I had the pleasure of a wide-ranging conversation on June 23 with Robert Reich, economist, lawyer, professor, and former Secretary of Labor. In it he offered a passionate defense of higher education in the United State while also issuing stark warnings about the challenges higher education faces from within and without. Reich, who has taught over 40,000 students since 1981 at Harvard, Brandeis and UC Berkeley, reflected on the joys and responsibilities of teaching, the importance of civil discourse, and the existential threats facing American higher education. “Ignorance is the handmaiden of tyranny,” he emphasized. “A well-educated population does not…

For rental property owners who lose property to a natural disaster, insurance proceeds can trigger a taxable event, leading to upward of 30% owed in capital gains taxes. Those who lost property in recent disasters, including Hurricane Helene and the Los Angeles wildfires, are experiencing this firsthand but there are unique solutions for disaster recovery. Analysts and catastrophe modelers, such as Milliman and CoreLogic, have estimated insured losses ranging from $4 billion to $6 billion because of Helene and $25 billion to $45 billion because of the Los Angeles wildfires in early January. If a destroyed property is fully depreciated,…