The Good News provides a monthly column with important content having to do with topics from the legal community. This month Bill Davell discusses a payment scam with Charles Tatelbaum, a partner at Tripp Scott. As if individuals and small businesses don’t have enough scams to worry about, an oldie-but-goodie is increasingly rearing its ugly head: the restrictive endorsement, by which debtors attempt to manipulate the check payment process to slip free of money they owe you or your company. Let’s delve into the tactic and how to avoid getting tricked by it:   Bill Davell: So what is a […]

“…the borrower is slave to the lender,” so it says in Proverbs. Paul Tudor Jones calls the paradox of U.S. debt and today’s mostly calm bond market an economic “kayfabe;” a pro-wrestling term. Those who know that the numbers aren’t sustainable conveniently suspend disbelief while the show continues. Ray Dalio gives America about three years to avert an economic heart attack. Jones and Dalio are amongst the best-known and successful investors in the world. Our nation’s debt has reached an astonishing level of $38 trillion ($350,000 per taxpayer), with last year’s interest payments totaling $1.124 trillion. With fiscal deficits as […]

In game six of the 1977 World Series, Reginald Martinez Jackson hit an astonishing three home runs on three consecutive swings. We were on the field when “Reggie” was called out of the dugout for a celebratory bow. It was electric. Literally growing up in Yankee Stadium, we can recall eating PB&J sandwiches in the locker room by Mickey “The Mick” Mantle. Philip Francis “The Scooter” Rizzuto recorded our answering machine message (dating ourselves, we know). And my father’s friend Lawrence Peter “Yogi” Berra once said, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”  A typical person is so […]

“What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun,” so it says in the Book of Ecclesiastes. To us, a familiar and fond passage. It also reminds us of the four most expensive words in the English language, attributed to John Templeton, this time is different. We cannot count how many times we have heard those words uttered by those promoting a new investment or investment trend. When we hear it, we have good reason to believe that something bad is about to happen. Consider the dot.com bubble, […]

The Good News provides a monthly column with important content having to do with topics from the legal community. This month, Tripp Scott attorney Bill Davell interviews fellow Tripp Scott attorney Seth Donahoe, with an update on AI. A year and a half ago, this column warned readers, in the immortal words of Sgt. Phil Esterhaus, to “be careful out there” when it came to employing so-called generative artificial intelligence.  Even back in December 2023, more than 100 million consumer and business users had employed AI tools, but that explosion of usage has grown to engulf nearly every area of […]

“There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult,” a saying we’ve grown quite fond of repeating. It usually brings a chuckle. On occasion a groan. The statement is attributed to Warren Buffett, considered by many the most successful investor of all time, with an unparalleled 19.9% compound annual gain over 60 years. Mr. Buffett’s declaration undeniably applies to investing. Smart money moves aren’t more complicated than you think. They’re actually simpler. Cut through the jargon, pontificating and technical stuff and everything you really need to know about investing can often be boiled down […]