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The Retired Investor: Key to America's Future Lies in Its Past
By Bill Schmick,
04:11PM / Thursday, June 20, 2024
This is year three of a 15-year period where change will occur throughout America. It won't be an easy time for any of us. Stress, conflict, dissatisfaction, economic and political turmoil. It all lies ahead, but there is a silver lining.   In the case of regime change fueled by populism, American history may not repeat itself, but it does come damn close. Throughout our history, we have seen the pendulum swing from right to left and back again as discontent and bad times (the absence of fairness, equality, and equity) alternated with boom times and capitalism (winner-take-all mentality).   The only time the pendulum broke down was during the Civil War and

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The Retired Investor: Why Protectionism Is a Close Cousin to Populism
By Bill Schmick,
04:43PM / Thursday, June 13, 2024
The number one issue on voter's minds in this election year is immigration. That may come as a surprise to some, but it makes a lot of sense if one believes that we have entered a period of populism.   Sixty-two percent of registered voters nationwide support a program to "deport all undocumented immigrants," according to a CBS News poll over the weekend. On June 3, 2024, President Biden signed an executive order that would ban migrants who cross the southern border illegally from claiming asylum to defuse this election issue. Faith-based charities, like Catholic Charities, which have a long history of providing shelter, food, and clothing to migrant families

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The Retired Investor: How Top-Down Economic Policies Pushed Country Over the Edge
By Bill Schmick,
04:33PM / Thursday, June 06, 2024
The Federal Reserve Bank's smoothing of the business cycle, which started in the 1990s, was meant to ensure price stability and the health of the labor market. It's top-down policies of reducing interest rates through the banking system and into the hands of the largest corporations was meant to benefit the whole economy.   The problem is that corporations and the minority of Americans that control them are not the whole economy. What did that matter, argued supply-side economists. This group, who championed Reaganomics in the 1980s and beyond, assured us that the benefits of the Federal Reserve Bank's policies would ‘trickle-down' throughout the

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The Retired Investor: Federal Reserve's Role in Today's Populism
By Bill Schmick,
04:51PM / Thursday, May 30, 2024
The Federal Reserve Bank is the most powerful central bank in the world. It has a long history of successes and at times, failures in steering the U.S. economy through ups and downs. This is a story of how a well-intentioned policy has resulted in one of the worst disasters in American history.   After the stock market crash on Oct. 19, 1987, just two months after Alan Greenspan assumed the chairmanship of the Federal Reserve bank, he fired off a one-sentence statement before the start of trading on Oct. 20, "The Federal Reserve, consistent with its responsibilities as the nation's central bank, affirmed today its readiness to serve as a source of liquidity to

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The Retired Investor: How Populism Will Impact Economy & Society
By Bill Schmick,
04:26PM / Thursday, May 23, 2024
  "Income Inequality: The Trend is Not Your Friend," Bill Schmick, Oct. 26, 2012   The country is divided. Immigration and the economy are leading election issues. Inflation has soured attitudes. Labor unions are on the rise. Students are demonstrating and demanding we divest U.S. holdings in Israel. If I said that all the above issues are related and have a common economic cause, would you believe me?   We have seen all of this before. Maybe not in the exact same way but in the 1930s and 1960s dissatisfaction, unrest, what's fair and what's not led to conflict, assassinations, changes in economic and social policies and

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