How is your retirement fund doing?
With the fall in stock market value this year, have you quit saving? Have you automated your saving/investing? Do you track your progress annually with a calculator like Vanguard’s retirement calculator? Do you have a balanced stock/bond portfolio that allows you to sleep at night? Do you have enough saved that you can calculate a future nest egg for your needs? Automatic investment strategies help you buy more shares when prices are low and fewer when high. Will your debt be under control later? Have you made a plan for expenses and income? Have you learned about Warren Buffett’s strategy? Do you take the time to learn how to read your financial statements? Are you buying stocks on sale? According to AARP, over 57 million Americans don’t have access to a workplace retirement savings plan. This access makes you 15 to 20 times more likely to save for retirement. Use a tax-FREE investment accounts. Start a plan today. https://www.amazon.com/Best-Robo-Advisor-Ultimate-Automatic-Management/dp/1537111957
Who pays your bills when you are away?
Automatic investing complements automatic bill pay. My mutual fund trustee debits my checking account every month. My wife’s 403b takes her pension contributions automatically each pay day. My gas and electric are paid automatically by a set up with my bank. My mortgage is always the same amount so it is on automatic. For most bills, I set up payment on the day before the payment is due in advance so I don’t get his with $29 late charge. If I am out of town and don’t have a bill, I can pay via their website. The only time I got hit with the late charge was when I did not get the bill because the credit card had illegally force my account into “no paper statement” mode. I complained and the website removed the charge automatically. I never send money by Zelle or other hackable “peer-to-peer” digital payment services. My only problem is making sure there are funds in the account on time. Most of my income sources are dependable. When there is a goof, my bank account is overdraft protected. I share this info with my kid.
https://www.amazon.com/Give-your-child-leg-manage/dp/1096505355
Which is better—ETFs or funds?
ETFs are good for trading in your brokerage account. Mutual funds are for long-term accumulation. Cost is important to long-term investors since you will kill the “miracle of compounding” with high costs. Both index mutual funds and ETFs can provide investors with broad, diversified exposure to the stock market. Trading an index ETF seems a contradiction to me since the purpose of an index is to take advantage of better investing results by holding quality stocks forever, not missing the highly volatile gains in the market. Fast trading has been shown to be a losing strategy by many unbiased money professionals. Even master investor Warren Buffett recommends using only two low-cost index funds for retirement income. Plus index funds are very tax efficient since the index that they reflect doesn’t change often—buy and hold.
Follow Buffett’s advice: https://www.amazon.com/Warren-Buffetts-Vanguard-Funds-Retirement/dp/1496148592
Which life insurance is right for you?
If you have a family or folks who count on you for their income, you need to make sure they will have income if you are not around. Term life insurance is right for you. However, in the past some folks had no way to save for a life-long income, bills, mortgage, funeral and final expenses. So they used permanent life insurance. Since the 70s, whole and universal life insurance are not as good a savings/investment vehicle as low-cost mutual funds. Why—because you get a lot more for your money and you don’t have to die to receive benefits. At average earnings of 11% per year, you can accumulate $500,000 for the same cost of a whole life premium policy. Instead of leaving an expensive death benefit to your family, you can have $500,000 in 35 years of investing. You can then supplement your retirement income and have money to pay for end of life needs. You may be able to leave a larger legacy too.
https://www.amazon.com/Life-Insurance-Need-Save-right/dp/1480002178
Annuities add little value for investors with income plan
A recent Morningstar study concluded that annuities add little value for investors who are well-prepared for retirement. The study looked at failure rates, or the probability of running out of retirement savings. Most retirees need a steady income and the annuity option as part of a 401k or 403b plan is the industry’s solution. However, annuity costs exceed the cost of a trustee-managed IRA payout using low-cost mutual funds. Many trustees offer steady income at no extra cost. The standard IRS tax schedule provides steady income of about 4% per annum. The RMD or required minimum distribution is specified by the IRS based on age and the previous year’s total accumulations. Using a balanced mutual fund, this strategy overcomes the problem of an annuity payout that loses value to inflation. If you have $500,000 in this kind of account, you are likely to receive $20,000 plus a year recalculated for inflation each year. Even better, if you use the tax-FREE retirement accounts, you pay NO taxes on your retirement income and probably none on your SS benefits either.
Plan for NO taxes: https://www.amazon.com/New-American-Retirement-System-Reserve/dp/1461030072
Did you miss FREE money from the IRS?
More than nine million people may qualify for tax benefits
but didn’t claim them by filing a 2021 federal income tax return. Many in this
group may be eligible to claim some or all of the 2021 recovery rebate
credit, the child tax credit, the earned income tax
credit and other tax credits. These and other tax benefits were
expanded under last year’s American Rescue Plan Act and other recent
legislation. The only way to get the
valuable benefits is to file a 2021 tax return. Often, people can
get these expanded tax benefits, even if they have little or no income from a
job, business or other source. This means that many people who don’t normally
need to file a tax return should do so for 2021, even if they haven’t been
required to file in recent years. To help people claim these benefits, Free
File will remain open for an extra month this year, until
https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-do-your-federal-taxes-for-free
Who is a real fiduciary?
Not
all financial advisors are fiduciaries
Selling only their firm’s high-cost products isn’t in
your ‘Best Interest’. Regulators have given into the financial sales
industry in the sense that now almost every sales person can call themselves a
‘fiduciary’. A fiduciary is a person who does not profit from the advice they
give. All financial people who work for a firm—brokerage, advisory or trust
company—must sell only what their firm has a contract to offer. Legally these
‘fiduciary’ financial advisors can’t avoid this conflict of interest because
they work under a license provided by their firm. In each of the firms I worked
for, the products and services we offered were authorized by management. As a
member of the product selection committee, I had to provide full due-diligence
on the vendors and products we used. We picked the compensation structure we
needed for our revenue goals. Sales people can be paid by commissions,
quarterly fees, shared-revenue and other means. They can’t offer Vanguard
products and services because Vanguard is owned by its investors. You will know
you don’t have a real fiduciary when you must sign a BICE. A Best Interest Exemption gives
the broker/advisor a safe harbor to recommend an investment product that may
benefit them more than it benefits you, and that is a conflict of interest, no
matter how much lipstick you apply. Use a certified financial planner (CFP®) for unbiased advice. Or learn from
experts like Warren Buffett, John Bogle, and Burton Malkiel what you need.
https://www.amazon.com/Warren-Buffetts-Vanguard-Funds-Retirement/dp/1496148592
********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 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:
Trump’s gag order
again by judge after violation: no jail time
45,000
military personnel protecting Israel that we pay for: $ millions for arms
too!
GOP
to protect wealthy from IRS up tick in audits: IRS funds diverted to
We waste $2
Billion to Save Salmon. They Are Vanishing Anyway
We gave $30 million to
Song-Chun Zhu
who started China’s AI program: tech loss
Surge
of debt: both declines in income and corporate tax revenues — as a share of
GDP
Proposed legislation
that would end
unlimited corporate donations to PACs is laughed at
SCAMS/SPINS:
Driverless
cars banned from CA for striking, dragging, rolling over pedestrians,
finally
Trump to push the
Black and brown
people face
greater exclusion in American society: US at bottom of list
Inflation has crushed
retirement dreams for a third of all workers
Farmers and USAA
raised home insurance rates
over 14% in 2023.
DeSantis defends
call to ban
pro-Palestinian groups from Florida colleges
Insurance Costs
Cause Florida
Residents to Leave State: weather-related costs rise
The Pros and Cons of
Retiring
Abroad: It can lead to rewards — but tax headaches.
New Fiduciary Rule
Cracks Down on 'Junk
Fees': flat fee for plan
10
Common Ways Seniors Get Scammed
Where GOP leader
Johnson was before his elevation: Christian
Nationalist
Christian university
fined $37.7 million: it misled students about costs: UN-Christian!
Mass
shootings are preceded by various signs that are ignored by authorities: we
allow
14th
Amendment’s “insurrectionist ban:” ban Trump?
Average parent
spends more time
with devices than with their kids: end of humanity?
Finally: Eye
drops could injure our eyes removed from big stores:
Toyota RAV4 recalled
due to a fire risk: replacement
batteries don’t fit
Allstate
raised rates so now it shows profits over last year loss
AI-generated
content distorts events in
Jobs
Morgan Stanley Gives All 3 CEO Contenders $20M
Special Bonuses: MS lost clients
Auto
workers Big 3 agreement: back to work with 25% increase plus: Toyota
raised pay
jobs.interestingengineering.com/
Trump’s kids knew nothing of his finances: “don’t
really remember ever working on it”
Who owns your account now?
Our personal saving
rate down to 3.4%,
Shop Health - Plans from $10 or less per
month
Used Car and EV Affordability Improves
Miracles:
SS
child benefits can help 2 million grandparents raise their grandkids: must
adopt
14-year-old scientist
Heman Bekele developed a skin-cancer-fighting
soap: 3M prize
Simple blood test
can help detect
bipolar disorder: avoid many misdiagnoses
New treatment for sickle
cell disease: FDA examine effectiveness and safety
Can breast milk help
lead to early
detection of breast cancer?
@
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
