Wealth Formula by Buck Joffrey

I am going to keep this brief because I have a cold and I don’t want to subject you to Sudafed altered commentary. This week’s Wealth Formula Podcast features an interview with Jay Parsons who is Chief Economist at RealPage. He is an authority on topics affecting multifamily apartments which, of course, is of significant interest to us all. The picture that he presents is one of transition. The short term is consistent with what we are already experiencing…pain. But as I said last week, there seems to be an undercurrent of optimism for the near future given the significant interest from big money to invest in apartment buildings. I was encouraged to hear what Jay had to say and I think you will be too. Let me know what you think! Jay Parsons serves as Senior Vice President, Chief Economist for RealPage, leading the Economist and Industry Principal teams to provide deep insights on market trends and consumer behaviors. He is a frequent author and speaker on topics affecting multifamily apartments and single-family rentals, including rental housing investment and asset management strategy, rental housing policy issues, risk mitigation and property management. Jay has been cited in The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, The Financial Times, The Economist, and The New York Times, and he has appeared on CNBC and BloombergTV. His commentaries have been published by Barron’s, the Pension Real Estate Association, the Mortgage Bankers Association, the National Apartment Association, American Banker and GlobeSt.

The Fed just raised rates another 25 basis points despite global banking instability and investor angst. This wasn’t a surprise. Curtailing inflation continues to be their primary motivation. How long will the Fed continue to raise rates? Well, inflation has to be clearly under control and/or there must be something else that happens that threatens the global economy. Isolated bank failures remedied by corporate takeovers do not appear to be threatening enough. So what is it going to take to get inflation really under control? I hate to say it but it’s hard to see inflation getting under control without increasing unemployment. You see, the economic pain is shaping up to be a top-down phenomenon. Every day people have not felt the pain yet so they have not curtailed spending. When people either lose their jobs or start worrying about losing their jobs, inflation will finally be curtailed. Until this happens, expect more of the same. The investor class is going to feel more pain. But as I’ve been emphasizing in recent podcasts, with pain comes opportunity and I continue to believe that is what we will see in the latter half of this year. In this week and next week’s podcasts, you will hear a similar theme that should make you feel somewhat reassured if you invest in multifamily real estate. The common theme is that multifamily assets are favorable in down economies and that these assets have become a darling for large investors and institutions alike. On this week’s Wealth Formula podcast, I interview Harry Dent. Harry is a really interesting guy. In recent years, he has been pretty pessimistic about the economy. And now, he’s raising even more red flags. But again, pay attention to what Harry thinks is going to happen with the economy as a whole and also his take on multifamily real estate. Harry is also famous for his economic forecasts based on demographics which I find fascinating. It’s definitely worth a listen.  Tune in now! Harry S. Dent, Jr. is a best-selling author and one of the most outspoken financial editors in America. Using proprietary research, Harry developed a unique method for studying economies around the world, and uses his analysis to provide insights on what to expect in the future. Instead of focusing on endless graphs that assume people behave rationally, Harry instead looks at real people, making real economic decisions for themselves and their families. He combines demographics with actual spending to inform his research. Harry received his MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar and was elected to the Century Club for leadership excellence. He then joined Bain & Company as a Fortune 100 business consultant and now heads the independent research firm HS Dent Publishing. Since then, he’s spoken to executives, financial advisors and investors around the world about demographics and the power of identifying different trends. Harry has appeared on “Good Morning America,” PBS, CNBC and CNN, Fox News and is a regular guest on Fox Business. He has also been featured in Barron’s, Investor’s Business Daily, Fortune, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, and many other publications. Harry has written numerous bestselling books over the last few decades, from The Great Boom Ahead in 1992 to Zero Hour in 2017. In 2019, Harry published his latest book Spending Waves, where he shares decades of extensive research covering over 200 businesses across 14 different industries to give readers insight into business and investing trends for the years ahead. Shownotes: Why are economic recessions necessary? Spending Wave Theory Will there be another boom despite all the artificial debt leverage? Where should people look to deploy capital over the next couple of years? harrydent.com

Oh what a mess this economy is! Helicopter money during Covid and supply chain issues brought on inflation like we haven’t seen in decades. To respond to this self-inflicted predicament, the Federal Reserve began raising interest rates at an alarming pace. Never have we seen interest rates rise at this steep of a slope—even in good old Paul Volker’s days. Inflation has been going down for several months although the most recent CPI figure is still 6 percent. That is well above the 2 percent target the Fed has had for years. That’s why Jerome Powell was so hawkish last week about continuing to raise interest rates aggressively. They could do that without worry if nothing bad happened. But in the last week, something broke. Specifically, we saw bank failures of two regional banks. They weren’t doing anything nefarious. In fact, they seemed to be doing what they were supposed to do—investing in conservative bonds that became worthless as interest rates rose. Things are moving quickly now. By the time I release this podcast a week from now, things could get a lot worse. So now, the Fed is in a pickle. Usually, when something “breaks” like it did, that is a signal for the Fed to back off its hawkish stance. But with inflation still at 6 percent, that isn’t exactly an easy decision. So what do I think is going to happen? Well, whether or not rates go up at the next meeting is irrelevant. Unless there are other signs of systemic weakness too hard to ignore, the Fed will continue to raise rates until inflation is tamed. That is going to result in a lot more destruction to the economy than we see now. We are hearing all about banks right now but the real estate market is also about to see a reckoning. I do believe within the next few months, there will be the proverbial blood in the streets. In that process, it is quite possible that you will lose some money. However, the most important thing is to keep a level head. You see, it is in times like these that the most money is made. Those who are paralyzed with fear will lose out. Those who act rationally will win big. A buyer’s market in real estate will be here shortly. This week on Wealth Formula Podcast, I speak with Jorge Newbery about the real estate and debt markets. Make sure to tune in! Jorge P. Newbery is Founder and CEO of American Homeowner Preservation LLC, which crowdfunds the purchase of nonperforming mortgages from banks at big discounts, then shares the discounts with struggling homeowners. A 2004 natural disaster triggered the financial collapse of Newbery’s former business, leaving him with $26 million in debts he could not pay. Newbery rebuilt himself through AHP, sharing what he learned from his challenges to help families at risk of foreclosure stay in their homes.

Tax expert Tom Wheelwright discusses the risks of investing in oil and gas for W2 employees and recommends alternative options like short-term rentals. They also explore changes in tax laws related to real estate, the benefits of investing in solar energy, and strategies for reducing tax liability. Ultimately, they emphasize the importance of consulting with a financial team before making investment decisions.

Why is decentralized finance advantageous? Let’s ask artificial intelligence. As you may recall from last week’s episode, ChatGPT is widely accessible to anyone right now. Here’s the explanation on the value of decentralized finance from the ChatGPT software itself: “Decentralized finance, or DeFi, is advantageous for several reasons: Accessibility: DeFi allows anyone with an internet connection to access financial services without needing to go through traditional financial institutions or intermediaries. This opens up financial services to people who might not have had access before, particularly those in underbanked or unbanked regions. Transparency: DeFi operates on a public blockchain, which means that transactions and financial data are visible to anyone. This transparency reduces the potential for fraud or corruption and allows for greater accountability. Security: DeFi uses cryptography and smart contracts to secure transactions, making it difficult for bad actors to manipulate the system. Additionally, DeFi eliminates the risk of a single point of failure, which reduces the risk of a catastrophic failure of the financial system. Interoperability: DeFi protocols are designed to be interoperable, meaning that they can work together seamlessly. This allows for greater flexibility and innovation in the development of financial products and services. Efficiency: DeFi operates 24/7 and is not subject to the same regulatory constraints as traditional finance, which means that transactions can be processed quickly and at lower costs. Additionally, DeFi eliminates the need for intermediaries, which reduces fees and transaction costs. Overall, these advantages make DeFi a compelling alternative to traditional finance, particularly for those who value accessibility, transparency, security, interoperability, and efficiency.” Not bad for a robot, right?  Here’s the thing. Decentralized finance is going to become mainstream finance in our lifetime. Large institutions are going to have to adjust or they will be irrelevant as the phone booth 20 years from now. So we need to understand what it’s all about and figure out how we can capitalize on it. My guest on this week’s Wealth Formula Podcast will give us a human expert’s opinion on why. Listen NOW! Emmanuel Daniel is a global thought leader in the future of finance. He is listed as a top 10 global influencer in the “Fintech Power50” list for 2021 and 2022. He is also an entrepreneur, writer and a model train enthusiast. Much of Emmanuel’s writing is based on his experience in founding and running his TAB Global research and consulting house since 1996. Through platforms such as The Asian Banker and Wealth and Society, Emmanuel has had extensive contact with leaders in banking and finance around the world. He won the Citibank Excellence in Business Journalism for Asia in 1999 for his work on the internet in banking. “The Asian Banker Summit” won the best finance conference from the Asian Conference and Summit Awards in 2012. In his first book, “The Great Transition – the personalization of finance is here” published in September 2022, Emmanuel outlines how the banking industry will evolve from being focused on platform technologies to a level of personalization never seen before. He describes the roles of cryptocurrencies, blockchain, gaming and other technologies in this transition. The book features forewords written by former congressman Barney Frank, the co-author of the Dodd-Frank Act set of legislations that regulate the financial services industry in the US today and Richard Sandor, an innovator widely regarded as the “father of financial futures”. His writing is also based on his extensive travel to more than 100 countries, and he is intent on visiting all. He posts regularly on his travels and is working towards his second book which is tentatively entitled “The Winning Civlisation” and due for publication in 2014. As an entrepreneur, he was previously a member of the Entrepreneurs Organization (EO), a prestigious grouping of young business owners worldwide. He has served or is serving in advisory or consulting roles for various public and private sector institutions at any time, and is a well regarded confidante in leadership circles. He is a well-regarded global speaker on a variety of topics. But he prefers working on strategic assignments with selected clients. He is sometimes interviewed on BBC, Bloomberg and CNBC. Emmanuel was trained as a lawyer, has degrees from the National University of Singapore and the University of London, and attended a course on economics at Columbia University in New York. He travels widely and divides his time between Singapore, Beijing and New York. Shownotes: Is everything becoming “Financialized?” What is the Personalization of Finance? Central Bank Decentralized Currencies The Winning Civilization

Ok, I know you keep hearing about how the world is going to look radically different soon. I have too.  But what is that radical change and when is it going to happen? I’m no expert in technology but it is clear that the radical changes we are expecting are coming from two emerging technologies: blockchain and artificial intelligence. Blockchain really defines this thing that people call Web 3.  We’ve talked about it before on the podcast but essentially Web 3 is the decentralization of various industries such as social media and finance (aka DeFi). Artificial intelligence (AI) is the other technology that is supposedly part of this great disruption that is about to occur. We’ve seen it in action without necessarily thinking about it already. Look at the WAZE application for example where shortest driving routes are based on huge amounts of human generated data points. In the last couple months, a new demonstration of the power of AI has come to surface and is widely available. It’s called ChatGPT.  Again, I haven’t used it yet but essentially instead of searching for something on google, ask ChatGPT anything and it will give you an answer. Ask it to generate a speech on interest rates and it will. Ask it to give you a summary of a book and it will. It’s really fascinating stuff that I wish I had during college to do all my homework but, as you can imagine, it also has the potential of being dangerous. The problem is technology is growing at a faster pace than perhaps we are ready for. Just because these technologies are powerful doesn’t dissuade nefarious actors. It may be a bumpy road ahead. This entire space is so complicated that I wanted to get a real expert to discuss it…especially this ChatGPT thing. That’s what this week’s Wealth Formula Podcast is about. This was a really fun interview to do and I encourage you to tune in NOW. KARY OBERBRUNNER, is a Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author of 11 books in multiple genres ranging from business to fiction to technology. He’s the founder and CEO of Igniting Souls and Blockchain Life. Together, these companies help authors, entrepreneurs, and influencers publish and protect their Intellectual Property and turn it into 18 streams of Income. In the past twenty years, he’s ignited over one million people with his content. He lives in Ohio with his wife, Kelly, and three children.

The two most common mistakes I’ve seen people make in personal finance is to not think about asset protection and to not think about estate planning. Not thinking about estate planning is sort of understandable. Death is a topic that many try to avoid. Some are even superstitious in that if they set up an estate plan, it could trigger their demise. The topic this week is not estate planning but we’ve done that show in the past. Here’s a little hint: The bare minimum you need is a will and a living trust to keep your assets out of probate should you die. OK, enough about estate planning. As I mentioned earlier, failure to implement a reasonable asset protection is the other most common mistake I see in new investors. Now I get it. If you don’t have much then you have little to worry about. But once you start accumulating assets you’ve got to do something. Let me explain why. If you are a real estate owner, you have got two enemies to defend against. The first is the tenant who slips and falls. The second is the guy with the broken bones your kid hit driving her new car. Either one would love to get at something valuable that you own in retribution (and probably a little greed). That’s where asset protection comes in. And here’s the thing. If you set up good asset protection from the beginning you may not get sued at all. A lot of this legal stuff is optics. If you put up a lot of walls and traps, you’re less likely to get sued in the first place because your estate will start looking a little bit like a turnip to any attorney working on contingency. Asset protection can be fairly simple but needs to be done right. My guest on Wealth Formula Podcast this week explains how and why that is important. He also spends a little time talking about tax advantages of producing movies which I thought was interesting as well. Listen NOW! Garrett Sutton has been practicing corporate law more than 35 years, assisting entrepreneurs and real estate investors around the world in protecting their assets and maximizing financial goals through his companies Corporate Direct and Sutton Law Center. Garrett, a highly sought after guest speaker, serves as a member of the elite group of “Rich Dad Advisors” for bestselling author Robert Kiyosaki. Garrett has authored several successful books for business owners, including “Start Your Own Corporation,” “Run Your Own Corporation,” “Writing Winning Business Plans” and “Loopholes of Real Estate.” These books are part of the bestselling Rich Dad, Poor Dad wealth-building book series. Shownotes: How does an asset protection plan aid an investor? Asset protection requirements for real estate and other types of investments Movie investments Veil Not Fail: Protecting Your Personal Assets from Business Attacks (Rich Dad Advisor Series)

When you are in the alternate investment space like me, everyone assumes you are a gold guy. I used to be. The idea of gold holding its value over time is very real. An ounce of gold in the times Christ would buy you a nice toga and sandals. Now, an ounce of gold will buy you a nice suit and shoes. Admittedly, that is a pretty darn good track record. So does gold belong in your portfolio? Well, for me, gold is not an investment. It’s money. So to the extent that you may want to have some of your “liquid assets” in gold, it may make some real sense. It’s just hard to carry in your wallet. I am still trying to find someone to convince me otherwise, but to me, real estate has all the qualities of gold that I want while providing additional benefits.  First, gold does not cash flow. When you buy real estate it should. In fact, with real estate, you can leverage and buy more of it and pay off the debt with income from the property. You really can’t reasonably leverage the purchase of gold and, if you did, you’d have no income to offset interest rate payments. Both gold and quality real estate are hedges against inflation. Residential property is particularly advantageous when it comes to inflation because leases are typically year to year and can keep up with the rise in the price of other goods and services. But to be clear, this is just my opinion. I don’t own physical gold but a lot of smart people do. I don’t claim to be right in that regard. Personal finance is…personal. On this week’s episode of Wealth Formula Podcast, I have a guest who speaks eloquently for the case of gold. Whether you are a gold bug or not, it’s worth a listen to help you make your own decisions. New York Times bestselling author and radio personality Charles Goyette, known for his outspoken libertarian views and his economic commentary, has been described as a fearless champion of liberty, peace, and prosperity. Charles and former presidential candidate and Congressman Ron Paul join forces on the nationally syndicated radio commentary Ron Paul’s America, heard twice daily on 125 radio stations. Charles also hosts Ron Paul – The Weekly Podcast, a sponsored, long-form discussion podcast. Charles is the author of New York Times bestseller THE DOLLAR MELTDOWN and RED AND BLUE AND BROKE ALL OVER. He is the co-author of THE LAST GOLD RUSH… EVER! Goyette spent many years as an award-winning and popular Phoenix radio personality with America’s leading broadcast companies, including Pulitzer, Hearst Argyle, and Clear Channel. Charles was widely known as “America’s Most Independent Talk Show Host,” and was voted Best Phoenix Talk Show Host by listeners who couldn’t get enough of his “Fearless Talk Radio.” Charles has also been a participant in the national political debate as a popular public speaker and is often called upon to share his views with national televisions audiences, including Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, PBS, CNBC and Fox Business Channel. He has appeared often on popular programs like Fox and Friends, the O’Reilly Factor with Bill O’Reilly Fox News; Stossel with John Stossel and FreedomWatch with Judge Napolitano on Fox Business; NOW with Bill Moyers on PBS; and on Lou Dobbs Tonight on CNN, and many others. He has written for a number of magazines including The American Conservative and Gannett magazines, and for LewRockwell.com, CNBC.com, WorldNetDaily.com, and TheStreet.com. Charles Goyette is a U.S. Army veteran and a recipient of the Army Commendation Medal for meritorious service. Goyette had long rejected the U.S. national security policy known as Mutual Assured Destruction or MAD, in which the civilian population of the U.S. was rendered defenseless as a matter of policy and held hostages in the nation’s nuclear strategy. Before the election of Ronald Reagan, Charles became a supporter of a new defense policy to end the cold war standoff. After Reagan’s election, at the invitation of Reagan advisor General Daniel O. Graham, former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency and Deputy Director of the CIA and the originator of the Strategic Defense Initiative, Charles became a member of the national speakers’ bureau of High Frontier, the private organization founded by Graham to promote what became known as Reagan’s Star Wars defense policy. Beginning in 2002 with the lead up to George W. Bush’s elective war in Iraq, Charles Goyette found himself in a whirlwind of controversy and national attention for his outspoken opposition to the war. Accounts of his experiences opposing the war while a talk show host for Clear Channel Communications, the nation’s largest owner of radio stations and a company that had close ties to Bush, are available online, including the transcript of a speech called Wartime Confessions of a Talk-Radio Heretic he made to an economics group the very night the war broke out in March, 2003, as well as an account he wrote for the American Conservative magazine called How to Lose Your Job in Talk Radio. During the Iraq war, Goyette became a regular contributor of geopolitical radio shows, commentary, and interviews to AntiWar Radio, a service of the leading website AntiWar.com. On a more personal note, Charles is a founding member of the Board of Directors and recent President of the Leonardo da Vinci Society for the Study of Thinking. The Society’s annual inductees include theoretical physicist Michio Kaku, creative thinking theorist Edward de Bono, physicist Fritjof Capra, inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil, biologist Lynn Margulis, and lunar astronaut Edgar Mitchell. Charles has completed a screenplay on the life of the famous American seer Edgar Cayce. Charles enjoys skiing, hiking, good company and conversation. He and his wife, Ali, live in Scottsdale, Arizona. Shownotes: The performance of the US Dollar versus gold Is gold a wealth preservation tool or a wealth building tool? Owning gold versus owning real estate assets. The Last Gold Rush… Ever!

I’ve never spent much time on the concept of short-term rentals (Vacation Rentals) before because it didn’t sound particularly appealing to me. But after interviewing Tim Hubbard for this week’s podcast, I may have changed my mind. Here’s the deal. Unless you are a limited partner in a syndication, there is no such thing as truly passive income in real estate. If you want your asset to succeed, you are going to have to do some work for it. And for me, making $300 per month for anything that takes more than 10 minutes per month is not really acceptable. But short-term rentals provide a sexier take on active ownership of real estate for busy professionals. Make no mistake, there will be some work involved. But now you may be making 5X the monthly income that you would with a traditional long-term rental. Maybe the rental income is still not that compelling. But what if you started buying properties in places you might actually like to visit yourself on occasion? At any point in the future, you could theoretically flip the switch and make it all your own. In the meantime, short-term rentals have extremely advantageous tax benefits—and not just to the real estate professional status types like me. If done properly, you could have a short-term rental, do a cost segregation analysis and apply that depreciation to other active income. Let me reiterate that I am not a tax professional but my understanding here is that through material participation in short-term rentals, depreciation losses can be ACTIVATED and used against your W2 income. If you can pull this off, the tax savings alone would be worth doing it in my humble opinion. With conservation easements pretty much DOA (victims of the IRS) and with oil and gas being full of crooks and fraudsters, short-term rentals could possibly be the best thing out there if you are trying to mitigate taxes. If this sounds intriguing, I highly encourage you to listen to this week’s episode of Wealth Formula Podcast. At the very least, it’s an option you ought to know about. Tim is originally from Sacramento, CA and started his career in real estate as an investment broker selling multi-family and commercial properties in Northern California. He worked with a small team of five who completed cumulatively over $2 billion in transactions. He has been personally investing in real estate for the last 11 years and has since acquired a multi-million dollar portfolio comprised primarily of small multi-family properties in multiple markets.He has traveled extensively throughout the world in over 70 countries and stayed in hundreds of different short-term rental accommodations. About 7 years ago he realized the high returns that could be made from converting properties in to furnished short-term rentals and renting them by the night. Through trial and error he has figured out how to set up operations so that the business could be passive and has since successfully accommodated over 15,000 guests with excellent reviews from all over the world. He continues to expand with the help of his teams and manages everything remotely from his home in Medellin, Colombia. He also teaches others to do the same and shows them how they can successfully increase their income 3,4, or even 8x by implementing the right strategies to convert existing long term rentals in to nightly rentals. He holds a degree in International business and an MBA from the University of California, Davis. He’s a co-author in the Amazon best-selling book “Resilience” and the host of the popular “Short Term Rental Riches” podcast.

Digital currency is not dead. But it was wounded pretty badly over the past few months. Paradoxically, the undoing of the decentralized world happened from centralized companies and individuals like Do Kwon of Terra Luna and Sam Bankman-Fried of FTX. Ultimately, the greed of both these individuals and the flawed platforms that they ran resulted in billions of dollars being lost in the market. No one was immune. Companies like BlockFi ended up declaring bankruptcy and others, like the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) are on the brink of insolvency. Digital currency has never been a favorite of the SEC. This is an institution with a deep distaste for the wild decentralized west as it represents a very difficult animal to tame. The IRS also wants to dig its claws into digital currency realizing that they are likely missing out on hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue because of people not reporting. They are also left with a huge challenge on their hands—trying to figure out who is misreporting. Bottom line is that the climate is right for some serious changes to the law involving digital currencies. This week, I speak to one of the foremost experts in cryptocurrency tax law to discuss the recent crypto collapse along with all of its implications. Make sure to tune in. There is some free tax advice in there for you as well if you own cryptocurrency! Andie Kramer is widely regarded as one of the foremost authorities on the regulatory, tax, commercial, and governance matters that arise for individuals and businesses in trading environments. Andie represents multinational corporations, financial service firms, exchanges and trading platforms, hedge funds, energy companies, insurance companies, family offices, and businesses in all stages of their life-cycle. These clients are typically dealing with securities, commodities, derivatives, digital assets, energy (production and distribution), renewables, ESG (environmental, social, and governance) matters, nontraditional assets, and emerging asset classes of all types. Andie is widely respected for her multidisciplinary knowledge concerning the legal issues arising in market and all types of products that trade in them and the participants which use them. She is a trusted advisor and sought-after problem solver who provides the comprehensive advice that clients need to navigate the complexities that arise from the intersection of multiple asset classes, commercial realities, and ESG matters. Before founding ASKramer Law, Andie spent 30 years at McDermott Will & Emery, where she established and led the Financial Products, Trading, and Derivatives Group. She is the coauthor of Financial Products: Taxation, Regulation, and Design, the two-volume authoritative treatise widely used by market participants, advisors, and regulators. She has been ranked since 2009 by Chambers and Legal 500, the leading independent legal ranking firms. Andie was also named by the National Law Journal as one of the “50 Most Influential Women Lawyers in America” for “demonstrated power to change the legal landscape, shape public affairs, launch industries, and do big things.” The National Law Review recognized Andie as a “Go-to Thought Leader” in virtual currencies and J.D. Supra readers voted her a “Top Author” in cryptocurrency taxation. Additionally, she is qualified by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) as a tax expert witness. Andie was selected by the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin and the Chicago Lawyer as an “Inaugural Women in Law Honoree”; by Crain’s Custom Media for the “Chicago Notable Women Lawyers” list; named by Women in Law Business Guide as one of the leading tax practitioners; and honored as one of the “Most Influential Women Lawyers in Chicago” by Crain’s. Andie is also known for her longstanding work addressing and dismantling workplace gender discrimination. She served as a member of the Diversity & Inclusion Advisory Board for the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism and was coauthor of What You Need to Know about Negotiating Compensation, a 2013 guide published by the American Bar Association. With her husband, Al Harris, she has written two award-winning books, Breaking Through Bias: Communication Techniques for Women to Succeed at Work and It’s Not You, It’s the Workplace: Women’s Conflict at Work and the Bias That Built It. Their forthcoming book, Beyond Bias: The PATH to End Gender Inequality at Work, will be released this spring. Andie is a Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude graduate of the University of Illinois, where she received the Bronze Tablet Award, and she is a cum laude graduate of Northwestern Pritzker School of Law where she served as an adjunct professor for more than 20 years. She is an editor of and contributor to Energy and Environmental Project Finance Law and Taxation (2010) and Energy and Environmental Trading (2008). Generously philanthropic and civically engaged, Andie is the recipient of the “Unsung Heroine Award” from the Cook County Board of Commissioners and the “National Public Service Award” from the American Bar Association for her public service and pro bono activities. She founded and serves on the boards of a number of nonprofits and professional associations. She is a founding board member and chair of TWTC (formerly The Women’s Treatment Center) that provides housing and healthcare support and assistance to Chicago’s most vulnerable residents. Andie is a co-founder and the chair of WLMA (the Women’s Leadership and Mentoring Alliance), and she serves on the board of the Design Museum of Chicago. Shownotes: The recent crypto meltdown How did the FTX collapse affect the crypto sphere? What do people holding cryptocurrency need to know to report their taxes appropriately? Are there any laws that are different for 2023 than they were for 2022 that we should be aware of?