James Bradley

My mother still objects vehemently.  These are her funds!  She squirreled these away for years! She should be able to spend them – or not – as she deems appropriate!  Who is the government to tell her she has to take money out of her retirement plan?! Required Minimum Distributions…

In the universe of capital market investments, it seems there’s no area more confounding than the ‘debt markets’.  Clients and advisors alike project a look of semi-understanding when bonds and all of their quirky dynamics come into the equation. Bonds are easy, as long as we remember one thing:  they’re…

As I write this blog, it’s sunny, dry and 73 degrees.  There’s a slight breeze.  This is, I believe, the best possible meteorological condition for human existence.  Extremely liveable. Of course, as anyone living in Maine is well aware, this kind of day is the exception to the rule.  Generally,…

We’re looking at what some economists call the longest bull market in history, and it’s creating problems. They’re not really bad problems.  We’ll just call them challenges.  More specifically, we’ll call them Capital Gains – and the IRS will be looking to take a portion of those in taxes.  Fortunately,…

This week, we’re breaking down the longest bull market in history (or IS it?). Usually published on Friday, this had to wait til Monday while Isaiah Jeffrey Tackett was making his entrance into this world at 9lbs 3oz. Maybe there’s more bull left for this lad to enjoy? This week,…

We received them annually.  They were white with green stripes, and they gave us some comfort in knowing that all of those Social Security taxes we’d paid over our lives were actually going to yield us something.  Then, in 2011, they stopped coming. For some of us, we didn’t notice. …

Penned by Jennifer I Richard, JD, the Director of Gift Planning at Maine Community Foundation, working with donors and other partners to improve the quality of life for all Maine people. A couple of PFA Ponderings ago there was a discussion about retirement savings in the context of IRS Tools:…

Monte Carlo, a ward in the Principality of Monaco, sits on the French Riviera.  It occupies a mere quarter square mile, and from its perch on the coastal foothills of the Alps, it overlooks the stunning blue of the Mediterranean.  The weather is temperate, only occasionally venturing above the 70s…

“When someone says it’s not about the money, it’s about the money.” - H.L. Mencken That old chestnut may be true, but there are times when investment decisions are made for reasons that go well beyond simple rate-of-return considerations.  The increasing number of individual investors in the market has led…

Tax policy is clearly just as much a social engineering tool as it is a revenue source.  When you think of it, this makes perfect sense and is something we should probably applaud.  By driving us to be healthier (by assessing outsized taxes on cigarettes, junk food, and fossil fuels),…