I have no idea about that ad, never seen it and never heard of it; that said, to be honest, just because someone is a billionaire doesn't mean they are bad people, it just means they're rich. This whole us versus the "elite" stuff is akin to the 99% movement from 15 years ago (remember the Wall Street sit-ins?)--a bunch of whiners that wish they had what someone else has. Once you put those words into action you have socialism.
@Londy3 Precisely, it never was about "science" it was always about control. Now the polling shows they are losing control so they have to change course.
You know what democrats need? They need some time off and relax; they need to get one of Biden's free crack pipes, kick back and smoke crack...chill out 🤣
I think the "general population" is just so busy trying to make ends meet every week, they really don't have time to give a crap about much of anything. This has always been an issue in a nation that works more hours every week (on average) than most other nations in the world, and one of the main reasons we have a "representative" democracy.
One bullet is not enough. - Nursing Home Plan Your new Medicare plan "G"
Say you are an older senior citizen and can no longer take care of yourself and the government says there is no Nursing Home care available for you. So, what do you do? You opt for "Medicare Plan G". The plan gives anyone 75 or older a gun (Plan G) and one bullet. You are allowed to shoot one worthless politician. This means you will be sent to prison for the rest of your life where you'll receive three meals a day, a roof over your head, central heating and air conditioning, cable TV, a library,and all the Health Care you need. Need new teeth? No problem. Need glasses? That's great. Need a hearing aid, new hip, knees, kidney, lungs, sex change, or heart? They are all covered! As an added bonus, your kids can come and visit you at least as often as they do now! Who will be paying for all of this? The same government that just told you they can't afford for you to go into a nursing home. As an added bonus you will get rid of a useless politician while you are at it. Now, because you are a prisoner, you don't have to pay any more income taxes! Is this a great country or what? Now that I've solved your senior financial plan, enjoy the rest of your week! One bullet is not enough.
There seems to be all kinds of new tax break plans for families with children. Which is a great help. But how about initiating some new tax proposal that will benefit senior citizens like myself reaching the age of 72, forced to begin withdrawing the money accumulated from their tax deferred IRAs. My initial plan was to leave the money untouched so that in the event of my death my wife would have something to get by on since my monthly Social Security check would gone, and she'd only receive a fraction of my pension (Widow's fund) ... which is near nothing.
What little tax refund I currently get from my pension check and Social Security will probably be depleted to zero - or God forbid - I have to pay instead of getting a refund check once I'm forced to start making withdraws from my account and add it to my yearly income.
I was unfortunately one of the poor fools who transferred money from my Mutual Funds to CDs (and not the music ones) during the Bush or Clinton administration when the Stock Market took a nose dive and the Dow was on a downward spiral hoovering around 6,000 points instead of the 34,000 it's at now. Morgan Stanley was watching over my money at the time and by the end of the year I lost more than half of the money in my IRA Mutual Fund Accounts. And with the War going on and the economy of several nations around the world defaulting I was afraid we'd end up loosing it all if I didn't get out of the market and transfer what remained into something safe. So I locked what I had left into a few CDs that paid virtually nothing in interest - but at least I wouldn't lose my initial investment.
Then as we all know the market recovered and the rest is history. And now I'm left with about enough to buy a new top of the line Chevy. I know now it was a dumb move ... but at that time I was like a gambler playing with scared money.
So since the government is playing fast and loose with our money on free crack pipes for drug addicts and housing and health care for illegals (I could go on but won't) - why not cut a little slack for the senior citizens who tried to provide for the future by investing in tax deferred IRAs by giving a tax break for withdraws under a certain amount per year (say $500.00 a month - $6000.00 year) to 'American' senior citizens struggling on a fixed income at a time when inflation makes our meager pension checks worth even less.
I've heard this story over and over and over again as a lot of people search me out for advice on exactly the same topic (given my profession). I know you aren't seeking any advice, and I don't know how good any would be at this stage, but I will say this--there has always been loads of misinformation out there and it's costing a lot of people a lot of money in their retirement years.
First: There is a sort of paranoia about what markets do when they're volatile, and the public is being given tons of misinformation and false signals, so many of them end up doing exactly what you did--i.e., take your money out of the market too early.
I listen to talk radio quite often and one person I listen to is Glenn Beck. Is he often times "out there"? Yes, but he's entertaining nonetheless. That said, one thing he often does that really irks me is his cataclysmic outlook on markets and the economy. In all the years I've listened to him (even since well before his engagements with various news networks) he's never been correct in his predictions of the market. For instance, he's always beating the "gold" drum...get out of stocks because they're going to crash and buy gold because it will keep growing, or at the very least, maintain it's current intrinsic value. But, gold is traded just like stocks are traded. If you look at the price of gold at the link below, you'll see what I mean; in other words, people are simply trading one risky asset for another. The problem with gold, however, is that the price never trends upward over time. There was a positive shock to gold prices in the early 70s, but before and after then, gold prices tend to move sideways. If these people had kept their money in an index fund (say S&P Index), it would have grown over time in a fairly predictable way that trends upward, not sideways (see the second link). https://www.macrotrends.net/1333/historical-gold-prices-100-year-chart https://www.macrotrends.net/2324/sp-500-historical-chart-data
The bottom line is if you have a 401K or something like that, to be patient because markets have always come back in the past as businesses grow and expand and become more efficient. Once growth and scale efficiency of corporations stops, then we are all in a load of trouble, but that has never happened in the past and is unlikely to happen in the next 100 years.
Second: There are two types of economic thought--Keynesianism and Classicalism. I'm the latter while those that run the Fed are the former. Keynesians can't stand to see changes in unemployment, so they are constantly screwing with interest rates. As we've seen many times in the past, they have no clue what they are doing. In recent years they have caused market crashes (e.g., the Great Recession of 2007) and high inflation as we see know. And while markets will muster through these moronically contrived debacles as they usually do, the one group of people this hurts the most are retirees. Unless it's food inflation, inflation itself doesn't really bother a retiree because they aren't likely to purchase many durable goods or travel much, but they do depend upon near-normal interest rates to supplement their retirement income. However, when the Fed keeps rates low, retirees aren't making money on their money. Figure this, a retiree with $500,000 in a money market account at a meager 3% interest can earn $15,000 per year on this account to supplement retirement--no risk at all is involved as money markets are one of the safest havens outside of CD's (and are far more liquid). However, at only 0.35%, which is what the going average money market rate is now, that $15,000 per year turns into only $2,500.
My solution, and one most classical economists have, is to simply take away the Fed's ability to manipulate interest rates and let markets determine the rates (not stock markets, the Loanable Funds markets). It is very apparent to me that the Fed doesn't know what they are doing and because of this, they are causing far more harm than good.
Lastly, pulling your money out of the market 4 or 5 years before retirement is perfectly acceptable if you have enough money, but one should never do it before then. And as one gets older they should gradually wean themselves off stocks and into money markets and/or stable bonds that has some positive 10 year growth. But when you look at what financial advisors recommend, you would be keeping at least some of your money in stocks in perpetuity (think about the so called 100 year rule). I firmly believe this is wrongheaded. If there are crashes at later stages of life, your money will never recover, meaning that you have to work longer (if you still have a job) and ruin all your retirement plans.
"Man oh man"...no, wait, the word "man" isn't inclusive..."it oh it". Hard to find words to express my confusion...I'm literally speechless and as you all know, that's not typical of me 🤣
I'm a big fan of the death penalty--I'm a firm believer that some people "just need killin'" that said, I'm glad to see the SCOTUS uphold this one law...I support it 100%. I'm an early riser but my wife isn't, and every time some jackass cranks one of these up in the morning, I have to listen to it all day long!
Comments
Precisely, it never was about "science" it was always about control. Now the polling shows they are losing control so they have to change course.
You know what democrats need? They need some time off and relax; they need to get one of Biden's free crack pipes, kick back and smoke crack...chill out 🤣
I swear the general population is almost dumber than joe.
I think the "general population" is just so busy trying to make ends meet every week, they really don't have time to give a crap about much of anything. This has always been an issue in a nation that works more hours every week (on average) than most other nations in the world, and one of the main reasons we have a "representative" democracy.
Yeah, but with no representation!
Your new Medicare plan "G"
I've heard this story over and over and over again as a lot of people search me out for advice on exactly the same topic (given my profession). I know you aren't seeking any advice, and I don't know how good any would be at this stage, but I will say this--there has always been loads of misinformation out there and it's costing a lot of people a lot of money in their retirement years.
First: There is a sort of paranoia about what markets do when they're volatile, and the public is being given tons of misinformation and false signals, so many of them end up doing exactly what you did--i.e., take your money out of the market too early.
I listen to talk radio quite often and one person I listen to is Glenn Beck. Is he often times "out there"? Yes, but he's entertaining nonetheless. That said, one thing he often does that really irks me is his cataclysmic outlook on markets and the economy. In all the years I've listened to him (even since well before his engagements with various news networks) he's never been correct in his predictions of the market. For instance, he's always beating the "gold" drum...get out of stocks because they're going to crash and buy gold because it will keep growing, or at the very least, maintain it's current intrinsic value. But, gold is traded just like stocks are traded. If you look at the price of gold at the link below, you'll see what I mean; in other words, people are simply trading one risky asset for another. The problem with gold, however, is that the price never trends upward over time. There was a positive shock to gold prices in the early 70s, but before and after then, gold prices tend to move sideways. If these people had kept their money in an index fund (say S&P Index), it would have grown over time in a fairly predictable way that trends upward, not sideways (see the second link).
https://www.macrotrends.net/1333/historical-gold-prices-100-year-chart
https://www.macrotrends.net/2324/sp-500-historical-chart-data
The bottom line is if you have a 401K or something like that, to be patient because markets have always come back in the past as businesses grow and expand and become more efficient. Once growth and scale efficiency of corporations stops, then we are all in a load of trouble, but that has never happened in the past and is unlikely to happen in the next 100 years.
Second: There are two types of economic thought--Keynesianism and Classicalism. I'm the latter while those that run the Fed are the former. Keynesians can't stand to see changes in unemployment, so they are constantly screwing with interest rates. As we've seen many times in the past, they have no clue what they are doing. In recent years they have caused market crashes (e.g., the Great Recession of 2007) and high inflation as we see know. And while markets will muster through these moronically contrived debacles as they usually do, the one group of people this hurts the most are retirees. Unless it's food inflation, inflation itself doesn't really bother a retiree because they aren't likely to purchase many durable goods or travel much, but they do depend upon near-normal interest rates to supplement their retirement income. However, when the Fed keeps rates low, retirees aren't making money on their money. Figure this, a retiree with $500,000 in a money market account at a meager 3% interest can earn $15,000 per year on this account to supplement retirement--no risk at all is involved as money markets are one of the safest havens outside of CD's (and are far more liquid). However, at only 0.35%, which is what the going average money market rate is now, that $15,000 per year turns into only $2,500.
My solution, and one most classical economists have, is to simply take away the Fed's ability to manipulate interest rates and let markets determine the rates (not stock markets, the Loanable Funds markets). It is very apparent to me that the Fed doesn't know what they are doing and because of this, they are causing far more harm than good.
Lastly, pulling your money out of the market 4 or 5 years before retirement is perfectly acceptable if you have enough money, but one should never do it before then. And as one gets older they should gradually wean themselves off stocks and into money markets and/or stable bonds that has some positive 10 year growth. But when you look at what financial advisors recommend, you would be keeping at least some of your money in stocks in perpetuity (think about the so called 100 year rule). I firmly believe this is wrongheaded. If there are crashes at later stages of life, your money will never recover, meaning that you have to work longer (if you still have a job) and ruin all your retirement plans.
Unfortunately, you aren't alone, that's for sure.
New Biden Dept. of Energy hire is a nonbinary drag queen — 'an asset,' say queer activists
How can you not have confidence in the Biden Administration?
Hard to find words to express my confusion...I'm literally speechless and as you all know, that's not typical of me 🤣
Bezos’ Blue Origin is building more rockets to meet ‘robust demand’ for space tourism, CEO says
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/17/bezos-blue-origin-building-more-space-tourism-rockets-ceo.htmlMaybe they'll try to shoot it down like this
https://www.southernrockwoodstock.com/
In mathematics they would call those 'mutually exclusive sets"
https://babylonbee.com/news/supreme-court-approves-death-penalty-for-people-who-use-leaf-blowers-before-8-am
https://www.rv.com/rv/trending-rvs/this-two-story-rv-has-a-pop-up-sunroom-and-an-elevator/?utm_source=exacttarget&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=RMN024338_02252022&scpc=
Yes, that’s cool, but these are more my style.
Wow 😳. Where do you get something like that?
I’m not sure, but if I had a half million 💵 laying around I find out😬
I'd imagine it would take more than 1/2 a million for one, then you need another 1/2 million to pay for the gas at 8 gallons to the mile.