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22 May 2025 The G.O.P. Tax Bill: What We Know So Far

Posted at 12:40h in The Friday Brief by Ryan Smith, CFP®, RICP®, CTS™, MSFP

The G.O.P. has put forth the framework of a tax bill designed to extend the tax cuts President Trump enacted during his first term. The Tax Cut and Jobs Act (TCJA), passed in November of 2017, was a significant restructuring of the tax code: standard...

10 Apr 2025 Uncertainty, Optimism, and Pausing Tariffs

Posted at 13:30h in The Friday Brief by Ryan Smith, CFP®, RICP®, CTS™, MSFP

On December 31st, 2024, Karen Langley wrote a piece in the Wall Street Journal titled, "Stocks Cap Best Two Years in a Quarter Century," which feels like it could have been written a quarter century ago. As I start to write this (it's Wednesday morning),...

06 Mar 2025 What’s the ROI of Working With a Financial Advisor?

Posted at 07:05h in The Friday Brief by Ryan Smith, CFP®, RICP®, CTS™, MSFP

Over the years, there have been a few attempts to quantify the value of working with a financial advisor. Clearly, not an easy task. Clients are different, financial advisors are different. That variability makes measurement difficult. In 2001, Vanguard published a paper titled Vanguard's Advisor...

06 Feb 2025 The Future of Social Security

Posted at 13:35h in The Friday Brief by Ryan Smith, CFP®, RICP®, CTS™, MSFP

It's no secret that Social Security is in trouble. For years, the annual report prepared by the Board of Trustees for the Federal OASDI (Old-Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance) program has warned us that the trust fund that bridges the gap between benefits paid...