I should have known better. My apologies.
Death rate is now up to 17%. The curve is still in y-axis boost phase and shows no signs of tapering off.
Adam wrote an excellent piece on investing for inflation adjusted income a little over a year ago. Since he mentioned waiting until the current bubble popped, now might be a good time to reread it.
https://peakprosperity.com/a-primer-on-investing-for-inflation-adjusting-income/
Sparky1, thanks for writing, I don’t know why replies to my other topic aren’t working. Crazy. Anyhow, the problem is that since I’m disabled, I’m not actually encountering any problems due to Covid19. God forbid, if something happens to my family, this could change, but I can’t think of a way to bend it to fit my situation.
Taking 100k and moving it into PMs sounds like a decent plan if I could make this happen, and figure out how to pay it back in the next three years.
She passed this along to me. My best financial decision ever was marrying her and staying married to her.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b22KJHOYqbI
Disclaimer: I don’t buy into DR’s claim that the stock market returns an average of 12% per year. Otherwise, I’m in almost total agreement with him.
Here’s another one she shared. And she’s the most generous person that I know, not only with her (our) money but especially with her time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJbW-Mh8C70
It also builds almost all the forms of capital described on this site.
But unfortunately, prosperity isn’t necessarily accompanied by wisdom or foresight and hence such things as PPE shortages. Thankfully, in a society such as ours, there is an element that abounds in generosity and resilience. We have two separate groups in our town alone that are vigorously sewing masks for the local hospital and, as I had mentioned previously, students and staff at the local university are busy fabricating certain pieces of protective gear on 3-D printers and by other means. It’s the prosperity of the society and the strong community spirit that facilitates these good folks coming to the rescue. Rather than spending their emotional energies condemning the system. they rallied and did something to rectify the problem. That’s how a society is supposed to work.
Two women
Betty and Bobby both started working in the same small extended care facility in the 1990’s. They enjoyed their work because of the homey atmosphere and genuine care and concern their employers showed for the elderly and the staff.
When it came time for the owners to retire, they put it up to sale and Betty, who had just inherited some money from her own mother, was able to buy the facility.
Bobby continued to work there, trusting her benefits and pension fund would give her security in her own old age.
Meanwhile, Betty began to attend corporate seminars that taught her how to leverage the equity in her small facility so that she could acquire more. She had spunk and ambition, that one. Everybody sang her praises!
This began an acquisition bonanza and soon Bette was one of the powerhouses in the extended care industry. She had learned how to do “community outreach” through advertizing, that played up the superficial attractiveness of each of her facilities. This along with other brochure glossy type charms lulled future clients and their families into a false sense of confidence.
Meanwhile, Betty had cut staff, altered healthy menus and who was going to complain? Most of her ‘clients’ had advanced dementia. The staffing was cut back so radically that the main cause of death was actually starvation, as those who couldn’t feed themselves were not fed by staff. The ratio was one staff member per 35 mentally disabled clients.
Bobby was laid off during one of the waves of layoffs. Her pension fund was raided by Betty and now she is broke.
There you go, AO. Two women.
No AO,
Society is not supposed to work that way. You pay taxes to governments who are supposed to act proactively and in an organized way to get out ahead of these kinds of problems and not leave it to citizens who may sicken and die themselves. Because you have a moron in power who delayed a quick response your country will reap a whirlwind of viral exposure while the conscientious toiling away in their basements trying to make up for that fact.
How much do you want a bet that people like Bobby, who I described in my last post would be one of the conscientious ones who are struggling to help?
She’s not an investor, but boy do people rely on her type in a crunch.
…not that I want to be on the receiving end of your acrimony since I don’t enjoy controversy…
however I want to point out an old Native American proverb that appears to be relevant here…
Never criticism a man or woman until you have walked a mile in his/her moccasins.
by this I suggest that there are never two families alike that are comparable enough to compare their financial outcomes. The whole premise is moot from the start.
My sister-in-law is a nurse. She worked at an adult day care center taking care of elderly, health challenged individuals. The families of the elderly clients deeply relied on the center.
Because the center was “for profit” the owners and administrators deemed that they were not making enough profit so the answer was - - close the doors. Break even wasn’t acceptable.
The families were left high and dry with little to no resources. My sister-in-law said it was heartbreaking.
Somehow, someway we need to get past profit and financial wealth as a barometer for success.
AKGrannyWGrit
Unfortunately, we live in an imperfect world with imperfect people comprising imperfect governments. What kind of society would not step in and fill the gap where government left one? That’s why I live where I live in the community that has the people and society that it does that. That’s also why I also chose not to live other places where people expect government to do everything for them and then sit around twiddling their thumbs when it doesn’t.
By the way, my wife is the Bobby type but she would have stepped in, gathered documentation and evidence, and had the JCAHO raid the place and put Betty in jail before it ever came to the situation it came to.
This was in my family. The differences were obvious to everyone, even to the one who wound up living in poverty and later actually acknowledged and bemoaned her errors. I know the circumstances well. I wound up handling the estates of both parties. I think I’m a lot closer to being in those moccasins than you who knows very little about the details. No acrimony, just fact. There’s a formula for success and a formula for failure. You can ignore it at your own peril.
Big flashy lures on the end of a pole. They dance on the water waiting, waiting to catch the unwary beauty.
Best not to fall for the dance. Swim, swim, swim away so you can dance in the sun another day.
AKGrannyWGrit
It takes care of its elderly. It doesn’t drop them off in nursing homes, never visiting them so no one outside even knows if they are being cared for, fed, or hydrated properly. I was called in once as an outside consultant by a woman whose mother was in a nursing home. The mother was going downhill in a way that daughter did not think should be occurring. I was there to work on the mother’s musculoskeletal problems but she was also slipping into dementia. I noticed that every time she was given some water, she started to choke on it so then the attendant, being rightfully concerned about the mother chokinig, took the water away from her. This happened repeatedly, both during a visit and then on a subsequent visit. I realized that the mother was probably suffering from dehydration and we worked on her swallowing mechanism and retrained the staff how to properly and safely hydrate her. Lo and behold the dehydration induced dementia cleared up away. The daughter was there visiting her mother regularly and was pro-active unlike so many nowadays who are neither.
Other folks though put their elderly in these pre-death warehouse facilities and then largely ignore them. That isn’t right. When the time came that my mother could no longer live by herself, I started visiting and evaluating all the assisted living facilities in my area (not in my mother’s area) because I wanted to be able to visit her regularly (something which my sister in her area would not do). They were some excellent ones but I finally came to the conclusion that none of them could care for her like I could. So we moved out of our master bedroom and wound up moving my mom in with us. It was a joy and a blessing to be able to serve her the way she had served me for so many years in my childhood and youth. I realize not everyone can do that but too many who can do that, don’t. They cast them aside like worthless husks.
A good society protects and cares for its elderly, values its elderly, and cherishes the wisdom and experience that the elderly can contribute to society, if only we would listen. But the more we turn these types of responsibilities over to government, the more we’re going to see things like death panels crop up and other abuses.
I am at very low, poverty level for my area income, and yet I paid off my house and do not hold debt while in this position ! I could also tell lots of sob stories of my early life, and while all of that does effect who we are, we do as adults get to make a choice of show we want to be. given our backgrounds, it will not be perfect, but we should not identify as victims !
It also would be obvious to any outside observers why I am not homeless, or living in someone elses converted garage unit, and bemoaning my fate vs someone else with similar story to tell. And, no Agitating Prop, it is not due to my starting a business and screwing over employees, as I do not have a business and have been low income.
It is hard sometimes to live within our means, but doing so, and choices we make will change our lot in life and our outcome ! There is, indeed, better way and choices to have success. How I define success may even be different. But, for me financial success is financial security. That means having savings for a few months expenses, even if it took years to get to that, and it is only because my monthly expenses are very low. Low bills, or, rather bills within your means. I am not worried as much as many for this downturn, even though my income will likely be halved, and that will be something. But it will be temporary. What gives security ? All the things on the prosper on the way down list, and these do not take income to do ! Start a garden, have extra food stored, build up to have some reserve cash ( my amount would be less than a months expenses for alot of people here, but for me can make it many months, maybe a year as it is enough to pay for one years property tax and insurance, what is important ? Shelter, food, people), know how to do things, do other people favors over the years ( social capitol, and even yesterday, on social media I offered an unprepared person yeast for baking – social capitol )
I was not scared when the stay at home measure took effect. Yes, I did see how things were going, and I put in alot of potatoes in the garden. Have to try and stay nimble to changing conditions. I can see that I will have at least a temporary ( 2 months ? 6 months) drop in income. Besides putting in the larger garden, I let one of my goats go to be a pet in another household, I am lowering expenses ( she is very happy there, I spent a month vetting the new place) . Anyway, I am secure in basics, so it will not be as big a deal for me, low income notwithstanding
Not everyone can have their aging, ailing relatives move in with them. There are medical conditions and circumstances that preclude that option, even if you have the space, time and money to do so. How to prove a negative? If said relative falls, they end up in hospital being poked for IVs and blood draws. They are discharged home bruised. They fall again before the bruises heal completely. The EMTs show up. Rinse and repeat. They fall yet again. EMTs show up again. How do you prove that you are not performing elder abuse? Those places are not ideal; some of them are better than others. Some of them are a blessing for all involved. YMMV
A good society doesn’t allow corporate for profit extended care facilities, with the idea that “competition” takes care of all problems in the corporate sector. This isn’t about your experience, as laudable as it may be. It was about the experience of two women, one pro corporate ruthless individual who ended up wealthy, and one who ended up poor.
Of course, you can always give yourself one, like some people around here without mentioning any names, lol.
You, in my estimation, are a successful man. You recognize that the life you live is heavily influenced by the choices you make and you chose accordingly. You have found peace as a consequence of your choices and what can be more successful than that? On the pyramid of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, you strike me as a self-actualized individual, a worthy accomplishment and something that some of the financially richest individuals never achieve.
What’s interesting to me is the paradox that, not infrequently, those who rail against the rich and success being measured financially are the very ones who … secretly wish they were rich and themselves measure success financially while being conspicuously ignorant of more valid measures of success. Their sanctimony is often fueled by envy. Yet because they lack self understanding and awareness, they may not even realize this. Here’s a good article to help folks like that.
https://inspiringtips.com/12-tips-to-improve-self-awareness-and-develop-your-potential/
I realize that what was an option for me is not an option for everyone. You are correct. I was very fortunate. But there are people in nursing homes and assisted care facilities who have living relatives and go days, weeks, and months without a visit. That’s not right.
I visited facilities under the conditions of formal appointments. I also visited them informally at off hours. And I asked around … a lot. Luckily, I have a pretty diverse range of social contacts in the community. You can find out a lot that way that isn’t in the slick glossy brochures nor revealed when the polished PR or sales person shows you around and presents a carefully curated picture of the facility. That’s why I came to the decision I did.
P.S. Although it may entail some expense, if you are concerned about the legal implications of the matter you discussed, you can have the patient’s physician prescribe formal vestibular testing to quantify the patient’s balance. I’m not sure how much Medicare covers this testing but it should cover at least some if it’s prescribed by the physician. Low scores will provide substantiation that the patient is likely falling rather than being physically abused. Also, the pattern of bruises can give some information.