Free Tax Prep April 14, 2006March 25, 2012 1. Thank You For Smoking. This movie is hysterical. 2. Thank you for paying your taxes. (‘Seventy percent of the nation’s taxpayers are eligible for free tax preparation software and free electronic filing. See if you are eligible.’) If you can’t get them done by Monday, file form 4868 for an automatic extension. I have a lot more stuff to share, but I don’t want you using ME as an excuse for why you had to file an extension.
I Want My Money Back (And Got It So Easily!) April 13, 2006March 4, 2017 DELIGHT Amazon is my hero. From the get-go – and I must have been one of its first 5,000 customers – this company’s goal seems to have been to win by delighting its customers. Presumably most of you feel the same way (and I will hear from those who hold a different view), but I am moved to tell you this because of my latest folly – and its resolution. My car doesn’t start. I always assumed it was because I almost never use it, and the battery just dies of loneliness in the meantime. I get a jump, take it in for a new battery, pay $1,523 for a framis rebalancing I had not realized I needed, and then park it for the next two months, at which time, when I need to go someplace, the cycle begins anew. (It’s a longer saga than this, and I think may involve alternators and trickle charges – it certainly involves my calling a lot of cabs – but I’m trying to tell you about Amazon, and all you want to do is look under my hood: stay focused, won’t you?) The point is (and really, in a world of endlessly intriguing hyperlinks, doesn’t focus become ever more a challenge?), I went onto Amazon, rooted around a little, and found a powerpack reduced from $179 to $60 that promised not just to jump-start my car, but to power a fan and a light and maybe a TV – surely my laptop – for a few hours while I wait for the power to be restored. I bought four (don’t ask) and when I opened the first one it became clear that this deluxe item was shipped without a cord to connect it to the wall, and without the ‘inverter’ (or ‘framis’) required to plug in the fan, TV and laptop. I never return stuff, I just give it away or throw it out, because everyone knows what a pain it is to return stuff. You have to call and wait on hold to get an ‘RMA’ number, call and wait on hold to schedule the UPS pickup, then write out the return label, etc. – hey! I’m a busy guy! I have to think of things that rhyme with ‘redolent’ and ‘pluperfect!’ But my friend and mentor in all things modern told me I was being ridiculous. Just go to Amazon, he said, click on MY ACCOUNT, and . . . well, I’ll be darned. I clicked on my order for the powerpacks. I clicked on Return This Item. I clicked on why and added an optional sentence of explanation. And that’s all there was to it. Done. Just leave the boxes for UPS, who would be coming to pick them up. I would not even be charged for shipping (these things are heavy!) because, a message on the screen advised, I had felt the product was not as advertised. Amazon is not the only company that delights me – Google is another, FreshDirect (for groceries in New York) is a third. But isn’t this amazing? DE PLANE Joe Cherner: ‘Are you SURE the plane moved?’ ☞ Ah. Borealis. Well, yes, I’m sure the plane moved – it would be pretty hard, I think, to fool Boeing and Air Canada’s chief pilot about that. But when and whether anything else will move I cannot say. My sense is that patience is a virtue in a situation like this, and that we hold a smart lottery ticket. Unlike a real lottery ticket, it’s unlikely to be worthless in a few weeks . . . and the odds of an outsized gain (albeit not of the size that would draw helicopter news crews to your lawn) are modest but real. So, since you all promised me you would only buy shares with money you could truly afford to lose – hang on. HAIKU Rod Ruggiero: Ok, it’s irresistible. Cheery blossoms pink Nitromed is in the red Summer color green ☞ A perfect 5 x 7 x 5 syllable, season-referencing financial haiku. ‘Cheery,’ says Rod, is no typo. THE FIRST 2500 Carl: ‘The best, I think, was September 11, 2001.’ Richard Theriault: ‘Happy 2500! As a registered Republican for 60 years, I am so FUCKING angry about what the current crop of idiots have done to the party and the country that I have given to the DNC while still trying to fix the GOP from within. It may be futile.’ ☞ Let’s hope not. Though they seem to be playing their hand – both domestically and abroad – almost the way I used to play Hearts. Where you know that if you try to ‘shoot the moon’ and fail you suffer a terrific penalty . . . and it’s become clear you miscalculated and you will fail . . . and yet, rather than change course, you just step on the gas and hope for a miracle.
Roses are Redolent; Violets, Pluperfect April 12, 2006March 4, 2017 Yesterday’s was the 2500th column in this space, and as those of you know who’ve been with me from the beginning, several of them have been quite good. I just got forgot to note which ones. (There was one about clickles early on I rather liked.) The genesis of all these was recounted in #751, the day my pay for writing them went from big bucks to bupkes; and the interesting thing about human nature (I doubt this is unique to me) is that I’ve worked harder at it, and enjoyed it more, ever since. It’s more fun to do things we’re not obligated to do. And there’s this: Where else could I get my poetry published? The New Yorker? No, not The New Yorker. Roses are reddish [I wrote Valentine’s Day, 2000], Violets are bluish, Today is no day For your spouse to act shrewish. Give her some stock Or give him some shares; They may go to zero But who the heck cares? Love is in the air.Daisies are yellow, Pine cones are brown, Today is no day For your spouse to feel down. Flip her some Intel Or cadge him some Ford. At the sight of the confirm Your spouse will be floored. Love is in the air.Peonies are purple Carnations are white. Today make ’em feel like A princess or knight. Transfer some Cisco Or even a bond. Whether bald or brunette It will make ’em feel blond/e. Love is in the air. Later that year, after 109 minutes on the phone with tech support, I wrote my second roses are red (and in that same column, the perfect poem to accompany a gift of jam). I don’t quote those here because they were not my best work. Nor, let’s face it, was this one in August of 2001: Roses are red, Violets are blue; Yesterday’s column Counted as two. Or its slothful variant the following August: Roses are red, Violets are blue. Yesterday’s column Will just have to do. In truth – using advanced Google tools to scan the past 2,500 columns for meter and rhyme – I find but one column that was worth half a dime: my March 30, 2001 column with its kick-ass financial haikus and the little poem that I once, so long ago, submitted to The New Yorker. (Yes, The New Yorker.) NTMD I still think Nitromed is a poor value, given the severe challenges it faces. I am keeping some of my puts and especially (because no tax is due on the profit unless I cover it) some of my short position. But the market doesn’t work on value alone – hopes, dreams, rumors and fashion all play their roles – so with the stock down two-thirds (to $7.32 last night from more than $22 a share when we started betting against it in July), it could be wise to take a chunk of your profit. You’ll be happy you did in case some unexpected announcement leads to irrational buying (hope springs eternal – not that I can readily imagine what such an announcement might be) and to short-covering (shorts like to get out of the way of irrational buying). And if the stock just keeps on with its more or less steady march to oblivion, you’ll be glad you made even more profit on that portion of your position you held to expiration (theirs or its, whichever comes first). (Okay, that was irresistible but unfair – the furthest-out puts expire in September, and Nitromed certainly has the cash to last past September.)
Annuities April 11, 2006March 4, 2017 ANNUITIES Brad Baker: ‘I’ve read your books countless times and kept many people away from annuities for the reasons you outline. Now I’m wondering how to tell them that an annuity may be a good idea (is it because it’s not a variable annuity, or because it’s immediate vs. deferred, or absent of high sales charges?).’ ☞ Great question. Most annuities are sold to young(ish) people as investments. Beware for all the reasons you’ve read countless times. But what annuities used to be, and still can be, are . . . well, annuities – that is, a monthly payment for the rest of your life. Which is particularly handy if you don’t know how long you’re going to live. (The downside, as I say, is that most annuities don’t cover you for inflation.) So in the case of the widow with $250,000 to supplement her Social Security, addressed here recently, this could make sense. David Ellis: ‘When an annuity is a good solution for a problem, there may be a way to get a better annuity’ – namely, David suggests, the extra inflation-adjusted annuity you get, in effect, by opting for ‘maximized Social Security benefits’ rather than the reduced benefits you get if you elect to have them begin at age 62. ‘Maximized Social Security benefits can cost less than half the price of conventional annuities,’ writes David, and can be attained two ways: 1. Spend your own money from age 62 until you are eligible for the full retirement benefit at 65. 2. Collect benefits at age 62, but at age 65, withdraw the Social Security claim, pay back all Social Security benefits received, and resubmit a claim for maximum benefits. ‘I chose that second option. Worked real well for me, especially the income tax deduction I got for Social Security income I had paid taxes on in prior years. This amount went straight to ‘miscellaneous adjustments’ on the Itemized Deduction sheet.’ ☞ I had not been aware of David’s ‘option #2’ above or the tax treatment. I haven’t had time to verify its accuracy, but it sure sounds as if he knows whereof he speaks. There are also advantages in delaying the start of benefits past age 65. Waiting to age 69 to collect will increase the eventual pay-outs by 32% or more. Here is a helpful calculator to help you see the penalty or bonus in beginning to collect benefits early or late. Clearly, if you can afford to wait, it is the more conservative thing to do. Then again, only after you have passed on to your reward (which, because you are a reader of this column I can almost guarantee will involve harps), will you be able to calculate with certainty who made out better by deciding to delay, you or Uncle Sam. The longer you live, the more sense it makes to delay the start of benefits. (Conversely, if you eschew the benefits at 62, waiting to 65, but die at age 64, Uncle Sam wins.) Bob Sanderson: ‘As part of this discussion, Elliot Raphaelson recommended ‘Another option is for her to invest the majority (say 90%) in a high yield corporate bond fund, either PIMCO, or Vanguard.’ Two very good companies, but in my opinion a very high-risk strategy for someone looking for income. High-yield bonds yield more than other bonds because they are lower quality and more prone to default than higher-rated bonds. The default rate on these bonds has been increasing as interest rates have risen, and as I understand it, is projected to continue to increase. From what I read, the high-yield bond market has a lower-than-normal spread relative to US government bonds, which means you aren’t being compensated for their risk as much as you historically were. Maybe not the best time to roll the dice. And 90% in one asset class? Has Mr. Raphaelson read your book?’ ☞ Now, now. You definitely have a point . . . and I think the annuity could suit her situation if it’s not important to her to leave an inheritance (if, that is, she’s okay consuming all her assets during her lifetime) . . . a another reader writes: ‘Eliot’s suggestion re the Vanguard Hi Yield Bond Fund in lieu of an annuity is further strengthened by the higher quality junk bonds used by Vanguard.’ (Quality junk. But knowing Vanguard, I wouldn’t be surprised.) Mike Albert: ‘You passed on a recommendation by Tobias Brown for the Vanguard inflation protected annuity. I think Vanguard is a great organization, and their products are fantastic: all our investment funds are with them. I also think that an annuity that is adjusted for the CPI would be a wonderful thing, and have been looking for one for some time. Unfortunately there’s a problem with the Vanguard offering. Here’s what I wrote in my letter to Vanguard last October regarding their product: As part of my analysis I checked the safety of the insurance company you use (AIG Life Insurance Company located in Delaware) via Weiss Ratings (at http://www.weissratings.com.) Although this rating service is not widely known, its ratings have been found by the GAO and others to detect financial vulnerability much more reliably than other rating services (as described at http://www.weissratings.com/gao_study.asp.) Weiss Ratings assigns AIG Insurance Company a rating of C+. It describes this rating as “Fair Financial Strength: … during an economic downturn or financial pressures, we feel it may encounter difficulties in maintaining its financial stability.” I would never trust an insurance company with such a low Weiss rating. This rating indicates way too much risk to be acceptable for my assets, no matter what other benefits are provided. If I do decide to annuitize at some time, I will only use Vanguard if the insurance company you employ has a much better rating. ‘In the eighties I purchased Single Premium Deferred Annuities from Executive Life of New York and Fidelity Bankers Life because they were providing great returns. Knowing that there was some risk involved, I kept watch over my investment by periodically checking the Best ratings, which never indicated a problem. Nevertheless, both companies failed before I could do anything. Weiss, on the other hand, detected each company’s weakness over a year before it failed. If I had known about Weiss at the time, I’d have avoided a significant loss. ‘A manager at Vanguard called me to discuss my letter. He told me that they continually examine the financial health of their insurers, and are confident in the level of safety they provide. That may be, but when a big chunk of my money is irrevocably tied up in a company for THE REST OF MY LIFE, I want maximum safety. A grade of C+ isn’t even close. You might want to mention this concern to readers who might be tempted to employ the Vanguard offering. If they’d all write letters to Vanguard asking them to use a safer insurance company for this product, that would be nice too.’ Peter Kaczowka: ‘Beware of annuities or other investments such as bonds that claim to be ‘inflation protected’. They are pegged to the CPI which grossly underestimates true inflation. If you had invested in them (say) 10 years ago, you would not have matched the rising cost of housing, energy, college or health care; the major expenses to families if not to retirees. Economists consider rising home prices a plus: tell that to my 25-year-old son who wants to buy a house! CPI is a bogus measure of costs, rigged to make the economy (and therefore the current administration) look good. Real inflation is running about 8%; GDP and income growth are negative.’ ☞ Here is a more moderate overview of the situation, suggesting that the CPI does understate inflation, as Peter asserts, if perhaps not so egregiously. Either way, if you go back to that April 2 column, you’ll see a suggestion that our widow not put the full $250,000 into an annuity all at once.
Barrels, Bibles, Bangles and Beads April 10, 2006January 15, 2017 BANJOS Bobby Corcoran, Murfreesboro, TN: ‘I enjoyed listening to the Dueling Banjos piece. I have a friend who is involved in several activities, one of which is music – The Cumberland Trio. I thought he might be interested, so I forwarded it. I thought you might find his response of interest.’ The original Dueling Banjos LP recorded in 1961 was called “New Dimensions In Banjo & Bluegrass” by Eric Weissberg & Marshall Brickman, both of whom were teachers at Juliard and members of the NY Symphony – both played bass and cello! I have the original LP. It has been remastered to CD and is available on Amazon – HIGHLY recommend! The Dueling Banjos song was on that original LP with Weissberg and Brickman dueling on BANJOS. When the soundtrack to Deliverance was released one song was changed from the original 1961 release and that was Dueling Banjos which was done between Weissberg and a guitar player named Steve Mandel. I don’t know why, because the original is better. Side One on the LP was all in Scruggs style by both. Side Two had Brickman playing a new style that went beyond Scruggs called “chromatic,” which was invented by Bill Keith. Weissberg played the same songs in Scruggs style to show the difference. We met Weissberg and Brickman on the ABC-TV Hootenanny show back in ’64 when they sang with a great folk group called The Tarriers with a black guitar player/lead singer named Clarence Cooper. Brickman played bass and Weissberg played banjo. Brickman went on to produce and direct movies including several with Woody Allen. Both are still around I think. ☞ Well, Marshall certainly is – he’s our astonishingly talented, modest upstairs neighbor. We heard him play the banjo a few New Year’s Eves ago, just sitting on a couch with another neighbor, no audience, and I – having no knowledge of this background – asked whether he knew how to play the song from Deliverance. As it turns out, why, yes, he did. BIBLES You’ve probably seen this one already, but just in case: On Wednesday, March 1st, 2006, in Annapolis at a hearing on the proposed Constitutional amendment to prohibit gay marriage, Jamie Raskin, professor of law at AU, was requested to testify. At the end of his testimony, Republican Senator Nancy Jacobs said: ‘Mr. Raskin, my Bible says marriage is only between a man and a woman. What do you have to say about that?’ Raskin replied: ‘Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You did not place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible.’ The room erupted into applause. BANG-BANGS Pieter Bach: ‘Jonathan Levy’s proposal of mandatory gun insurance is excellent! And if there were jail time for someone found to have an uninsured gun, so much the better. Maybe we can get the authorities in places like Oakland, where I live, to pay some attention to this idea. We had our 35th murder of the year last night, and the police and coroner were still working at the crime scene when I passed it on my bus to work. Oakland, like many other cities, has huge potential. But it will never be realized until something substantive is done about the guns.’ BARRELS Richard Reiss: ‘Between Iraq and the climate, this article from March 30 New York Times is pretty much the whole shooting match, when you think about it. It has many sad but funny quotes, like this one:’ Improving mileage now would be easy if we sacrificed some zip in new cars, [an expert] said, ‘but in this country, we don’t sacrifice for anything.’ ☞ It goes on to note that the average vehicle went from zero to 60 in 14.4 seconds 25 years ago (and weighed 3,200 pounds). Now it sprints to 60 in 9.9 seconds (and weighs 4,100 pounds). Instead of keeping acceleration and weight constant and using our technological advances to improve fuel efficiency, we kept fuel efficiency constant and increased acceleration and weight – at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars we now owe to our friends the Saudis and others. (By my exceptionally rough calculations, we could have saved nigh on a trillion gallons of gas over those 25 years. At a buck a gallon, let alone three, that couldn’t have hurt our personal, or our national, finances. Or the atmosphere.) Tomorrow (and if you’re getting annoyed, you can click that hyperlink and read it today): ANNUITIES!
So Why Don’t YOU Run for Office? April 7, 2006March 4, 2017 Well, I wouldn’t either. So I’m particularly grateful to folks like these, who are: DUANE BURGHARD Listen to a guy who is running to beat an incumbent Republican Congressman from Missouri. TIM MAHONEY And listen to another, running to beat the Republican Deputy Majority Whip. (If you eat breakfast slower than anyone else in the whole world and actually have time for yet more such interviews, click the website from which they come.) Monday, for sure: annuities. (I know, know. I’ve been bad.)
When Would Jesus Bolt? April 6, 2006March 4, 2017 LICENSE PLATES Sue Hoell: ‘Tennessee’s Choose Life license plate wouldn’t be too bad if right next to it was a picture of a flag-draped casket.’ WAL-MART Kathi: ‘The point I was trying to make about your rationale for buying Wal-Mart stock was that we could excuse almost anything by saying ‘nothing I personally do would affect that’ – such as not voting in a national election.’ ☞ Here’s the difference (I think). ‘What if everybody’ didn’t vote? Really bad. But ‘what if everybody’ bought WMT stock when it seemed to be a bargain and used their profits to support good works? Not bad at all, I think. I’LL LET YOU WRITE YOUR OWN CAPTION Any headline I wrote would just get me in trouble. Click here with the speakers on. (The amazing thing – to me – is that Dueling Banjos was originally arranged and performed by a couple of nice Jewish boys from New York.) DEBT CLOCK Mike Wallin: ‘I am confused – now you approve of a balanced budget? When I expressed my concern about still paying taxes on Spanish American War debt you made it seem like I was over-reacting. Please Explain.’ ☞ Some debt is fine. Personally, it makes sense to borrow for an education but not for a vacation. Nationally, it makes sense for the government to run a big deficit in a recession – and a modest one in good times, if it’s being used to finance an investment in the future (but not to finance tax cuts for the wealthy or unprovoked, discretionary wars). I would argue that the attack on Afghanistan was provoked and that, certainly, hunting down Al-Qaeda is completely necessary. But Al-Qaeda are mostly not in Iraq. When Reagan took office, the National Debt was equal to about a third of our Gross Domestic Product. Quite manageable. The problem is that it is now more like two-thirds . . . it is headed straight up . . . we’re not borrowing for a brighter future, but for short-term consumption and to blow things up. ZARQAWI Ron McGee: ‘Why not ask Sirota, whom you quoted about Bush not going after Zarqawi, why Clinton didn’t go after Bin Laden?’ ☞ He did, but missed. And it was also a much harder time to lob missiles and kill people on foreign soil, because it was less obvious to the world why we needed to. THOSE ADS Suzanne Cole: ‘Thanks for pointing out the Faith in America ads. If you liked them, perhaps you’ll also like the latest ad from my denomination, the United Church of Christ, called Ejector Pew.’ Lee: ‘I [also] belong to a United Christian Church, whose ads weren’t allowed on some stations because they were too controversial! Imagine that. Jesus’ message of love towards all, the same message that got him killed, is still controversial today.’ ☞ I think the ground is beginning to shift. The current Washington Monthly has this article in its latest issue: WHEN WOULD JESUS BOLT? MEET RANDY BRINSON, THE ADVANCE GUARD OF EVANGELICALS LEADING THE GOP. My own amateur reading of the New Testament leads me to think that the natural home of Christians is not with the party of the rich and powerful, the party of the preemptive strike, the gun show loophole, shock and awe, Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib – or the party that opposes inclusion of gays and lesbians in existing hate crimes legislation – but rather with the party that offers a hand up to the downtrodden, health care for their children, a loving welcome to a widely diverse America . . . all that liberal stuff (leavened, happily, by a good dose of practical market economics, as personified by former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, and of smart, tough foreign policy – strength being only as good as the strategic thinking behind it – as personified by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.). Tomorrow, more on those annuities
Shifting Republican Priorities April 5, 2006March 4, 2017 THE EXPLODING DEBT Now here’s a problem. The National Debt Clock billboard is getting ready to explode. From Agence France-Presse: US debt clock running out of time, space Mon Mar 27, 9:23 PM ET Tick, 20,000 dollars, tock, another 20,000 dollars. So rapid is the rise of the US national debt, that the last four digits of a giant digital signboard counting the moving total near New York’s Times Square move in seemingly random increments as they struggle to keep pace. The national debt clock, as it is known, is a big clock. A spot-check last week showed a readout of 8.3 trillion – or more precisely 8,310,200,545,702 – dollars … and counting. But it’s not big enough. Sometime in the next two years, the total amount of US government borrowing is going to break through the 10-trillion-dollar mark and, lacking space for the extra digit such a figure would require, the clock is in danger of running itself into obsolescence. . . . Since 1776, we have accumulated a Nation Debt of $8.3 trillion, which will be $10 trillion or so by the time the White House changes hands. Roughly EIGHT trillion of that TEN trillion will have been racked up by just 3 of our 43 presidents: Reagan, Bush and Bush. Even at today’s $8.3 trillion, let alone the $10 trillion we’ll shortly reach, and even at today’s relatively low interest rates – the annual interest on the debt, alone, is already is equivalent to 40% of all the personal income taxes we pay each year. The Republican leadership – which called for a Balanced Budget Amendment back when the Clinton Administration actually was achieving one (for a while, that Debt Clock billboard needed to run backward) – now calls only for an Anti-Marriage Amendment, to discourage stable, responsible same-sex relationships and penalize the children of same-sex parents. This is done in the name of the Lord. But a new web site questions that interpretation. FAITH IN AMERICA Here’s the site. And here’s one of the quotes I found telling: [Slavery] was established by decree of Almighty God…it is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation…it has existed in all ages, has been found among the people of the highest civilization, and in nations of the highest proficiency in the arts. —Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America. What do you think of these ads? I like this one best. And this one. Tomorrow: Back to Annuities
Without DeLay April 4, 2006March 4, 2017 WITHOUT DELAY He is not stepping down from Congress out of any shame or in response to any wrongdoing – he seems certain that he’s doing God’s work. Meanwhile, there was Osama Bin Laden’s former bodyguard, interviewed in Yemen for this past Sunday’s ’60 Minutes.’ Calm, at peace – quite an appealing fellow, really – until you realized he was talking about how much he hoped his child would grow up to be a suicide bomber. Not to equate the Hammer and the Bodyguard, except in the way both are supremely confident they are doing God’s bidding. The good news of course is that ‘our God is bigger than their God’ . . . though this has led more than one commentator to wonder why, then, Bin Laden is still alive. (Obvious answer: God works in mysterious ways.) Do I believe our use of torture is more justified than theirs? Absolutely. That our shock and awe is more justified than the shock of their beheadings? Sure. We are the good guys! Still, I’m thinking God may not be really happy with us either – or even with Tom DeLay. FREE SPEECH HAS ITS LIMITS According to the Alliance for Justice: On March 17, the Sixth Circuit issued a split 2-1 decision allowing the state of Tennessee to discriminate against the political views of some if its citizens. The two Republican appointees (appointed by Reagan and Bush II) in the majority said it was OK for the state to produce “Choose Life” license plates requested by abortion opponents, but to refuse to produce pro-choice license plates requested by reproductive rights supporters. GAS PRICES BY COLOR-CODED COUNTY This is a pretty cool map. (Thanks, Frank McClendon.) CORRECTION Dan Flikkema: ‘Actually Dick Cheney told his colleague on the senate floor to ‘go fuck yourself’ not to ‘fuck off.’ A small difference to most of us perhaps but I imagine it’s not an insignificant one among manly men.’ $250,000 WIDOW Tobias Brown: ‘Regarding the ‘mother in law’ with $250,000 to invest, you might want to suggest Vanguard inflation protected annuities, which pay about 20 percent less than non-inflation protected annuities and may make a great deal of sense for someone with good genes who may live a long time. I have corresponded with Warren Buffett on the subject of BRK offering an inflation protection option on their stable of annuities and he has responded that as of yet they haven’t had any luck structuring something that works for the customer and for them. So Vanguard is the only sensible option I am aware of. To boot, I think the Vanguard inflation linked annuity product is widely underpriced.’ Elliot Raphaelson: ‘Another option is for her to invest the majority (say 90%) in a high yield corporate bond fund, either PIMCO, or Vanguard. My guess is the income would be almost as much as the annuity, and she would have more flexibility and be able to leave an inheritance. The other 10% could be invested in an income oriented low-cost, no-load common stock fund. When I retired at age 59, I looked at annuities and found that the income from a high yield corporate fund (I chose Vanguard) was just as much as an annuity, and I would still have control of the asset. It’s been 10 years and I have never been sorry.’ NTMD Howard: ‘Don’t sell those puts. Click here.’ ☞ This links to a report that Nitromed has laid off 30 members of its R&D team. How can that not point to a bright future? Meanwhile, weekly sales figures have topped 1,500 . . . though that works out to an annualized figure of $13 million against expenses that are probably still running six or eight times as high. Why is this company worth more than $300 million?
Who Will Buy My Cookbook? April 3, 2006March 4, 2017 POOR LITTLE SLING BOX . . . . . . seems to have a competitor. ‘Sony goes prime-time with ‘LocationFree TV.” Watch your home TV from anywhere. STRAIGHT TEXAS MOM SEEKS YOUR HELP ‘As a married mother of three children,’ says Atticus Circle founder and Texas family-law lawyer Anne Wynne, ‘I decided it was time to take a stand.’ She asks you to join her in supporting marriage equality. TIPS Diane: ‘I have 20- and 30-year TIPS [Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities] that have lost a few thousand dollars in value in the last month. I know that long-term maturities are sensitive to interest rates, but why are they dropping so much when inflation still seems a long-term concern?’ ☞ Dunno. You could also ask why they rose so much from the days when, first issued, they yielded 4% above inflation. Today, the long-term TIPS have risen so high in price – even after the recent pullback – the yield works out to barely 2% over inflation. There’s a rule of thumb that long-term risk-free investments should yield about 3% above inflation (which would give our TIPS further to fall). But I would argue that TIPS are so unique, it’s not irrational to pay a premium (i.e., accept a lower than 3% yield-above-inflation). Suggested here years ago when they sold at ‘par’ – 100 cents on the dollar – a lot of us can live with those long-term TIPS now selling at ‘only’ 123 cents on the dollar, even though it was undeniably more fun when they got up to 136. I don’t see TIPS as a way to get rich, I see them as my bedrock retirement core – in my case, about 20% of my Keogh Plan. If I were you, I’d hang on. (Note to those only now considering TIPS: They can indeed make sense for your retirement plan. But be sure you understand how they work before buying.) THEY COULD BE CANDIDATES FOR COOKING LIKE A GUY™ These are men’s men. Brush clearing, swash buckling, men. The one tells a Senator to “fuck off” right there on the Senate floor, shoots a friend in the face, and goes duck hunting with a Supreme Court Justice who recently made an obscene gesture in the Cathedral of the Holy Cross (and told a reporter to “fuck off” in Italian). Neither of these guys performed any military service (neither did I), but both are tough as nails. No prissy soufflés for these guys. Heck, if I ever get this thing written (note that I call it this “thing” rather than this “cookbook,” because there is nothing manly about the word “cookbook”), I might even sell one to the President! “Bring it on” – “he can run, but he can’t hide” – a man who came into office just itching to go to war. A man so tough he could make fun of a woman he’s putting to death. Do you remember that case? Karla Faye Tucker. A number of groups and individuals – including the Pope – pleaded with then Governor Bush to spare her life – to keep her locked up forever, but not kill her, the first woman to be executed in Texas in more than a century. The cool thing – the manly thing – he didn’t just kill her, he found the humor in it. As Tucker Carlson reported for the now-defunct Talk magazine: In the week before [Karla Faye Tucker’s] execution, Bush says, Bianca Jagger and a number of other protesters came to Austin to demand clemency for Tucker. “Did you meet with any of them?” I ask. Bush whips around and stares at me. “No, I didn’t meet with any of them,” he snaps, as though I’ve just asked the dumbest, most offensive question ever posed. “I didn’t meet with Larry King either when he came down for it. I watched his interview with [Karla Faye], though. He asked her real difficult questions, like ‘What would you say to Governor Bush?’ ” “What was her answer?” I wonder. “Please,” Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, “don’t kill me.” “When I read that,” writes one well-known conservative, “I thought, ‘Please don’t let this man get close to any position of power – ever.'” I don’t know who else is going to buy Cooking Like a Guy™, but I have my eye on these three for sure.