By: Shaw Pritchett, Jackson Thornton Wealth Management
Friday, I got a phone call from a client. He’d been watching YouTube videos—a couple of them, actually— and wanted to know if we were doing anything about Public Law 63-43. He’d heard that President Trump was supposed to sign something big on May 15th, and he was wondering if we were prepared.
To be honest, I was wondering the same thing. Was I missing something and letting my clients down? So I took to the internet to investigate. Here’s what I found.
Public Law 63-43 is real—just not new. It was passed in 1913, over 110 years ago, and it’s the legislation that authorized the creation of the Federal Reserve. Not a secret. Not breaking news. The kind of thing you’d find in a high school history textbook.
As for the May 15th signing? No such law was expected. No credible financial or legislative source had anything scheduled. That date has come and gone without event.
The videos our client watched were tied to commentary from James Rickards—a financial author and self-described economist who has built a career around one core message: the system is about to collapse, and you need to protect yourself. He’s been making that argument for over a decade. And if you dig just a little, you’ll find that the “protection” he recommends almost always comes with something to buy. Gold. Precious metals. A newsletter subscription. Something.
THAT’S NOT JOURNALISM. THAT’S MARKETING.
I’m not here to pile on Mr. Rickards. The broader point is this: the financial fear industry is enormous, and it is very good at its job. It uses real legislation, real names, real dates, and just enough ambiguity to make you feel like everyone else knows something you don’t. That feeling—that urgency—is the product. Your anxiety is the inventory.
HERE’S OUR HONEST ADVICE: TUNE IT OUT.
Not because nothing ever matters, and not because real risks don’t exist. But because the things that actually affect your financial future — your savings rate, your asset allocation, your tax strategy, your timeline — aren’t solved by panic-watching YouTube at 11 p.m. They’re solved by having a plan and trusting the people you’ve hired to help execute it.
When these questions come up, I always think of Peter Lynch’s quote: “Far more money has been lost by investors trying to anticipate corrections, than lost in the corrections themselves.” This question wasn’t about a correction — but the principle holds.
So the next time something crosses your feed that makes your stomach drop—a scary law, a presidential deadline, a pundit warning of imminent collapse—ignore the noise and stick with your plan. Call your advisor if you need reassurance. And if you don’t have one but this hits a little close to home, maybe it’s time to find someone to help keep you on track.
