Business
I graduated from high school in 1976. The that time period around the 200th anniversary of our nation brought about profound thought change of women in the workplace. It was about that time, as you can see by the graphic below, that females caught and eventually passed males in college enrollment. Up until…
Pension funds and endowments have the responsibility of shepherding for safety, growth, and income their assets into a multitude of investments. I’ve learned that most of those types of investors invest in bonds and private debt for income and stocks for short-term growth. Some will invest up to 5% of the assets into…
The stock of major health care insurer United Health has dropped from $594 per share in April 2025 to Friday’s close at $237 per share. That’s about a 60% drop in value in a little over 3 months. And, from the trends that I’ve been watching and some recent announcements I don’t think…
Over the last century traditional funeral homes have been known to have a “moat” around them in relation to potential competitors. Those moats have brought about many barriers to entry to the profession and helped many family funeral homes thrive. However, as we move forward some of those advantages for existing funeral homes…
According to this article from the Beloit (WI) Daily News, funeral home owners Jarod and Tania Williams have acquired the two locations of the Brian Mark Funeral Home. According to the Brian Mark Funeral Home website, which you can access here, the company owned and operated funeral homes in Beloit and Clinton, Wisconsin.…
My wife sometimes accuses me of being too friendly. You see, I’m okay in a crowded coffee shop or elsewhere, asking if I could share the table with already seated customers. . . .while Angie would simply leave the shop because it was too busy. I try not to be intrusive on…
The title of this article poses what seems to be a simple question. I don’t think it is. We recently printed an article that brought attention to the fact that Batesville and Tukios “made a deal” that, at least from my point of view, allowed Batesville to concentrate on its “core” business…
Funeral Director Daily recently published an article on the merits of Guaranteed Preneeds vs. Non-Guaranteed Preneed contracts. In that article we discovered an inflation calculator that helped us explain the costs involved as insurance value grows and the cost to provide a funeral also grows. I had some fun with the calculator and…
We received a joint press release from both Tukios and Batesville last week that made this statement, “Tukios, a leading provider of website technology solutions for the funeral profession, announced today that it has acquired the funeral home website hosting services from Batesville, a trusted leader in the North American deathcare industry. Effective…
In the past month part of my thoughts have been at the intersection of “Education and Grief”. And, it has brought me to a way of thinking that maybe the two thoughts need to go together. You see, during my time as a Board Member of the University of Minnesota I worked…
