HELP!!! No, really, I need help-April 2019
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Do you ever look into the future and wonder who is really in your corner? Is it your spouse, your kids, your friends? Let’s get past TRUST. Let’s just say you have a team. These are the folks you would bet your life they have your back.
Hmmm. How many friends have a key to your home, just in case you need them to check on something? Perhaps you need them to check on you?
I ask these questions because of a recent experience. Recently, we had two family members in different states that had significant life-threatening issues. One has an adult dependent living in the house, and another has no one.
Scenario one, The Fall.
This 90 plus year-old lives alone in an apartment complex, does not drive and uses a flip phone. You can’t get an UBER on a flip phone. You can’t get a Life Alert type of app on a flip phone. You can’t attach a smartwatch with a Fall Monitor to a flip phone. You get where I’m going. She is 100% dependent on luck. She would have been lucky after her last fall if she made a LOUD noise so a neighbor could have possibly heard and come to help. It didn’t. Her neighbor found her a couple of days after she didn’t answer her phone -- on the floor, passed out. She was dehydrated, and not coherent. The good news is, she was lucky; her neighbor found her, got her to the hospital via ambulance, and after a month, she is back home from rehab and back to her routine. But now she has a Fall Monitor, so help is automatically called if she plops over, whether she is responsive or not, help is on its way!
Scenario two, The Flu.
This 80 plus year-old lives with his child of 50 plus years. She does not work, she is his dependent. He cooks, he cleans, he drives, he pays for and takes care of everything. He promised his late wife he would honor her request to care for their daughter, and he is.
He was stricken with the flu. A terrible case that escalated to pneumonia. The dependent daughter did not know what to do. So, she allowed him to rest and try and shake the cold. As the virus worsened, he became less and less responsive. His other daughter hopped on a plane and flew across the country. She arrived to find her dad in a soiled bed, and hardly able to respond. Off to the hospital. Its been over a month and this guy still needs help getting out of bed and performing simple activities of daily living.
Here is my point. You gotta know who is in your corner. Some folks are physically present but may not have the ability to act. Sometimes you may need physical help, other times you may need help with cognitive things, like making decisions. Who knows? I’m just suggesting that you make sure you have a TEAM in place when you need them most.
[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]Blah, Blah, Blah 2019
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The Market is up… well, not really, but sort of… HUH? Don’t you get tired of the Blah, Blah, Blah, on television? I sure do! To tell the truth, I don’t watch much broadcast television. I can’t take it. Between the commercials selling drugs that are too expensive for many of my clients, to the lively discussions from the national news personalities, UGH! Don’t get me started on the FAKE phone calls that are nonstop. Wow, I’m ranting; guess I am human.
About the markets.
The past 12 months for nice folks that are not yet our clients, I’m sorry. The past 12 months was just a waste of a year. The S&P is back to where it was a year ago. That’s good news unless you rely on the market’s performance for your retirement income. (We always earn our clients a positive return.)
Pundits are saying all kinds of things. Markets going to go this way and that. I’m so happy our retirement income clients are not riding the “Wall Street Roller Coaster” anymore.
I did a little research on the enormous number of calls everyone is receiving. Many are scams, like the fake student loan or IRS calls. Most are actually calls made from a couple of companies that have made a business from an obscure law that requires phone companies to pay third parties to call every number in existence and get paid. This is an abuse of the law, but it’s actually on the books. Go figure.
The good news is we all have choices! Watch streaming services like Netflix for entertainment. Watch the BBC for news about our country. Watch Bloomberg about the financial markets. Use Good Rx and Canadian pharmacies to make sure you’re getting the lowest cost possible on your prescriptions. Find a high-quality, independent retirement income planner to assure your income is insulated from the volatile financial markets and then…
Have a nice day.
[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]Up, Down, Open, Closed- 2019
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It's a shame the government had to be closed for so long. Federal employees will feel the sting for a long time to come. It’s one thing to have a career with an unbelievable set of benefits, including low-cost, high-quality healthcare plans, tax-deferred savings, and a pension. It’s entirely a different thing to have those taken away over political bickering.
Many people joke about the quality of service delivered by government employees. Sometimes the jokes are about running dump trucks to the mall to make sure an annual budget is spent. Sometimes it’s a joke about ‘close enough for government work.’ I’m not sure it’s time to joke. These folks are our neighbors, friends, and family.
I don’t have any answers, I voted. I stand by my vote. I understand this is President Trump’s last chance to make a stand on the wall and have any chance for re-election... but at what cost to the American people?
On the other hand, tough decisions require a tough position. If a wall is so important, then the math should support the construction in exchange for the lower cost of border patrol agents, Medicaid, state law enforcement, and detention of folks that entered our country illegally. Fewer agents would be less expensive. The cost of detention is unbelievable. Take a look on google maps. There are miles of our southern border, that is really only a dilapidated vehicle barrier, not a fence nor a wall; it’s really just some things in the way of a vehicle easily crossing the unmarked border. This barrier is easily crossed by foot traffic. There are easily identified trails that are either evidence of animal traffic or people. The border needs to be secure, no question, in my opinion.
The good news... It looks like the president signed legislation on January 16th, 2019, to cover all federal workers back pay. The food banks opened up to federal furloughed workers. The financial institutions are offering more time to make payments. The IRS went back to work to process refunds.
I hope by the time this edition hits your mailbox, the government is open and we can get back to business as usual.
We (American Retirement Advisors) have a positive outlook for 2019. Our businesses continue to serve more and more nice people. We are continuing to expand and hire more smiling faces. We grew our top line just under 50% in 2018 and 2019 looks like more growth is going to take place. We have begun an artificial intelligence project, a large corporation services project as well as continued focus on improving internal automation and processes. All of our efforts are based on our mission to make the complex simple to navigate, helping our community make fact-based decisions on things that matter
[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]Naughty or Nice 2019
If I asked Santa, Chanukah Harry, or the Quanza fairy (I made that one up), were you naughty or nice? I’m pretty sure we would fall solidly on the NICE side of the line, based on the thousands of five-star reviews our wonderful clients have bestowed upon our advisors.
Looking back on 2018, it was a great year. We helped thousands of clients solve life’s challenges. Personally, I watched my son grow into a solid executive. My daughter graduated from college and entered the workforce. My wife didn’t shoot me. LOL. Our little business grew faster than the weeds in my backyard. Life is good!
Our country’s administration didn’t do anything too crazy (at least by the time of writing this article). Medicare prices moved in lockstep with inflation. The cost of prescription drugs, overall, dropped again as they have for the past 4 years. We saw clients in better financial shape than in years past. Our workshop attendance across all subjects broke records again. We served nearly 40% more clients during the Annual Election Period than last year. We help friends of friend of friends become clients.
The markets were not as kind to non-client folks (our clients are fully protected). It is so painful for me to watch and listen to hard-working Americans losing a year or more of growth in the markets. I had a client in my office give me a line of … “I’m in it for the long haul”. That is a fine excuse for someone in their 30s and 40s to be irresponsible, but not someone who relies on their nest egg for lifelong income. I felt bad because he really believed it. Someone once said you can’t fix……
I sleep well at night knowing that the retirement income planning process I developed before the crash of 2000 has worked perfectly to protect thousands of nice people’s lifelong savings from the pitfalls of the financial markets. Today, our planning TEAM has fostered and grown. While the retirement income planning process has not changed, our TEAM has embellished and enhanced every aspect of how we create our plans and serve our clients. Each financial team member has added amazing insights and improvements to our clients’ experience. Each year I am awestruck by the wonderful job our professionals do to improve the lives of everyone we are fortunate enough to serve. If you didn’t already know, I truly see our profession as an opportunity to serve.
As we move into 2019, I see opportunities of abundance. We will continue to fight for our clients against apathy, wives’ tales, and the opinions of friends who have no idea what they are talking about. We will fight against large corporations taking advantage of the people they appear to help in their TV commercials. We will fight to provide our clients with solid research, so they can make their own educated decisions based on facts, numbers, and credible, third-party verifiable information.
One of my favorite movies had a saying, “see a need, fill a need.”
I think that’s what we do. With that, I wish you and your family a wonderful, memory-filled 2019
The Big Picture 2018
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In a world fueled by social media stories of doom and gloom, celebrities, politicians, and the 30-second news cycle … has anything really changed in the past hundred years? When the “News of the World” was run by Carnegie, Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, and later, Hearst, the conversations had to be the same as today. Those folks even installed their own President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson.
I can hear the gossip of the day… those Such-n-Such did this and that. Now we have Cook, Trump, Bezos, Zuckerberg, and Page running the world. (CEOs of Apple, USA, Amazon, Facebook, and Google’s parent, Alphabet). Same story, different times.
Similarly, Trump is out for business and economic growth of America, which does actually fuel the economies of the world, like Rockefeller and Vanderbilt. Cook is looking for privacy and making the world a safer, healthier, and nicer place. Zuckerberg is doing what he can to hold on to the “new world” place of connection. Realistically, he created a worldwide community of communication. As for Page, initially, he just wanted to replace the yellow pages. Index of all the world’s information is the result of their success.
So, now what? We ride along as we always do. For the teams of professionals at American RetirementAdvisors, we keep fighting for our clients and future clients. We fight against misinformation, archaic ways of thinking, and outright lies. We protect our clients from marketing campaigns that bend common sense. We protect folks from conversations with friends based on conjecture, half-truths, and wives’ tales. We seek to get FIRST-HAND information from the entities that actually make policy, rules, and affect change. (i.e., Securities and Exchange Commission, Government Accounting Office, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and the like.)
The big picture for America is bright. The economy is sound. The markets are ready for correction and so are our clients. As we move into the season of winter solstice holidays, I wish everyone a wonderful holiday season and a happy new year.
[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]Pay 2700. NOT 2018
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Jason and Michelle are long-time clients. Over the years, we have assisted them with just about every service we offer; planning for Medicare and their options, financial retirement planning, etc. A few weeks ago, our Planning Department received a text stating they were “preparing to fund a Trust and wanted to make sure there was no issue with moving their retirement accounts into them”.
Our financial team called the clients to see what was going on; seems they had visited their attorney and were seeking advice as to whether their Trust needed to be amended. The attorney they met with advised them they needed a new Trust as the current one was worded improperly and the laws had changed. To get all this corrected it would only cost $2,700.00.
Although they both felt uneasy, they processed the payment to move forward, as they were worried about their affairs not being in order before an upcoming trip.
They were concerned their house and IRAs were not in their Trust. We explained all their accounts with us were IRAs and already had named beneficiaries in the event something happened to either of them.
Jason called the attorney back explaining their financial team assured them their IRAs had their son and daughter named as a beneficiary, so they didn’t think they needed to change those. He also continued to ask if he thought he should just dissolve the Trust since Arizona allows for a beneficiary deed, and the bank accounts could be held as TOD (transfer on death). The attorney explained the Trust was recommended more for protection for the children from a lawsuit than probate. Jason and Michelle were now even more confused; their entire reason for getting the Trust in the first place was to avoid probate.
“OK, let’s just have a little conference call with the attorney”, we offered. As we continued the discussion with the attorney, there was a somewhat different reaction to our inquiry as we asked very specific questions. When the call was completed, it was decided that the couple didn’t really need a new Trust. In this case, a Trust would have complicated a rather easy estate.
It’s all about asking the right questions and knowing your rules and regulations, as we explained to the relieved couple,
“You just saved us $2,700”, they both exclaimed! It’s what we do, to make everything 123 Easy!
“You just saved us $2,700”, they both exclaimed! It’s what we do, to make everything 123 Easy!
[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]Time Machine 2018
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As life events happen, we find ourselves going to family and friends’ birthday, anniversary, retirement parties, and such. While attending these events, do you ever think to yourself “Wow, where did the time go”?
When you have one of the moments, who was with you, what was the event, where were you? These memories are what make You…. you!
I recently attended an anniversary party of some dear friends in Los Angeles who have been married for 30 years. I was their Best Man and my wife was the Maid of Honor at their wedding. When we received the invitation to the party, I could remember their wedding distinctly, as they were married in Hawaii on a beach in a small chapel with stained-glass windows. It was a beautiful day, and we stood there in our tuxedos with our ladies in beautiful gowns. I was struck by my memories of small details, such as the Hawaiian flower lies in the women’s hair and how wonderful the air smelled. Our daughter was 5 at the time and in her flower girl dress, was excited about being on the beach, and the memory of how she was fascinated by the Hawaiian Priest in his flowing white robe and long hair. All these memories flashed by as I greeted friends at the event in present time. As I stood there getting ready to raise a glass of champagne for a toast to the happy couple, I distinctly had a conscious thought of…. where did the time go?
What better way to measure time is when it comes to children. Either your own child, or a niece, nephew, or neighbor. We see them born and watch the magic of time as they grow older right before our eyes. “What do you mean they want to get their driving learner’s permit”? “A boy wants to take you to the Junior/Senior Prom”? “You want to borrow the car”? All of a sudden, we think …. where did the time go? They can’t be this old!
I distinctly remember reading Jules Vern’s “Time Machine” at an early age. It filled my young head with ideas of time travel. What the surprising revelation for me was the thought of not only going back in time but also going forward. I remember sitting in class in my senior year of high school thinking, what will my life be like at age 50 in the year 2005? Wondering if we would have rocket cars, ray guns, and space travel. Would I have kids, where would I be living, and who would I be married too? Would I be married? Lots to ponder at age 17.
As I meet with folks who are nearing retirement and we are assisting them with their selection of Medicare plans, retirement financial planning, Powers of Attorney for financial and health, etc., many times we hear clients utter this same phrase ….
where did the time go? Don’t let time get away from you. Plan now. Need help? Call us!
[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]The Truth and the Other Truth 2018
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Good news first; Medicare premiums for 95% of Americans will only cost $1.50 per month more in 2019 than in 2018. Social Security will go up considerably more than the increased cost of Medicare. Bottom line, most folks will see more money in their bank accounts. Medicare Advantage plans will see increased competition and lower co-pays across all plans for 2019. Medicare supplements in Arizona are seeing increased competition as well, with the lower rates available now than in late 2017 and early 2018.
For the 5% of single folks on Medicare with incomes above $85,000, or married folks above $170,000, the surcharges have been adjusted again. All will see different surcharges on parts B and D.
The other news…
It’s voting season. The ads are driving me crazy. Some ads say, “VOTE YES to save the preserve” the opposing ad says, “VOTE NO to protect the preserve.” That one made me more nuts than the third-party ads stating that one candidate wants to raise rates on healthcare for seniors.
Math is a very exact science. Folks over age 50 (boomers and seniors) vote in greater numbers than folks under age 50. We can all agree on that mathematical fact. The ad agencies got one thing correct. They correctly targeted the people that will cast a vote. Unfortunately, most folks get so frustrated with the outright LIES and deception they just shut down to the election.
I listened to the Arizona debates on public radio. I listened until I couldn’t bear the BS.
The candidates were very civil, well-mannered, and followed the rules of the program. They politely remained within their allotted times and made their points and I was impressed for a while in the professionalism.
Then everything changed, not in the tone, but in the OUTRIGHT LIES. One candidate stated that she did not approve ads that FALSELY accuse her opponent. She agreed that the AD WAS A LIE. Then she went on to separate herself from her party and the political action committee that placed the ad. In my mind, you are either a member of a party or you run as an independent. Not both. When she lost her cool, I called BS. I understand why a normal person (not a billionaire) would associate with a party. It's simple. Funding. A billionaire self-funds a campaign. Like Mr. Bloomberg did when he ran for Mayor in New York. Our president self-funded, until he was taken seriously by the party and then reimbursed.
My point, politics is a complicated game of cat and mouse or chess. You trade one thing for another to get what your constituents hopefully want. Some folks do it with honor and will not bend from a code of conduct. Some folks do whatever they must to get to the next level. You really must hand it to the folks that put themselves out there to run for public office. The rewards may be vast but the public scrutiny for the candidate and their family is also a high price to pay. Look at the President and his family. The first lady never signed up for the job. She was a happy socialite in New York surrounded by friends and was content raising her son. The President’s son-in-law is probably not very happy that his personal taxes, or potential lack of paid taxes, are now out in the open. His favorite daughter’s line of clothing and shoes are no longer in stores. Have you tried to find a “TRUMP” necktie? They were my favorites, all gone.
My point is please do your own research. Don’t consider television or radio NEWS, it’s propaganda. Dig into the facts and read the ballots, they are written deliberately to be confusing. Call the candidates’ offices directly to ask your questions. Then, most importantly, BE AN AMERICAN, perform your duty and VOTE.
[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]Process, Preference, Result Oct 2018
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We have all heard the phrase, “practice makes perfect.” That is actually only partially true. If you practice incorrectly, the result will be less than perfect. There is always something missing in colloquial phrases. Perhaps by design. I’m not really sure. So, let’s update the phrase to “perfect practice makes perfect.”
Did you every correct someone for installing a roll of toilet paper backward? Or perhaps you were like me, on the “being corrected end” of the conversation. Whether the paper is going to roll out on the side of the wall or over the front, who really cares? Well, some folks really have a preference. If the paper comes out over the front, it can be folded nicely on top. If the paper comes out from the back, the edge can be hidden from view. Both are preferences and I can understand and appreciate both viewpoints. Neither changes the result of dispensing paper. So, what’s the point...
Well, the way folks accomplish tasks can create arguments. The toilet paper argument is an example. Bottom line, that argument is silly because the result is not affected.
Sometimes people take a side of an argument for the purpose of supporting a political party. Sometimes the topic of discussion is based on fact-checked, third-party verified, documented information. Sometimes not. Sometimes it’s just easier to grab a slice of negative information, repeat it to friends, have them amplify it, and suddenly it becomes a common perception. My good friend, Marc Frye, taught me early on in my career, “if you don’t know, don’t say” and “if in doubt, leave it out”. Sage advice for a new person entering the world of finance. Marc shared that information primarily to keep me out of regulatory trouble.
But I took my mentor’s words to heart because it was a process in my mind. I took what he said and made it a mantra for continuous education and research. “If in doubt” became, let’s find out. “Leave it out” became, let’s get the correct answer, document the source, verify from another source, and provide a good answer. You get the point.
As a company, we drive results. Whether painstakingly searching through thousands of options of Medicare plan combinations to find the most appropriate match for our clients or building a retirement income plan. Our processes drive results.
Our income planning team is comprised of more people than I can remember these days.
Another thing Marc told his clients, and I remember very clearly, “If your advisor is meeting with you, who is watching your money?” I took those words to heart.
Our planning team has dedicated securities traders, with more letters after their names than anyone should. We have trading assistants to stay on top of their trades. We have a dedicated person just to gather information for annual reviews. We have another person just to make sure clients can always talk to a human, another dedicated person just to build retirement income plans (that one is the smartest one in the office, too) and, of course, there is the Vice-President of retirement planning as well, just to make sure the process is followed and continuously improved. Whew! That’s a lot of folks just to do what someone I overheard mention to a client many, many, moons ago.
Process, process, process. They are improved continually. Updated continuously. One of my assistants early in our company’s history said I was always changing things. That was sort of true. My philosophy is based on the understanding that the world we live in is ever-changing. Continuous and never-ending improvement is a way of life for us at American Retirement Advisors.
Our clients have worked hard all their lives and they deserve predictable, consistent results!
[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]The Bear and the Bull 2018
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Most of the stuff we hear on the news is a bunch of BULL. I’m not talking “Fake News”, there certainly is a bunch of that, but the news doesn’t seem like news anymore. Let’s say you used to be a person that watched the soap operas, perhaps you still do. Today, folks watch cooking shows and reality shows. Both offer mindless entertainment, are less expensive to produce, and they don’t require a writing staff or retakes. Back “then”, Walter Cronkite and the McNeal Lehrer news hour was a thing. Something we all looked forward to every day. It was an event. Remember, there were only three networks plus PBS. The news was published in papers and delivered in the morning. Sometimes there was a special edition if the news was especially interesting. Today we have non-journalists that have opinion shows, but it sure looks like a news broadcast.
Back to the bear and the bull. The stock market bear and bull. David and I had the good fortune to visit Wall Street last month. We had a conversation, on behalf of all our current and future clients, with the bull. We suggested to the bull that he was doing a good job for us and we wanted him to continue to do so. He was very quiet. I guess he was not used to a couple of “Davids” tag teaming him. Nonetheless, he listened. We explained to him that the rates for bonds were going to continue to go up and his job would become increasingly more difficult. He remained quiet. David Edge shared with the bull that he was responsible for hundreds of our clients that are hedged against inflation. David shared a story with the bull about the nice lady that was not going to be able to retire, but because of the bull’s 9-year run, she was able to save enough for a comfortable retirement.
My conversations with the bull were a little different. I wanted to know how he was going to deal with all of the corporate stock repurchases, the amount of folks now withdrawing funds from the market for income, and how he was going to continue to run like he has for so long. He remained silent.
David and I hopped a quick cab over to the New York Stock Exchange for a quick picture, before the bell that morning. We grabbed a muffin from the street vendor and marveled at the institution that has funded enterprise in America for so long. Then back to the bull for a last-ditch attempt to get some answers.
He remained silent.
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