Demented Agents; Brain HQ April 9, 2021April 8, 2021 A friend helped fund Agents of Chaos. Watch the trailer and you may well choose to stream the whole thing. Q-Anon followers will not read this — or change their minds if they do (see Wednesday) — but it might give YOU a laugh: An Open Letter to Trump Supporters, From Reality, by Bleeding Heart Liberal Marine. Have you done your BrainHQ today? You know the 10-year 2,800 patient study I keep linking you to that showed a 48% reduction in the number of patients suffering from dementia? With just 14 hours of BrainHQ? (Imagine the reduction had it been 15 minutes a week all 10 years — 130 hours.) Now comes $44 million from the NIH for a 7,600-patient follow-on. Which this taxpayer (and BrainHQ shareholder) applauds because preventing dementia would save untold billions and misery. From the press release: More than 100 published studies of the exercises in BrainHQ have shown benefits, including gains in standard measures of cognition (attention, speed, memory, executive function), in standard measures of quality of life (mood, confidence and control, managing stress, health-related quality of life) and in real world activities (gait, balance, driving, everyday cognition, maintaining independence, healthcare costs). BrainHQ is now offered, without charge, as a benefit by leading national and 5-star Medicare Advantage plans and by hundreds of clinics, libraries, and communities. Consumers can also try BrainHQ for free. Tommy: “Two brief things – since you don’t read fast. First (from Thursday’s post), why drink cheap wine? If you like it, sure. But you (like myself) must have done the math — divided your net worth by the likely number of years you have left to live — and realize you’ll never be able to spend it all anyway. Why not splurge a little? Second, what can I do with the extra $200K that has built up in my checkbook? I’m one of those very fortunate Americans who has saved so much money in this pandemic thing that it’s approaching the FDIC insured limit. I don’t need more money in stocks, though I might do that if the market wasn’t reaching an all time high every day. Wait until a dip?” → Good point on the wine, although (a) there’s lots of fine-tasting wine in the $10-$14 range; (b) I haven’t ruled out living forever. I do shplurge more than I used to. I live better than any king, tsar or emperor ever did prior to the invention of air conditioning and the Internet. But every dollar needlessly spent on myself is a dollar (well, cumulatively, $10,000 or $100,000) that could mean so much more to at least half of humanity. Except for an accident of birth, I could have BEEN in that half. For $35,000, I could upgrade my kitchen – or build a small school in Nicaragua. So I feel a little guilty when I splurge. Then again, aren’t guilty pleasures the best kind? So it all works. On your $200K: put 10% here . . . keep $100K in reserve . . . and split the remaining $80K – IF YOU CAN TRULY AFFORD TO LOSE IT – between PRKR and CNF. Bearing in mind, always, that free advice is worth what you pay for it. Have a great weekend!