The Flinchum File

Thoughtful Economic Analysis and Existential Opinions
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Welcome to The Flinchum File

I am an Accredited Investment Fiduciary at Bay Capital Advisors, an investment firm headquartered in Virginia Beach, VA. After retiring from Truist Bank, I started this firm to work more closely with a smaller number of clients, and it has been great! Our client load is about 25% of the national average.

Writing is not for the shy or the meek. It exposes a person’s mind and character. I hope you enjoy the view.

The opinions expressed in The Flinchum File are those of the writer, Jim Flinchum, and do not necessarily reflect those of Bay Capital Advisors, LLC

Can We Talk?

Now that Special Counsel Robert Mueller has completed his study, I thank him for his service over the past two years.  And, I congratulate the President and his family on surviving that Inquisition. Having said that, in August of 2017, I wrote about the problem of writing, when Donald Trump has any tenuous link to the story.  His powerful personality “sucks the oxygen out of…

Random Thoughts on Egypt

Egypt is a relatively large country, with a population approaching 100 million.  Tourism is its leading industry, employing one of every seven Egyptians.  The Nile region is also a major agricultural producer.  It is the only non-OPEC oil producer in the Mid-East.  After passing South Africa last year, Egypt is now the fastest growing economy in Africa.  It is also surprising that Cairo has become…

MPT & MMT

I believe in Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT), which is the investment philosophy of virtually all institutional money managers in this country.  This Nobel Prize-winning theory found that a portfolio can achieve higher returns with lower risk – the “Holy Grail” — by allocating the portfolio across many asset classes, such as big company stocks, small company stocks, short-term bonds, long-term bonds, commodities, real estate, etc. …

A Voice From 2009

Ron Pearson is a long-term friend, a retired financial planner, as well as a retired Navy fighter pilot.  Ten years ago, he wrote about the sad state of Social Security.  With his permission, I’m republishing it here – to show how the problems of Social Security are not new, and that we have been writing about it for too long. ****************************************************************************************************************************************************************** Government-Speak – Do you…

Definition of Idiocy

I have a great deal of respect for Ric Edelman, who was one of the financial planning pioneers in the Washington area.  Having done well, he is now focused on doing good.  He sees the greatest medical disaster approaching us as the rising cost of Alzheimer’s disease, and I have no reason to disagree with him. In addition, he sees the greatest financial disaster approaching…

Wrong Deficit

The December trade deficit was the highest in ten years.  The hand-wringing was immediate and painful.  You’ll recall the President campaigned hard that he would cut that deficit in half.  However, we should give the President a pass on this promise.  The deficit for that one month was not too worrisome, given we’re in the middle of several trade wars, and the dollar is stubbornly…

Parsing Socialism

In the last century, when I took my first course in economics, I learned that socialism was an economic system calling for public ownership of the major means of production and transportation.  The important point was that it was an economic system, not a political system.  Today, Wikipedia describes it as: Socialism is a range of economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production and workers’ self-management,[10] as well as the…

Double Expresso?

The conventional wisdom is that the economy and the stock market move together.  In the long run, that is true but not always in short run.  This is one of those times, when the stock market is doing too good! At first blush, Wall Street cheered when the Q4 GDP growth showed 2.6%, considerably better to the 2.2% that was expected.  Assuming 2.6% is correct,…

Just Dumb!

I’m a gun-lover.  I have lots of guns.  I was even a member of the National Rifle Association, until they went crazy. The Kentucky legislature is dumb!  They just legalized any 21-year-old loser, who hasn’t been convicted of a crime yet and who hasn’t been declared crazy yet, to carry a concealed weapon in that state without a permit and without any training at all.…

The Sky Is Falling

Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834) was an Englishman and one of the first economists.  However, as a result of his work, economics was often described “the dismal science.”  He concluded that mankind was doomed to war and starvation, because population increases faster than food production.  When population exceeded food, there would be enough war to bring population back into balance.  Pretty dismal, huh?  What he didn’t…