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There are plenty of scary and negative headlines referencing multiple economic and geopolitical challenges around the globe and at home.

I don’t know about you but it sure seems the world’s inhabitants are living through an almost endless cycle of “bad stuff” - since March of 2020 when Covid-19 first changed things. It’s way too reminiscent of the movie Groundhog Day where Bill Murray played a newspaper reporter covering Punxsutawney Phil’s annual ascent from his hole – in an endless loop of repeating days. In the words of my favorite accidental philosopher (Yogi Berra) – “it’s like deja-vu all over again”.

I was about twelve when my father purchased a used pickup truck for the purpose of “helping you boys go to college”. That pickup became the means for the Johnson brothers to put three boys through a combined twenty years of undergraduate and graduate degrees of college (combined 3 undergraduate and 3 graduate degrees).

Last January I wrote a column after an exceptionally difficult and divisive 2020 and a very rough start to 2021. Unfortunately, as I look back on the completion of 2021 it does not appear that the fraying of our social fabric has improved any in the completed year.

Before you put a bow in this year’s finances here’s a list of things you can do between now and the end of the year to either reduce taxes or put yourself in a better position financially going into 2022:

We are living in unprecedented times! It's not just all the hate re: vaccines, elections, and public policy but the actual data! I try to wrap my mind around this morning's reported 6.2 percent inflation at the same time the average 30 year mortgage is funded at less than 3 percent. Both measures have intrinsic ties to the ten year treasury bond which currently trades at around 1.5 percent. That's an extremely unusual disconnect! To me, it portends trouble ahead...