Pumpkin Tree – 2021
Memoir
Take a Break 10.01.21
“I’m sick to death of people saying we’ve made 11 albums that sound exactly the same. In fact, we’ve made 12 albums that sound exactly the same.”
Angus Young, AC/DC
The Myth of Retirement
Prices in the three production stages that are the furthest up the pipeline (Stages 1-3, red, green, gray) have all jumped by over 20% year-over-year. Prices at production stage 4 (black), up 12.1% year-over-year, are inputs for final demand prices, which are inputs for consumer prices.
Final demand prices are what consumer prices will encounter pretty soon in their consumer prices. Stage 4 intermediate demand prices will follow. And prices in productions stages 1-3 are further behind, but they’re true whoppers, and they will provide massive pressures on consumer prices for months to come:
Up the Price Pipeline, Inflation Rages at 20% — https://wolfstreet.com/2021/09/10/up-the-price-pipeline-inflation-rages-at-20/#comments
Prior to the 1950’s, there was no such thing as retirement, as the term is used today. A 1950 poll showed that most workers aspired to work for as long as possible. Quitting was for the disabled. Also, remember that in 1935 when the government was determining the appropriate retirement age for social security (65) the average adult male died at age 63.
The Baby Boom generation is also living longer than the generation before it. Chances are a married couple age 65 will have one spouse live into his or her early nineties. That is nearly 30 years of living off of one’s savings and Social Security if one retires at age 65. The math does not work for this many people. For so many to have golden years, there needs to be gold (money) to support them.
Trust Company Oklahoma May 2016 The Retirement Myth — https://www.trustok.com/our-latest-quarterly-newsletter/
Thinking about retirement? I’ve been thinking about retirement for quite some time and the thought of not working doesn’t appeal to me. There will come a time when the 40+ hour workweek will be no longer doable. But for now that time is far off in the future. The math in retirement will not work for the majority. I see inflation all around and my planned retirement income streams and savings will not last as long as hoped if everything costs more. Retirement math now is simple. If you can, work longer and save more.
Too Hot to Blog
A Moral Cesspool
From zero in 1993 to $1.728 trillion in 2021: this is the predatory financialization of higher education which has enriched lenders, Wall Street and the Higher Education Cartel
America Is a Moral Cesspool, and Student Loans Prove It — https://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2021/07/america-is-moral-cesspool-and-student.html
Way back in the Dark Ages I borrowed a total of $8000.00 and worked summers and during the school years to pay for my college education. It took me ten years of payments at $69.72 a month to pay the loan off. I promised myself no matter the hardship my own children would not borrow money for their undergraduate degrees (medical school different story). There were reasons why I drove a 2006 Ford Taurus for 15 effing years.
One of the joys of aging is you get to a point where you say what you want to say and the hell with everyone else. Charles Hugh Smith is one of us who possess critical thinking skills and will always tell it like it is. Check out his blog.
And this is a perfect time to remind all of my readers that the opinions expressed in this and my other blog are mine alone and do not represent the views of any corporate entity that I may or may not be involved with either in the present or past.
I should play more and work less. https://garyskitchen.net/2021/07/24/stress-reduction/ I’m starting to become more cynical than usual.
A Random Thought – Sunday 07.11.21 – Is It Alzheimer’s or Normal Aging?
More Retirement Income Ahead!
Total individual life insurance policy sales increased 11% in the first quarter, compared with first quarter 2020. This is the highest growth in the number of policies sold in a quarter since 1983. New annualized premium also experienced significant growth, up 15% from prior year, according to LIMRA’s First Quarter U.S. Individual Life Insurance Sales Survey.
LIMRA: First Quarter U.S. Life Insurance Policy Sales Highest Since 1983 — https://www.limra.com/en/newsroom/news-releases/2021/limra-first-quarter-u.s.-life-insurance-policy-sales-highest-since-1983/
I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don’t have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you.
Bryan Mills, played by Liam Neeson in the film Taken
I had my annual wellness visit earlier this week.
5.10 168 130/84 BMI 24.14 O2 sat 98%
CHOLESTEROL 175 mg/dL
TRIGLYCERIDE 69 mg/dL
HDL 65 mg/dL
LDL CALCULATED 96 mg/dL
NON-HDL CHOLESTEROL 110 mg/dL
All of my other labs were normal too.
I have multiple relatives who have lived well into their 90’s. My maternal grandmother lived to 100. I’m going to need another source of retirement income. And for all of my friends and colleagues who never thought I would make it this far…
AST 23 U/L
ALT 7 U/L
GGT 36 U/L (12/2015)
PSA 0.7 (9/2020)
Sunday Morning – 05.23.21
I’ve finished looking at the newspaper. Afterwards, I started browsing my RSS feed and for some inexplicable reason I read an article on whole bowel irrigation at https://emcrit.org/toxhound/the-purge/.
Memo to My Life Underwriting Colleagues:
Retire before you get to this point in your career. Reading articles like this will not facilitate advancement in your chosen profession. Get out. Get a life.
Showing Cajones in the Obesity Wars
In Mexico obesity reached epidemic proportions after it joined NAFTA with the United States and Canada in the early 1990s, making processed food more easily available. Diets quickly changed as many people, particularly those on lower incomes, replaced largely healthy traditional staples (corn tortilla, frijoles, Jamaica Water) with highly processed alternatives (hotdogs, nuggets, sodas). Sugar consumption soared and waistlines exploded. In the past 20 years the number of obese and overweight people has tripled, with 75% of the population now overweight.
Mexico also has the sixth highest mortality rate from Covid-19, which has spurred the government to escalate its war against obesity.
Mexico’s War on Obesity Sends Global Junk-Food & Sugary-Drink Giants Scrambling — https://wolfstreet.com/2021/04/13/mexicos-war-on-obesity-sends-global-junk-food-sugary-drink-giants-scrambling/#comments
Dumb and Dumber – Noncompliance with Colonoscopy Post Positive FIT
Results Some 88 013 patients who were FIT positive complied with colonoscopy (males: 56.1%; aged 50–59 years: 49.1%) while 23 410 did not (males: 54.6%; aged 50–59 years: 44.9%).
The 10-year cumulative incidence of CRC was 44.7 per 1000 (95% CI, 43.1 to 46.3) among colonoscopy compliers and 54.3 per 1000 (95% CI, 49.9 to 58.7) in non-compliers, while the cumulative mortality for CRC was 6.8 per 1000 (95% CI, 5.9 to 7.6) and 16.0 per 1000 (95% CI, 13.1 to 18.9), respectively. The risk of dying of CRC among non-compliers was 103% higher than among compliers (adjusted HR, 2.03; 95% CI, 1.68 to 2.44).
Conclusion The excess risk of CRC death among those not completing colonoscopy after a positive faecal occult blood test should prompt screening programmes to adopt effective interventions to increase compliance in this high-risk population.
Non-compliance with colonoscopy after a positive faecal immunochemical test doubles the risk of dying from colorectal cancer — https://gut.bmj.com/content/early/2021/03/30/gutjnl-2020-322192?rss=1
Help me understand human behavior. You get a positive FOBT or Cologuard test and your doctor says you need a colonoscopy but you decide not to follow up and follow through with the scope.
SMH.
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