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“A QCD is a direct transfer of funds from an IRA to a qualified charity. QCDs can be counted toward satisfying one’s RMDs, but, unlike regular withdrawals from an IRA, the donor doesn’t pay tax on these dollars. This will help keep a retiree’s taxable income lower, since the distribution doesn’t count toward adjusted gross income. The maximum annual amount that can qualify for a QCD is $100,000.” Jonathan I. Shenkman, Retirees Have to Pay Taxes, Too. 6 Smart Ways to Reduce Them., Barron’s, Nov. 22, 2023 (Apple News link).

A trust that “allows an individual to leave assets to a surviving spouse along with specific instructions to pay out the remaining assets upon the surviving spouse’s death. The surviving spouse doesn’t have the ability to make changes to how the remiander is paid out . . . .” Debbie Carlson, A Will Can Split a Family. How to Avoid the Hurt., Barron’s, July 15, 2023 (Apple News link).

“Quantitative easing expands the money supply—when the Fed purchases Treasuries and other securities directly from banks and on the open market, it creates money out of thin air to do it. That new cash ends up on bank balance sheets, which they can then use to increase lending to businesses and consumers. The greater availability of credit contributes to lower interest rates, more economic activity, and higher asset prices.” Nicholas Jasinski, Saving the Banks Isn’t Quantitative Easing, Barron’s, March 20, 2023 (Apple News link). • “Since the 2008 crisis, the fed and other central banks have undertaken various rounds of ‘quantitative easing’–creating money to buy government bonds and other assets. The artificial demand for such assets holds down interest rates, which enables political authorities to spend lavishly, run massive deficits and take countries deeper into debt.” James Freeman, Paul Singer, the Man Who Saw the Economic Crisis Coming, WSJ, April 7, 2023 (Apple NEws link). • “The Fed has taken some of [Silicon Valley Bank’s] losses onto its own balance sheet, and that is in effect a resumption of quantitative easing. There will be more money printed at just the time the Fed was meant to be fighting inflation.” Matthew Lynn, Bank collapse spells higher inflation, Money Week, March 2023 (Apple New link).

“After the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, the U.S. central bank made enormous purchases of Treasurys and mortgage-backed securities in 2020 to stabilize financial markets. In June 2022, the Fed initiated a program to reverse this process, passively shrinking those holdings by allowing securities to ‘runoff’ the portfolio without replacing them with new ones, a process known as quantitative tightening. // This allowed up to $60 billion in Treasurys and up to $35 billion in mortgage-backed securities to mature monthly without reinvesting the proceeds.” Alice Uribe, Perpetual Sells Bonds, Cuts Cash as Fed Slows Pace of Quantitative Tightening, WSJ, June 20, 2024 (Apple News link).