were issued to protect investors against inflation. The principal of a TIPS increases with inflation and decreases with deflation, as measured by the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers. Now it gets a little tricky. While the interest paid is usually adjusted for inflation the principal or face amount always gets adjusted. When interest rates go up more value is added to the face amount of the security and if deflation occurs they are adjusted

 Can using this theory help you make better economic and financial decisions? Let’s start with some definitions.Qualitative research. Qualitative research gets data and information directly from others. For example, case studies, interviews, questionnaires, observation, and documents. The data is usually nonnumerical.Subjectivity. This refers to how your opinion, biases, and feelings are affected by outside influences. So, someone growing up in poverty has a different set of prejudices than someone who grew up in a middle-class home. This also has a bearing on why a work of entertainment, a book, a work of art, or a baseball game, for example, is enjoyed by one person but not another. Some love Picasso’s work, and some think it’s junk.By definition we can see that qualitative res