For many people, the worst part of the process of terminating an advisor happens at the very end, when you finally have to tell the guy the relationship is over.

Now that we know why we’re going to fire our financial advisor, let’s talk about when to do it. Obviously, if any of the issues I detailed in my last post are operating, the time to fire your advisor is ASAP.

If you Google “Should I fire my financial advisor?” you will land on a lot of brain-​dead articles. If any of the reasons listed in those articles apply to your financial advisor and you haven’t fired him, you’re probably hopeless.

When your friends in Florida or your relatives in Virginia gather around their live Christmas tree this season, there’s a chance the evergreen was grown and harvested from a hillside in Indiana County, Pa.

“You’re fired!” – Donald Trump. The incredible — and incredibly long — bull market in both stocks and bonds that has persisted since the end of the Global Financial Crisis is now teetering. Whether or not the market bloodbath that occurred in October continues, the bull will in fact come to an end one…

As the holidays approach, so does the need for presents and hostess gifts. While it may be tempting to get on your iPad at 2 a.m. and order mass-​produced items that will show up on your doorstep in two days, there are unique or personalized options that support local businesses…

Local newspapers have struggled for more than a decade to secure a foothold in the digital era and stay in business. Dwindling revenues and flagging demand for print editions have led some southwestern Pennsylvania papers to close and others to downsize their newsrooms, affecting coverage of local news. To make…

Austin, Texas is one of a handful of cities in the world currently blessed in reputation — big enough to have almost all the cultural amenities of cities twice our size, yet small enough to be tops on any of those innumerable “livability” lists.

“Why?” is the obvious question: dead bodies of all ages (arriving daily), grieving families, being surrounded by sadness and despair, not to mention dealing with the more unseemly but necessary “physical” aspects of the job. As a family business — sure, that makes sense — family pressure can go a long way, and there…

“The… task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.” –Friedrich von Hayek

Work is a fact of life for nearly 1.2 million southwestern Pennsylvanians. Some love what they do; others, not so much. Either way, work consumes a healthy share of their time and energy. Their weeks are structured around it. It’s what puts money in their pockets.

We are talking about America’s Monetary Keystone Kops, who have, since 1987 (when Greenspan became chair of the Federal Reserve), been masquerading as central bankers. (Or maybe it’s the other way ‘round, it’s hard to tell.)

We’ve assessed the successes and failures of central bankers in the 1930s. Now let’s turn our attention to their modern counterparts.

In part one of this video series, Jim Roddey, age 85, discusses his contributions to Pittsburgh as a businessman and first Allegheny County Executive.

The “gold standard,” which prevailed in the developed world for many decades, simply means that some fraction of a country’s paper currency has to be backed by — that is, convertible into — gold. In the U.S. that fraction was 40 percent. Since a government on the gold standard can’t print money without increasing…