September 2021

  The backdoor Roth. It’s a great technique for getting after tax dollars into a Roth IRA if you don’t otherwise qualify. That deal might be a goner by the end of the year. What can you do? Is there anything that’s risk-free, meaning even if they don’t pass the bill as it stands – it’s no harm, no foul. Well, there is, and we’ll talk about it. So, there’s something called a Roth two-step, we call it that, also the backdoor Roth and the way the mechanics work because you make a deposit of after-tax dollars into a traditional IRA. You don’t get a deduction and you move those dollars shortly thereafter into a Roth. In the early years, we weren’t sure how the IRS would like this, but they never challenged it and eventually came up with a ruling, saying, yes, this is legal. It’s been quite the…

Back in March 2020 massive cash infusions saved the economy from what could have been a deflationary spiral, the worst-case scenario at that point in time. Now it’s late 2021. Deflation is no longer the risk. Is it time to taper the infusions? Back in March 2020, we had what was an extraordinary bipartisan response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Everything was collapsing, the lockdowns were causing a complete shutdown of the economy. This was great action. It was stunning to me, frankly, how complete, comprehensive, and fast it happened. Clearly, both parties had learned from 2008: do it now, do it quick. But now we’re at 5% plus inflation. In fact, some sectors, the economy double digit inflation. At the same time we have supply chain shortages. Is just printing money still the best course of action? You know, in late July, the Federal Open Market Committee, FOMC announced that…