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.

Fooling Wall Street

Sometimes, children are afraid of the “monster” hiding under their bed – an honest fear but irrational.Americans tend to be afraid of the inflation “monster” hiding in economic data – an honest fear but irrational.Inflation has already dropped from 9% to 3%, but some expect inflation to drop smoothly and predictably.Because inflation actually increased slightly last month, they are afraid inflation is exploding? NOPE! Higher…

Hero Worship

As a boy, my hero was Davey Crockett, who famously defended the Alamo in 1836, using the butt of his rifle after his ammo was exhausted. As a teenager, my hero was my father, who was part of the Normandy Invasion during World War II and spent his first night on French soil sheltering from falling debris, under a German jeep with the corpse of…

Pleasant Surprises

Like most people, I am disgusted with most people. Sometimes however, it takes a gentle splash of warm water in the face to remember that most people are indeed warm and good. During a recent trip to the Amazon jungle, I was crossing one the rope bridges so common there when a misstep caused a groin pull – not the worst one ever but enough…

Recession or Vibecession

Some things never change, such as – the incumbent political party says the economy is doing great, while the opposing party says things are terrible. That’s normal. While the majority of economists, myself included, predicted a mild recession at worst, it looks like economic conditions are indeed stronger than any of us anticipated. Here’s what is unusual: Less than half of the American people believe…

Which Freedom?

Which is worse? Herpes or those Plexaderm TV commercials? WRONG! Neither is as annoying as the never-ending coverage of the Presidential campaign(s)! Perhaps, Presidential campaigns are more important than Plexaderm . . . perhaps . . . but they are also even more annoying. It’s not merely the never-ending commercials but also the breathless news (?) coverage that amplifies it . . . and cheapens…

Modern-Day Tulips?

For the last decade or so, cryptocurrencies like bitcoin had enjoyed an illicit love affair on Wall Street. I wrote then that there is nothing you can do with bitcoin that you cannot do with dollars, unless you’re a drug dealer who wants payment in the middle of the night. Since then, I have watched, first with amusement and later with horror, as the younger…

Goodbye, Chuck

I attended the funeral of a friend and neighbor today. A retired Naval captain, he wore that dignity well, and I saluted him. Unfortunately, his fifteen-year-old heart bypass suddenly blew out . . . and he was gone. Watching his small black-draped widow struggling with her tears, one felt her pain and abandonment. Even thought she was surrounded by family, she was utterly alone. Talking…

Sense of Hypocrisy

We Americans are such hypocrites. We say loudly that we love our individual privacy, but we would sell it all for fifty cents. With just your name, I can already find out more about you that your mother knows about you! Think about that for a minute. It scares the hell out of me! It’s not optional. Imagine some big fat cop kicks open your…

Mothers Know Best

I’ll never be as smart as my late mother. Many years ago, she told me that everybody in Washington was a crook. (Okay, thanks Mom?) Some years later, I asked her which are worse – Republican crooks or Democratic crooks? She said she preferred Republican crooks, because they dress nicer that Democratic crooks. (Okay, thanks Mom?) A few years before her death, I asked her…

Unfair Conflation

My Democratic friends are confused and annoyed with the President’s low approval rate on the economy. Of course, there are always plenty of other reasons to dislike politicians — in this case, remember our embarrassing withdrawal from Afghanistan or the ongoing fiasco on the Rio Grande? But, he still deserves a pass on the economy. The economic data is mostly very good. Inflation is dropping…

Full Circle

My late mother was a Christmas-oloic. She lived for the holidays and played Christmas music constantly. During high school and college, I worked retail in a shoe store selling ladies shoes. The money was good and the opportunity to meet girls was even better. During that time, the Christmas music was constant. Any fondness or addiction to Christmas music was rooted out and destroyed during…

The 4th Victim

When I was a young Infantry soldier, I often recalled General Patton’s instructions to all young soldiers. He preached “No dumb bastard ever won a war by going out and dying for his country. He won it by making some other dumb bastard die for his country.” I often wondered if those instructions made young infantry soldiers more trigger-happy . . . maybe too trigger-happy.…

Happy Hanukkah !

In the final days of World War II, my father found himself passing thru one of the German extermination camps, as part of a team doing an initial check on the risk of fire. There were only a few prisoners/victims remaining in the camp, but they made a huge impression on my father. He never described the horrors he saw, and he wouldn’t tolerate any…

The Church of Efficiency

Most everybody supports Freedom of Religion, which protects your right to worship the religion of your choice or none-at-all. That assumes you worship something theological, but you are also free to worship other things, even other people. I suppose you can also worship a tree or a rock? There was one Dutch painter who boasted that he worshiped only beauty, however defined. Of course, under…

Needing Negativity ?

Why are things always getting worse? Or, are they? Today, you would find it difficult to convince most Americans today that inflation is no longer a problem. Good luck on that! Going from 9% to only 3% is no reason to celebrate, I guess? Surely, we can celebrate our 5.2% GDP growth rate? Nope? Jobless rates are near record lows, but that’s not good enough…

Sorry, Dad

Growing up on a farm requires a lot of work and a lot of time to do it. There’s no time to play games when there is work to do, so it is not so surprising that my farmboy-father strongly disapproved of games – all games. Games may vary from checkers to football, but they’re all the same, he said . . . a waste…

On Collateral Damage

Watching the heartbreaking scenes from Gaza, I remembered Lieutenant William Calley at the My Lai massacre. Although hundreds of civilians were killed in My Lai, Calley was convicted of killing 22 of them, mostly women and children in 1968. Originally sentenced to life imprisonment, that was later commuted by President Nixon to only three years of house arrest. Now 80-years-old, he is living in his…

Thank you for your service!

Christians and other religious followers quibble over which “holiday” is more holy – Easter or Christmas? Veterans quibble over whether Memorial Day or Veterans Day is more significant? (Veterans Day honors everybody who wore a uniform, while Memorial Day honors those who paid the “ultimate price”.) “Thank you for your service” is a polite courtesy, but some of us consider it trite and hollow. When…

A theory for all seasons . . . ?

Years ago in Dallas, I enjoyed having lunch with Arthur Laffer. Although an economic advisor to President Reagan, he is best known as the father of the Laffer Curve, which showed why a cut in taxes increases revenue to the government. This is the basic principal of Supply-side economics. He had studied the Kennedy Tax Cut, which passed in 1964, and saw how revenues to…

Two-State Solution ?

What do mothers do when two kids are fighting? In Virginia Beach, where I live, there is a north-south orientation. The urbanized and developed northern part is separated by a “green line” from the rural, undeveloped southern part. The point is that there is a relatively clear separation. Many pundits argue that the only solution for peace in the Middle East is the two-state solution,…

The Fear of 100

I attended a birthday party for a relative reaching the age of 100. He was born when postage was only 2 cents and unemployment was only 2.4%, both lower than today. I asked him what was the secret to living so long, and he answered “apples & onions”. Later, I asked a very close friend “how would you like to live to be 100 years…

White Noise

When I was born, Arabs and Jews were killing each other in the Mideast.When I graduated from high school, they were still killing each other.When I graduated from college, they were still killing each other.When I was discharged from the Army, they were still killing each other.When I married the first time, they were still killing each other.When I became a father, they were still…

Seeking Help

According to the old Buddhist tradition of the “Three Wise Monkeys”, each was named “see no evil, hear no evil, or speak no evil.” According to my late mother, bad things don’t happen if you don’t talk about it. According to the Veterans Administration, every returning veteran needs counseling. According to many existentialists, there is so little difference between life and death that the difference…

Paying the cost . . .?

Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that the budget for the American Special Forces was being cut. For example, the budget for the Army’s Green Berets was being cut 5-10%. Some years ago, the U.S. and other nations decided that future wars would be drastically different, with more high-visibility open spaces and fewer low-visibility spaces like jungles and door-to-door fighting. High visibility open spaces…

October Redux

For years, I have cautioned investors not to over-react to recessions, which are a normal, routine part of capitalism. They come and go. A recession is not the same thing as a bear market in stocks, but they often occur together. If you enjoy being afraid, be fearful of a financial crisis instead. They are harder to predict, come on more quickly than recessions, and…

Big Dollars, Small Deal

Until July 18th, 2015, I thought former President Donald Trump was just another skirt-chasing New York braggart. That day, I became a “never-Trumper,” because that was the day he trashed American hero John McCain. He didn’t merely disagree with McCain, he trashed him. It was ugly! Later, after McCain died in 2018, Trump ridiculed McCain’s family for having “the world’s longest funeral.” That day, I…

Death Planning?

I am comfortable discussing dementia, having seen it so many times in friends and clients over the years. Nonetheless, I attended a two-hour update yesterday. There are currently about 6.8 million Americans with dementia. 89% are cared for by a family member, 66% of whom are women. The five most common types of dementia are (1) Alzheimer’s early or late onset, (2) Vascular Dementia, (3)…

A Non-Binary Suggestion?

For years, I have cautioned my Democratic friends that the immigration issue was a cancer on the Democratic party, and because my Republican friends belong to the Party of No, there has been no hope of any compromise, at least not since Newt Gingrich was Speaker. Democrats view immigrants as human beings to be cared for, which requires a “comprehensive” solution, including housing, healthcare, education,…

Titans at Summits

We’ve had at least three “tech summits” where “tech titans” come to Congress and confuse legislators. In last week’s summit, the tech titans asked for better regulation of artificial intelligence (AI) , as sloppy regulation could destroy the tech sector and maybe the country. Sounds innocent enough! The previous tech summit was just a bitch-session, where my Republican friends complained that the mass media was…

R.I.H.

On this date for the past twenty-two years, most adult Americans recall the horror of watching commercial airplanes crash into the World Trade Center and the subsequent collapse of those towers, killing almost three thousand people. Personally, I recall cars driving on sidewalks. While my office in Downtown Alexandria was in sight of the Pentagon, I didn’t see the plane crash into it. Of course,…