In 1974, two psychologists, Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, published the paper, "Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases." In it, they discuss biases inherent in all of us that, consciously or not (usually not) impact our decision-making. All were groundbreaking at the time and remain...
I have spent a fair amount of time on this blog writing about giving, and I can guarantee more of the same for as long as I have log-in credentials to the website. But today I'm not going to do any lecturing or cajoling. I simply...
Last week Seth Godin wrote a blog that was short enough and good enough that I won't bother trying to paraphrase: Habits are not needs It’s easy to imagine that they are, as it lets us off the hook as habits become negative, or even addictions. If someone...
As I write, my college friends are scheming about how, when, and where to go see Taylor Swift in concert on her newly announced tour. We have some strong wills, pent up desire from a concert-less past few years, and I have no doubts that...
Yesterday, I logged into the Schwab website to inspect the damage the recent bear market had inflicted on my portfolio. It was just as I expected, down about 18% year to date. As I reviewed my accounts, I thought of you. At Beacon, we invest...
Within the last 7 days, the Social Security Administration (SSA) announced the cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) recipients will receive, while the IRS released tax brackets for 2023. Add in projected retirement plan contribution limit increases, and next year you have three silver linings to the high...
That's the title of a September article by Derek Thompson at The Atlantic. It's provocative enough on its own, but wait until you read the subtitle: "They tend to treat their readers like fools without willpower. So you could argue that they’re wrong for the...
September felt like one of those months when the hits just kept coming. The stock market continued declining from mid-August’s high to set a new intra-year low on September 30. Hurricane Ian wreaked havoc in the Caribbean and the southeast US. Queen Elizabeth II passed...
Sam published the first Beacon Investment Management Friday Brief on June 1st, 2001. At the time, we were experiencing the bursting of the Dot-com bubble and, though Sam didn't know it at the time, our country was just 3 months away from the September 11...
Each year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the findings of their Consumer Expenditure Surveys (CE), which track the earnings and expenditures of American households. The first survey was done in 1888, though it didn't become an annual tradition until 1984, and is packed with...
