Optimist

In recent times we were told the U.S. was caput because  a womanizer like Clinton was president. Did anyone take the time to research Franklin and Jefferson? Caput! I think not!

Then Bush was a sign of the End Days. Nope! President George W. Bush proved to have human failing, but we did fine.

President Obama was the worst. I had clients who came into my office saying their life;s mission was to prevent Obama from getting a second term. What a waste of time! The economy grew, the stock market was up and America and the world did great after a serious economic debacle.

And now we have the hated President Trump. Many tears have been shed. The Supreme Court is forever tainted (unless you read few history books where you’ll discover it was always tainted). I’m not a fan of Trump. I disagree with many of his policies. But not all! An honest person will find issues where agreement exists. Who doesn’t like lower taxes? We can debate who gets how much and the fairness of taxes, but com’on! I also agree with more infrastructure spending. I’m against tariffs which are nothing more than a tax on consumers. Call it a quasi value added tax, if you will.

It’s hard to see when watching at the speed of life, but there is no doubt it keeps getting easier to reach financial independence. Some in the crowd might disagree with me. The statistics are clear, however. As the hand of time ticks by the human race is finding greater and greater opportunity at every turn until now when it is laughably easy to reach virtually any financial goal.

But we need to start at the beginning.

Recent volatility in the stock market has people reassessing their appetite for risk. Investing in a bull market is easy as it seems the only way equities go is up.

The recent bull market has an added way of lulling people into a false sense of security. Last year many indexes never saw even a 5% pullback even once. Some didn’t see a 3% decline at any point! This is a highly unusual situation confirming for some people the stock market doesn’t test your resolve as often as it does.

In the past week we’ve had a > 5% intraday swing in the market indexes. Many individual stocks had even greater moves!

Those little devils are everywhere. Drone fever has swept the country and it has me hopping mad. In the last week my office has been buzzed every workday and the Accountant farm had its privacy disrupted three times.

The animals hate it! Drones buzzing overhead send the chickens running for cover while the steers run the length of the pasture trying to get away. Privacy is the main concern at the office. If somebody wants to invade my privacy on the farm while I water the horse out back there isn’t much to see. (Ah, that didn’t come out right.)

Therefore, I hereby announce The Wealthy Accountant will start selling anti-drone guns for $500 a pop with the beautiful logo of The Wealthy Accountant emblazoned on the side. This is a limited offer! Only 10,000 will be manufactured. When they are gone they’re gone.

I was contacted recently by an old acquaintance. Brad is a reader of this blog and started to take exception to my style of writing. He felt any idiot could write a blog and I can assure you any idiot is writing this one.

He felt it beneath a CPA to write what I do here. I assured him I’m no CPA; never have been never will be. Brad was starting to feel disappointed in his disappointment in me.

His final argument was it took no skill or knowledge to write a blog. True. But then he said it was easy to make money telling tall tales. Yikes! (Okay now, bloggers. Keep the cussing to a mild roar in the comments when you explain how “easy” it is to make real money blogging.)

Brad had several more complaints I’ll address shortly. We have enough material for a good start, however, to learn some valuable lessons.

2017 was one heck of a year. Business was good, investments were good, personal life was awesome. The good news never seemed to stop.

Many people like to make New Year’s resolutions. Not me. I forgo the whole ritual.

Instead, I plan all year round. When an idea strikes I write it down. It’s a rare moment when I don’t have a pen and paper within striking distance.

Ideas are impossible to control. A chance encounter, an overheard word can trigger a thought process. In moments another blog post idea is ready for recording. The same applies to projects in the tax practice and in my personal life.

It was all good news (unless you watch anything political).

I can clearly remember the first time I heard about the Pay it Forward philosophy. The year was 2002; the location Schenectady, New York; the event Albacon.

Back in those days Mrs. Accountant and I were groupies of the science fiction convention circuit. The insanity only lasted a few years, but it was a fun ride while it lasted. We met scores of bestselling writers. I can’t speak for Mrs. Accountant, but I drank in every word.

I had recently discovered Mike Resnick. His only novel to grace the bestseller list hooked me.  Why Resnick never became a household name is beyond me.

Albacon is a science fiction convention held in the Albany, New York vicinity most years. It’s a small convention, at least it was back in 2002.

Earlier this week I had the opportunity to extend my Thanksgiving holiday by attending a few days of continuing education training. Northeast Wisconsin isn’t a bad place to get an education as long as you can get to Green Bay or the Fox Cities. But when you live in the middle of nowhere it takes planning and strategy to git er done.

Well, the plan was fine; the strategy could have used a bit more work. It’s been a while since I weaseled my way to Green Bay where the training classes were. The fastest way there was to take side roads the whole way.

My memory has started to slip these past years as the birthdays add up. Not having to visit Green Bay in a bit, I knew the trip was a straight forward drive with one exception; at Wrightstown I had to make a loop to get on the bridge to cross the river.