That "Trump Bump" Social Security raise? Already gone. Medicare premiums, gas, groceries — they've swallowed every penny before it hits your account. Meanwhile, your benefits have already lost 13.7% of their purchasing power since 2016, and the system would need to raise checks by 15.7% just to break even. You're getting $81. You needed $296.
Central banks have been quietly buying one specific asset at the fastest pace in 50 years — and JP Morgan now sees it hitting $8,000. Smart retirees aren't waiting on the next COLA. They're protecting what's left right now. Get the free guide and see the 3 steps disciplined retirees are using to outrun the inflation Washington can't stop.
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Buffett Steps Aside as Chairman: The End of an Era, Not the End of Berkshire
Warren Buffett is stepping down as chairman of Berkshire Hathaway after more than six decades tied to the company’s rise from a struggling textile business into the most studied capital-allocation machine in modern markets. The chairmanship is moving to his son, Howard Buffett, while Warren remains chairman emeritus.
If you’re a Berkshire shareholder, the real question isn’t sentimentality. It’s continuity. Berkshire has always been bigger than one man on paper, but in practice Buffett’s presence has been the gravity that kept the culture and the deal discipline intact.
The market will spend the next few quarters trying to price something that can’t be modeled: what happens when the most trusted investor in the world isn’t at the head of the table anymore. But Berkshire’s bench has been built for a long time, and the company’s real asset is its ability to make rational decisions when everyone else is emotional.
🥃 Cole's Take: This is a baton pass, not a fire sale signal. Berkshire isn’t going to morph into a flashy, quarterly-earnings-chasing machine overnight, and that matters more than who sits in the ceremonial chair. If you own it for disciplined capital allocation and a fortress balance sheet, you keep your eyes on execution, not headlines.
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AI Isn’t Firing Your Advisor. It’s Giving Them a Bigger Book of Business
The idea that AI will wipe out financial advisors makes for a great viral take and a terrible forecast. The more realistic shift is that AI automates the parts of advice clients never wanted to pay for in the first place: paperwork, basic modeling, routine rebalancing prompts, and the endless churn of administrative follow-ups.
What’s left is the work that actually moves outcomes: behavior, tax-aware planning, estate coordination, and the hard conversations when markets are red and confidence is fragile. Done right, AI becomes the behind-the-scenes associate that helps an advisor serve more clients with a higher standard, not the robot that replaces the relationship.
That also raises the bar. If AI can do generic, the human has to be specific. Advisors who can’t articulate value beyond performance charts and platitudes will find themselves competing with software that’s cheaper, faster, and never takes a vacation.
🥃 Cole's Take: AI will commoditize mediocrity in advice, and that’s healthy. The advisors who survive and thrive will be the ones who treat AI like a power tool: it speeds up the build, but it doesn’t replace the architect. If your advisor can’t show you tangible planning wins in taxes, risk, and decision-making, you’re paying boutique pricing for big-box output.
SVB Report: Regulators Saw the Smoke, Then Looked Away
A new report says Federal Reserve staff should have recognized Silicon Valley Bank’s vulnerability before its 2023 collapse, according to comments from Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman. The core issue wasn’t exotic fraud; it was a plain-vanilla mismatch: concentrated funding, interest-rate risk, and a confidence business that can unravel in hours.
The SVB failure was a case study in what happens when risk management is treated like a compliance exercise instead of a survival discipline. And it was also a case study in how supervision can fail quietly long before a bank fails loudly.
For investors and business owners, this matters because it reinforces a reality most people don’t want to admit: you can be “regulated” and still be fragile. When rates move fast and deposits are flighty, the weakest link isn’t always capital on paper. It’s credibility in real time.
🥃 Cole's Take: This is why I never outsource my skepticism to a regulator. If you have serious cash balances, you spread risk like you spread firewood before a storm: wide and deliberate. And if you’re buying bank stocks, remember that duration risk and funding concentration aren’t academic topics when the exit door is only as wide as confidence.
📎 CNBC
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Reed vs. Rory: The Race to Dubai Just Got Personal Again
Rory McIlroy is chasing history with a shot at a record-tying eighth Race to Dubai title, and the timing is perfect for golf’s favorite kind of tension: a proven champion with something to cement versus a rival who’d love nothing more than to spoil the party. Patrick Reed sits first in the standings, and he’s not shy about what it would mean to deny Rory the milestone.
Whatever your feelings about Reed, this is good for the product. Big moments need friction. And the European circuit’s season-long narrative has a different weight than a one-week shootout because it rewards consistency under travel, pressure, and changing setups.
For fans, it’s a reminder that legacies aren’t built only in majors. They’re built in the grind too, when you show up week after week and keep your game sharp while the rest of life is pulling at you.
🥃 Cole's Take: I’m rooting for greatness, and Rory finishing the job would be a clean chapter in modern golf history. But Reed leading the standings is exactly the kind of irritant that forces a champion to play like one. If Rory wants the record, he’ll have to take it, not receive it.
📎 GOLF.com
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Steve McQueen’s Ferrari Could Hit $20 Million: The Market for Iconic Objects Is Still Alive
A 1967 Ferrari 275 GTB/4 S N.A.R.T. Spider once owned by Steve McQueen is headed to auction through Gooding Christie’s on November 21, with estimates suggesting it could fetch around $20 million. Only 10 of these were built, which puts it in that rare air where provenance and scarcity become their own asset class.
This isn’t just about a movie star’s old car. It’s about the continued bid for real-world trophies that can’t be duplicated, especially as more wealth gets created digitally and stored digitally. The ultra-high-end collectible market tends to reward items with a clean story, top-tier rarity, and cultural gravity.
At the same time, these are not liquid positions, and they’re not “investments” the way a stock is. They’re expensive, insured, stored, maintained, and sold on the schedule of the auction calendar and the mood of a small buyer pool.
🥃 Cole's Take: If you’re buying this kind of car, do it because it makes your pulse go up, not because you need it to beat the S&P. The best collectible purchases are the ones you can afford to hold through a thin market without getting cute about leverage. But yes, the top of the market is still paying for authenticity, and McQueen is about as authentic as it gets.
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The Enchantments Tragedy: When a Day Hike Turns Into a Winter Problem
A deadly early-September storm in Washington’s Enchantments trapped a couple without overnight gear; the woman died and her husband was rescued after they were buried under roughly two feet of snow. It’s a brutal reminder that shoulder season is not a gentle season in the mountains, especially in terrain where routes are exposed and bailout options are limited.
The Enchantments are spectacular, and they can lull people into treating a big objective like a scenic stroll. But weather doesn’t care about your itinerary, your fitness, or the fact that it was sunny at the trailhead. Snow line can drop fast, navigation can vanish, and a simple delay can become an emergency.
Outdoor travel is one of the best returns on time and money I know, but the deal only works if you respect the risk. That means conservative decision-making, redundant layers, and the humility to turn around early when conditions shift.
🥃 Cole's Take: I don’t care how experienced you are, if you go into serious terrain without the basics to spend an unplanned night, you’re betting your life on a forecast. Pack like you might get stuck, not like you hope you won’t. The mountains will be there next weekend; you need to be too.
Have a good weekend. Protect the downside, enjoy the upside, and if you’re heading outdoors, pack like the weather is looking for a fight.
— Cole Hargrove