At Hilltop, we are big fans of podcasts and blogs – this is a golden age for content, with a virtually infinite variety of topics and perspectives available. A client recently suggested we share our listening (and reading) list, and we figured now is a great time to share.

Welcome to the first series of videos on the Hilltop Views blog! We just held our quarterly investment review and wanted to share what we are seeing in investments around the world.

As you have probably heard by now, the Equifax credit bureau reported last week that their database was infiltrated by criminals between May and July of this year. According to Equifax, the criminals gathered information on 143 million people, including names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses, and some driver’s license numbers.

We take it for granted now that the world is becoming more globalized every year. This can be seen in the production of goods – NPR’s Planet Money produced a series in 2013 following the production of a simple T-shirt, showing how cotton makes its way from the US to Asia or South America for production and back again to the US for sale.

For many families, summer marks the time for transition as the children prepare for (or continue) their college education. This usually coincides with the children reaching the age of majority, which in North Carolina is 18 years old.