The Private Equity for Families Blog

What if the future for the U.S. economy is a hybrid of stagnant GDP growth, and dramatically higher wage inflation? I am not an economist and I am reluctant to propose this, but is it possible we will have low growth in real GDP but lingering inflation? I have

As investors begin to understand inflation, including the possibility it may become an impossible headwind for “real” returns, everyone wants to know what to do now.  Responses to my last blog demonstrated a grudging acceptance inflation is going to last longer than a cup of coffee. So now everyone

Have you noticed an old financial prophet is now being quoted all the time by “The Wall Street Journal”, “Barrons”, “Bloomberg” and “The Financial Times”? Milton Friedman, a Nobel Prize winning economist who died in 2006, has been exhumed and his monetary wisdom once more is flourishing at the

If you think the real estate excesses in the US housing markets in 2008 leading to the Big Recession were epic, the possible carnage from defaults in the debt based China property market are historic. According to an article in “The Wall Street Journal” written by Quentin Webb and

When I was notified last week by our friends at municipal bond firm Wasmer Schroeder that Moody’s had given Illinois a credit rating upgrade, I could not believe it. This is a state with one of the highest unfunded public pension ratios in the country, and the only state

There are two essential ingredients for the cake we call the American economy- Debt and Taxes. Throughout the country’s economic timeline we have seen the recipe wander from Colonial cooking where central debt and central taxes were not even in the mix to modern days where five cups of

Bitcoin gets all the attention because it is the rock on which all other cryptocurrencies are made possible. Supporters believe BTC will always have value because it is like collectible art. It has attracted intelligent investors who are willing to buy and hold a decentralized digital currency not backed

In 1971 I was married while in college. I distinctly remember inflation in gasoline and food prices. I also remember wage and price controls because our landlord made us “rent to buy” furniture from his cousin as a way of increasing our rents. I have no recollection of what

In the late 1960’s a large population cohort, the so called “Baby Boomers”, had an existential choice between fear of loss and the hypnotic call from Woodstock. Here is the first verse of Joni Mitchell’s epic song ” Woodstock” that captured the moment: I came upon a child of

Just when you are about to give up on the American people’s ability to make sound financial decisions they surprise you. Conventional wisdom suggests when you win the lottery three times in a 12-month period you buy a car, a house, and a boat. That was what the economists

I am sure all of you have noticed man’s best friend is one of the most popular trades during the Pandemic. My brother’s family now has four dogs. My sister has three. My daughters have multiple pets.  Research shows Gen Z and the Millennial cohorts are buying up pets

I am thrilled for the true believers in the Reddit crowd who have learned to manipulate the stock market. Their formula appears to be working well with notable successes like Hertz, GameStop and now AMC. In almost every case the cookbook recipe reads like this: Find an asset that

If you explore the history of money, you begin to understand why crypto currencies are beginning to compete with monopolistic monetary systems dominated by central banks. First Money Was Jack And the Beanstalk Model The first system was a “Jack and the Beanstalk” economy where a farmer could physically

Although the recent inflation message from Chairman Jerome Powell in response to Congressional inquiries is heartening, it does not jive with some really lopsided conditions I am seeing that remind me of the 1970s. Here is what Chairman Powell said on March 23, 2021 as he and Treasury Secretary

My winter experience in Southwest Florida included watching the “BMFR” index redline at levels of conspicuous wealth not seen in my lifetime. For those of you who do not visit the Naples area, the BMFR index is the number of Bentley’s, Maserati’s, Ferraris and Rolls Royce’s you see on

As we emerge from our Covid-19 caves and rejoin business, commercial and personal worlds, I have begun to wonder what institutions, interactions, professions, entertainment and lifestyles will be altered in a material way. For most of my life I have been on a hamster wheel of expected behaviors like

I have a friend who has spent most of his career upgrading the plumbing on Wall Street.  He is not a pipe wrench plumber, but rather one of the architects of the programmatic trading platforms for some of the 40 providers of liquidity that comprise the US stock market.

If you think trying to understand Bitcoin (BTC) and its blockchain is difficult, wait until you have your first encounter with decentralized banking or insurance products. It will seem as daunting and risky as climbing Everest without a sherpa. Because I am not qualified to guide in this emerging

My generation’s interaction with money, wealth, art, music, communication, commercial real estate, credit, finance, personal real estate, insurance and social interaction has mostly been through trusted third parties like Chase Bank, Goldman Sachs, Fidelity, Sotheby, National Title, Experian, Moody’s, Berkshire Hathaway, Depositary Trust Clearing Corp, ASCAP, Facebook, Apple and

Someone’s investment gyroscope is completely out of whack. For most of my investment life I have tried to discover unseen gems among the trash heap of abandoned stocks. These might be stocks with good revenue growth, low debt, high cash flows, a defensible position relative to other competitors and

I wish I could join the throng of euphoric pundits who are now advocating Modern Monetary Theory (“MMT”). Most of them equate MMT with the ascendancy of central banks and their invincibility procuring worldwide prosperity even in the face of one of the swiftest business reversals in my lifetime.