Unsavory Truth: How Food Companies Skew the Science of What We Eat. In that book, I review research on the “funding effect,” the strong correlations between who pays for food and nutrition research and its outcome. Industry-funded research tends to produce results favorable to the funder’s interests (otherwise it wouldn’t be funded). But recipients of […]
Source: Food Inflation: The Price Spikes of Beef, Coffee, Eggs, and Dairy – https://wolfstreet.com/2025/10/24/food-inflation-the-price-spikes-of-beef-coffee-eggs-and-dairy/ I decided I would try to collect data online from the largest supermarkets in the country, and I pretty soon realized that the numbers I was getting were two or three times higher than the official numbers for inflation. Alberto Cavallo, […]
Over the study period, 1,131 cases of type 2 diabetes were identified among the 108,723 participants. Compared with people who consumed the lowest levels of preservatives, those with higher intake showed a markedly increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Overall preservative consumption was linked to a 47% higher risk. Non-antioxidant preservatives were associated with […]
garyskitchen.net is a personal WordPress.com blog (also referred to as a “food memoir”) authored by Gary, the same individual who runs lifeunderwriter.net under the handle SupremeCmdr. The site’s tagline/subtitle is: “A food memoir of weight loss, family recipes, digital cookbook and nutrition information for family and friends”. Key aspects include: Overall, it’s a niche, opinionated […]
Thinking about making black eyed peas for good luck? Me too. As 2025 comes to a close I once again searched my blog for the number of Badass versions I have. Badass Black Eyed Peas Black Eyed Peas – Pandemic Version 2021 Vegetarian Badass Black Eyed Peas – 2022 (don’t ask what happened in 2023) and 2024 Badass […]
lifeunderwriter.net 
This was a very good and sadly sobering article. It is the reality of things, and I must face the facts. But it is kind of depressing to see such a huge portion of what I have saved and invested for the last 55 years, at least on paper, be gone in an instant. And I doubt that I have enough years remaining to see this recovery.
But at least I am a lucky one who has both Social Security and a military pension. So I have enough for day-to-day living expenses. And there is still enough in savings and investments to pay for the occasional large purchases that come up, such as the refrigerator I had to buy this past weekend to replace the one that was dying.
I was trying to edit and pressed send too soon. What I meant to say was I doubt that I have enough years remaining to see the stock market recover.
We probably don’t have enough time remaining either to see the stock market recover. We fortunately have a small DB pension plan benefit that started sending checks already. Both of us are still working and thus deferring any SS payouts. Yes, the Bloomberg article is sobering and in the near future as a nation we’ll all have to figure out how to feed and shelter a lot of our population.
What does DB stand for? I wonder how the nation fed and sheltered people during the Great Depression? My parents were high school and college age in 1929. I remember my mother saying she was one of two in her college graduating class to get a job. My father graduated from college and returned to his hometown to work as a newspaper reporter. Which he did until World War II started.
DB is defined benefit as in a fixed monthly payment. You’ll see DC or defined contribution as in IRA’s and 401k accounts where your monthly benefit is not fixed, nor guaranteed and the investment risk is with the individual and not a corporation/business. So my defined benefit plan is like your military pension.
Got it. Thanks for the explanation!
I believe I was faced with the decision when I reached a certain age with a couple annuities I own. I could annuitize and receive fixed income for life or for a certain number of years. Or I could just leave the money in the annuity and withdraw it as needed, first taking out money that would be considered as contributed so I wouldn’t have to pay regular rate income tax. Something like that.