MEMBER SIGN IN
Not a member? Become one today!
         iBerkshires     Southern Berkshire Chamber     Lee Chamber     Lenox Chamber     Berkshire Community College    
Search
Home About Archives RSS Feed
Living together is not what it used to be
By Bill Schmick,
05:33PM / Thursday, March 30, 2017
Times are changing. Over 12 million Americans now "live in sin," as my parents would say, and their numbers are increasing every year. As long as they remain together, everything is copacetic, but what happens when they break up?   Thanks to the economy, demographics, and life-style choices, young couples today are living together and having children despite their unmarried status. In my own family, my niece is pregnant, unmarried, and has no intentions of tying the knot. Although her partner is the love of her life, they have decided (for now) to keep it that way.   And in today's economy, there may be a lot of good reasons not to get married.

0 Comments
Read More >>

Independent Investor: Don't Worry, Be Happy
By Bill Schmick,
04:02PM / Thursday, March 23, 2017

It is official: the happiest country in the world is Norway, with Denmark the runner-up, according to the World Happiness Report. What lessons can we learn from this survey and what, if anything, should we do as a nation to join their ranks?

Where, you might ask, do we here in the U.S. rank? The answer would be No. 14, down from No. 3 in 2007. The least happy inhabitants on Earth appear to be in Africa while the average Chinese person is no happier than he was 25 years ago, despite the country's much-lauded economic miracle.

How do a pair of tiny countries stay so happy for so long?  It sure isn't the weather, where it is so cold that summers require overcoats and

0 Comments
Read More >>

@theMarket: Fed Rate Hike Sets Stage For More
By Bill Schmick,
04:13PM / Friday, March 17, 2017

This week the Federal Reserve hiked interest rates again. That's two times in as many quarters. Back in the day, the markets would have swooned. This week they did the opposite. What gives?

The short answer is investors believe both the economy and inflation are beginning to accelerate, so the Fed has every right to reduce the gas and ease its foot off the monetary pedal. There is, after all, no need to keep interest rates at historically low levels at this point.

That's good news, after buoying both the economy and the financial markets through several years of anemic growth and worries over deflation. It is one explanation for why the stock market has climbed to

0 Comments
Read More >>

The Independent Investor: Trump's Budget
By Bill Schmick,
06:44PM / Thursday, March 16, 2017

It was late, "skinny," and guaranteed to send Washington lawmakers up a wall.  President Trump's first crack at a budget, released on Thursday, makes drastic cuts to many sacrosanct departments and programs while boosting spending in others.

If you haven't strapped in quite yet, now is the time to do so. The president's 53-page budget (less than half of his predecessor's lean, 134 pages) makes dramatic cuts to departments such as the Environmental Protection Agency (minus-31 percent) and the State Department (minus-28 percent), while increasing defense spending by $54 billion.

Areas that would also be hit hard were foreign aid, grants to

0 Comments
Read More >>

@theMarket: Mushy Markets in March
By Bill Schmick,
04:44PM / Friday, March 10, 2017
Investors took a break this week from the ongoing Trump rally, even as the pace of change in Washington seems to be accelerating. Both the financial downside and political upside should be positive for your investment portfolio overtime.   The minor consolidation I have been expecting in the stock market began this week. The averages have pulled back a little, but the S&P 500 Index, for example, has lost less than one percent from its all-time highs. That's not exactly the end of the world ...   I see a meandering two steps back, one step forward, kind of market with the downside risk somewhere between 2,300 and 2,330 on the S&P 500 Index. That would

0 Comments
Read More >>

NorthAdams.com is owned and operated by: Boxcar Media 106 Main Sreet, P.O. Box 1787 North Adams, MA 01247 -- T. 413-663-3384 F.413-663-3615
© 2008 Boxcar Media LLC - All rights reserved