Are commodity assets
right for you?
Sure, if you have
intimate knowledge of that one in particular. You may be better off owning the
companies that deal in the commodity than the actual product. Commodities
include futures contracts to invest in light sweet crude oil, heating oil,
gasoline, natural gas, Brent crude, gold, silver, aluminum, zinc, copper,
corn, wheat, soybeans and sugar. Some advisors use commodities tactically in
client portfolios. Some have used gold and broad commodity ETFs as
inflationary hedges. Some reduce a client’s exposure to hard assets due to
deflationary pressures. If our economy has a mild recession, then most commodity
baskets won’t perform well in an environment like that. Most investors or their
advisors are not able or willing to research and plan the use of commodities in
a changing environment. For instance, two wars in oil-producing regions as well
as global, especially domestic, increasing energy needs, may provide compelling
reasons for a continuing hold of energy commodity ETFs. However only a person
open to the risks of commodities would feel comfortable in that position. Most
advisors recognize commodities’ poor performance: they “tend to be expensive,
and tax-inefficient.” Instead it may wise to overweight a low-cost energy fund.
https://www.amazon.com/Vanguards-Top-Ten-mutual-funds/dp/150073909X
Is the 4% retirement
income withdrawal rate right for you?
New retirees hoping
to use a “safe” fixed real withdrawal strategy for managing their
retirement income can plan to withdraw 4% of their portfolio’s value in
the first year of retirement, according to Morningstar’s newly published
report, “The State of Retirement Income: 2023.” Subsequent withdrawal rates
include an adjustment for inflation. However not everyone’s situation matches
the assumptions in this respected report. For instance, this strategy assumes
your portfolio has “strong fixed income returns.” It also assumes a fairly
level spending rate. It also may assume no large emergency situation like large
medical expenses. The analysis assumes a balanced portfolio of 50% stocks and
50% bonds, and the 90% “success rate” here is defined as a 90% likelihood of
not running out of funds over the 30-year period. Contrast this strategy with
Dave Ramsey’s 8% per year. His math is simple. “If you’re making
12 [percent] in good mutual funds and the S&P is averaging 11.8, and
if inflation for the last 80 years is 4%, if you make 12 and you need to leave
4% in there for average inflation raises, that leaves you eight. So, I’m
perfectly comfortable drawing eight.” We might pick a rate somewhere between 4%
and 8% just to be on the safe side.
https://www.amazon.com/4-percent-Retirement-Rule-Wrong-Lifestyle/dp/1492218960
How to overcome the fear
of future poverty
Many of us grew up
having to save every dime and so spent our lives being driven by a fear of
poverty. There is a way to overcome this fear as we get into our most
successful years of earning power. My spouse and I had grown up in these
circumstances. Our families were not in money-making professions—teachers and
retail service workers. Thus every cent counted. Yet our families made sure we
went to college. We made the most of our state-school educations. We started
saving every payday: first for a car, a house and emergencies. Later we saved for
retirement early with our first full-time employers. We first used high-yield
savings vehicles; then used stocks and stock mutual funds. We got comfortable
with market ups and downs since we earned more than fixed returns provided. We
learned to just “stay the course” as Vanguard’s John Bogle counseled. Staying
in the market even in recessions and regressions has left us with very
comfortable positions. We no longer fear ending up in poverty. Plus we paid a
financial planner to scope out the spending and ending balances of every year
in retirement. After 5 years of living in retirement with only retirement
savings as income we feel comfortable with the planner’s ending balances. We
know we can keep paying our high property taxes and living expenses. We have
planned for our family legacy and long-term care needs.
Planning for the
future ended our fear of poverty: https://www.amazon.com/Your-Plan-Live-Age-100/dp/1548180793
Financial industry
has split in half: one half for high-net worth clients and one for us. LPL
Financial announced the launch of LPL
Private Wealth Management, an affiliation program for advisors catering
to high-net-worth clients. Being highly visible to high-net-worth
individuals may be all an advisor needs to do to secure them as a client,
but they may switch advisors as easily. Wealthy clients could find a better fit
with proper due diligence of the prospect. LPL provides standard back office
supports to the advisor in the upscale program which provides special tools: advanced
estate and philanthropy planning, income tax strategy, trustee services, robust
alternative investment platform, banking and lending solutions and complex life
insurance planning. The average advisor client would have no use for these
services so LPL and other platform providers have segregated their offerings.
Actual separation of financial services will continue until the industry officially
becomes split in two—one for the wealthy and one for us.
A Robo-Advisor may
better serve your needs: https://www.amazon.com/Best-Robo-Advisor-Ultimate-Automatic-Management/dp/1537111957/
Retirement
portfolios’ key success factors
Decide on goals:
income-focused to match spending or total-return to consider time frame, risk
tolerance and flexibility. There are costs and benefits to both approaches.
Adjustments in assets are necessary to create a specific income on an on-going
basis. On the other hand, a total-return goal requires discipline to hold
low-cost diversification assets. The focus is long-term flexibility in an overall
portfolio. However, many of us fear the nominal decline of the account so cut
spending for retirement needs. This change in goal often results in an
income-focused approach. This puts the portfolio at risk since yields have been
low and changes asset holdings to riskier forms may hurt over time. The
total-return focus on asset use provides flexibility in spending and growth.
Long-term tax efficiency is also maintained for the total-return investor.
Dividend-paying stocks may provide a useful support in many portfolios.
However, in changing the risk profile of the whole, investors may have to make
other asset adjustments. It may be more advantageous to sell a stock rather
than take dividends when more income is needed.
Avoid the Annuity
trap: https://www.amazon.com/Best-Annuity-Strategy-Income-Growth/dp/1497532019
********ACCOUNTABILITY**************?
Like 1776, this
period is a test
of democracy—We
rejected an "American
fascist" once
The
Path to Dictatorship: 2010-2030
Parallels of this era in the past
may hint at our future: democracy breaks apart legally
Billionaires
paid $881 million for votes in 2022
midterm elections
Nov 2020 Wealthy
discredit election process
Jan
6 2021 Direct
govt overthrow failed: guns
& bombs were ready
Trump
engaged in a "criminal
conspiracy" to stop Biden
“I
don’t f—ing care that they have weapons”
Trump was “detached
from reality”
Trump
used mafia-style intimidation on the defenseless
Trump still terrorizing
election woman
Parscale: “a
sitting president asking for civil war.”
Trump:
“Just
say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me”
GOP fascism: “RINO
hunt armed; no bagging limit” J6
comm threat
January
6, 2021 “A
date which will live in infamy”
Trump’s Supremes END
personal rights & state
laws except for weapons
WMDs
Fascism: GOP
to stop women leaving state for abortion
It’s
not a court. It’s a junta: Two Americas
Trump: President
Biden is 'enemy of the state'
Christian
Nationalist Party (CNP) replaces
GOP
Apr 9 Illustrated
Anne Frank book removed by Florida school
Apr 21 Trump: “I
am your justice”
May 9 Trump
guilty of sexual abuse
Jun 8 Trump
indicted by the United States of America
Violation
of the Espionage Act
Conspiracy to obstruct
justice
Making false
statements
Conspiracy to defraud the
Conspiracy to obstruct
Congressional proceeding
Obstruction of and attempt
to obstruct an official proceeding
Conspiracy against right to
vote
Attempted coup
d'état by
any other name
350+ people have
been sentenced to jail or prison.
Trump and His Gang Get the Mob Treatment
Aug 4 “IF
YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!”
Mobster
#1 Enrique Tarrio gets 22 years
Mobster
Stewart Rhodes sentenced to 18 years
Mobster
Ethan Nordean gets 18 years
Mobster
Dominic Pezzola sentenced to 10 years
VIOLATION OF THE GEORGIA RICO (RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND
CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS) ACT SOLICITATION OF VIOLATION OF OATH BY PUBLIC OFFICER
CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT INIPERSONATIN PUBLIC OFFICER FIRST
DEGREE
CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT FALSE STATEMENTS AND WRITINGS
CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT FALSE DOCUMENTS
FORGERY IN THE FIRST DEGREE
CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT FALSE STATEMENTS AND WRITINGS
FILING FALSE DOCUMENTS
SOLICITATION OF VIOLATION OF OATH BY PUBLIC OFFICER
FALSE STATEMENTS AND WRITINGS
SOLICITATION OF VIOLATION OF OATH BY PUBLIC OFFICER
FALSE STATEMENTS AND WRITINGS
“Wannabe
Dictator” to
run House of our? “Representatives”
Jan 2025 Dictator
pardons himself: his Supremes agree
How Govt wastes our money:
Workers Are Getting Paid
to Do Nothing at
IRS Increases Tax
Breaks for Gifts, Estates and Capital Gains for wealthy
Govt
admits ‘Aliens,’ or a foreign power in our backyard: $ billions for
‘intelligence’?
Clean vehicle
credits can help car buyers pay
less at the dealership
SCAMS/SPINS:
Trump
plans to weaponize FBI, DOJ against his enemies: GOP quit/hide rather than
fight
GOP
“runs out” of ballots for MS Black voters in some polling places: GOP won
election
GOP pushes 2
step funding stopgap bill: dissidents may still shut
down the govt on 17th.
Black
Children Were Jailed in TN for a Crime That Doesn’t Exist:
GOP pledged to cut Social
Security benefits and raise the retirement age
GOP Santos broke Fed
laws but won’t
be punished by GOP:
It’s OK: maligning
court staff at trial approved by appellate judge, but not OK for us
Monitor your money
accounts every month: check
these specific ways
Booking.com scam asks
for payment BEFORE trip: scammers keep money
Haywood
Enova caught:
illegal conduct, deception, canceling loan without notice: fine no jail
Webull didn’t have compliance
staff or supervisory procedures for years: fine no jail
Smartasset: find your
“perfect” financial advisor using 21 simple questions: not possible
UnitedHealth used
guidelines set by algorithm to cut
patients off from rehabilitative care
Health
insurers are flouting laws created to guarantee access to critical medical
care
We are
walking less: health declines for most
One Army bullet
maker supplies most of the ammo that kills
us everyday
Supremes
create fantasy of unenforceable ‘code of conduct’ for Dem’s demand
7
more women sue TX over abortion laws
Deepfakes so good
we may not be able to know even from trusted sources
Qualify for free
internet: https://maxsipconnects.com/smo-apply
Amazon
to sell cars—first Hyundai. Pick it up at dealer or delivered to home.
Jobs
Be
a product reviewer: stuff for free and at-home jobs
UAW workers at GM's
20
states still pay a minimum wage of $7.25 per hour: living
wage?—live in car!
jobs.interestingengineering.com/
Caregivers are supported
in many states: Fed
legislation proposed
Who owns your account now?
Military
service retail discounts: some useful bargains
Mortgage
delinquencies rose 15% year-over-year: sixth consecutive quarter of
increases
Genworth Moves Ahead
With Long-Term
Care Reboot
When you fly, keep look
out for a bag
of tools floating down from space: Aliens or us?
As car insurance
premiums go up, drivers switch to “usage-based”
cover to save
Stay invested: market
up 17% YTD on great economic outlook: low inflation
Women say they feel
like they don’t
make enough money to save for retirement
Miracles:
Pope
fires TX bishop who called him a “diabolically disoriented clown.”
According to Trump’s
sister, Judge Barry, he "has no
principles" and is "cruel."
Editing a gene
inside the liver can significantly reduce
levels of “bad cholesterol”
Sickle
cell patients could soon become the first
gene-editing treatment recipients
Women now live
almost six years longer than men: 79.3 years vs 73.5 among men
Disasters—storms etc
are getting more frequent and costly
@
Our Universe is Mind-Blowing
Light is both
a particle and a wave depending on how we look at the light.
I
don’t think that there is any such thing as a position or a velocity of a
particle.
Everything (galaxies
to stones) in universe made of subatomic
energy ‘vibrations’
A subatomic ‘particle’
is the smallest possible vibration (quantum) of a quantum field.
A ‘particle’ is an event;
not an objective thing. This event is set of complex relationships.
Mass–energy
equivalence: E=mc^2. At the smallest
level; Everything is moving
Energy into matter: scientists
converted light energy directly into matter in one step
In place of atomic
lattice, light
waves used to create an optical lattice with same geometry
Physics Nobel Prize:
“entanglement” 2
particles share info instantly at a distance
Quantum
mechanics violates local realism: two objects behave as single system at
distance
“It may be that gravity and quantum mechanics are
exactly the same thing,” Leonard Susskind
Gravity
might induce the collapse of quantum vibrations into 1 quantum state—our
world
Strange state
of physics that allows energy
to flow frictionlessly through a material.
Bending light from
extreme gravity reveals largest black hole
so far
Curved
SpaceTime: heavy masses and simultaneously quantum effects become visible
There is no TIME at this
level because of force fields come and go in all directions.
Universe expanding: events
may not come together like they did before: created our time.
Our planetary
system: rarest
system: only 1% of all systems with same number of planets
Stars fueled by the self-annihilation
of dark matter might have been spotted for the first time by JWST
Inside protons,
neutrons, it
is the fields of the virtual particles that creates its mass.
Gold
made from neutron stars: collisions produce more neutrons:79 protons,118
neutrons
The proton
is so complicated science still finds new energy entities/forces every
year.
“Empty space is a
boiling, bubbling brew of virtual
particles that pop in and out of existence in a time scale so short that you
can’t even measure them.” Space expanding.
New method to study systems
with long-range interactions: previously puzzling experts
The electricity we use comes
from the field around the wire not from electron itself.
Natural
‘missing law’ explain
how
universe evolved: functions increase in complexity over time
Scientists
build 'baby' wormhole as sci-fi moves closer to fact: inside quantum
computer
starts-with-a-bang/universe-expansion-not-accelerating/
Physicists knew black
holes eventually disappear particle by particle. Now they think everything
else does, too.
Astronomers
discover raw
materials for life are present all across the Universe: methyl cation
@
We can apply for
Medicare online: https://blog.ssa.gov/apply-for-medicare-online
We can apply for Social
Security online: https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/
We can apply for
health care online: https://www.healthcare.gov/
IAN
973.746.2014
http://www.theinsidersguides.com/
Alerts available at http://dankeppel.blogspot.com/ No AI used in these comments
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