Daily Archives: December 28, 2022

Why Financial Independence with Children is Challenging.

Posted: December 28, 2022 at 11:03 pm

Cullen Roche over at Pragmatic Capitalism writes a short (like always), reflective post which I thought may be something that interests some of you. (Read Needs, Wants and Why We Always Feel Unfulfilled)

He tries to link the recent change in his family dynamics to why many of us feel that life is tougher today than those who live in the past.

By the age of 30, I was financially independent.

My business was self-sustaining, I enjoyed my work immensely and no one could tell me what to do. I wrote a best-selling book. I wrote some great research. I spent years training for and finished a full Ironman despite having never run more than a few miles just a few years before that. I had a dreamy marriage to a woman who is way out of my league. All of my needs were taken care of. Life had transitioned into what I wanted.

In his mind, he was basically FI at a young age. I think that is remarkable if you think that you live in a culture where all your peers have more, making you want to have more.

It is not so easy to say that you have enough.

Some enough can be a misjudgement, and most are aware that they are prone to that error and would buffer for it.

But as I get older I feel that the things I want are endlessly unquantifiable and so after years of feeling like I understood what was enough I began to increasingly fail to grasp what that meant for me.

This all multiplied when I had children. Children mess up your entire concept of living standards because they create so much future uncertainty. As soon as my first daughter was born I felt like I was back in the rate race. Not because I worry about what my neighbour has, but because I feel the need to take care of my kids in perpetuity. And yes, I know thats not the goal. As Warren Buffett says, its better to give your kids enough to do something but not enough to do nothing. But can you quantify that concept? Because I sure cant.

I wonder how many of you feel the same way about your children.

But I think many would agree with him that living with children is like having so many threads of uncertainty.

You dont know how the future is going to turn out.

In investing, heightened uncertainty will cause us to default to inaction. The lack of sophistication in wealth management amplifies the issue.

And this may be why most of us default to living in present if we feel that our resources are stretched.

I do observe that those with ample resources, such as those with $500,000 in annual household income, have less of this problem and would initiate a conversation about planning for the future. This is because as much as their life expanded, they still have a lot of surpluses and after 3-4 years of those surpluses, you began to wonder what to do with that sum.

You feel more okay to locking up that sum of money (because in our minds the money is compartmentalized to be locked up). Not so, if you dont have that margin of safety.

Cullen then explains that as smart and sophisticated as he is, he felt that he has no quantifiable measure of what is enough: What is enough for my kids in 5, 10, 20, 50 years? This is what has happened to my brain in the last few years. And yes, I embrace it. I enjoy the hustle mentality and having something to look forward to. I felt shallow and empty in many ways before kids and they energized my purpose in numerous ways. But at the same time, I feel endlessly unfulfilled despite being someone with all the needs he could ever dream for. Thats because I am fairly certain I will never feel like I have enough because enough is a moving target that can never be pinned down.

And so, if you have a family and aspire towards financial independence but think it is challenging, rest assured that you are not alone. Even some of the better minds struggle with it.

As a finance person, everything is math, but with the uncertainty of how kids will turn out, you dont have a magic figure to pin in the future.

If you ask enough, many wont turn back the clock of not having kids. I have enough friends who has the philosophy of not having kids but come to their late 30s and 40s, things change.

Shallow and emptiness may be real.

In the footnote, Cullen shares with us the nuances of why planning with just yourself and with kids is so different. This is most apparent in modern-day parents. I am an incredibly simple man. Overly simple. If I had it my way my kids would wear the same outfits every day, theyd have the most basic stroller and gadgets, etc. But thats not the world we live in. My daughters have hundreds of outfits. They have dozens of bottles. They have a $1,000 stroller. They have their own iPad. And on and on. The amount of basic stuff they have that makes life easier for the parents is truly absurd. We invest so much time, energy and resources into a modern day child that I think a person from 100+ years ago would have a heart attack if they were transported into the modern world. Are we better off treating our kids this way? I honestly dont know, but thats where were at.

Progress in life does two things:

What I appreciate about Cullens sharing is his model of this problem.

I feel that these problems do exist whether you choose to pursue or not pursue financial independence. You want security (mostly to address a large part of #1).

If you have the resources, you want to do the right thing to make sure your children are well taken care of by optimizing the use of your current and future financial resources. (largely #3)

The solution to this would still be

The reason I like Coast FI so much is that some prioritize their future traditional retirement high enough, earn a good income and wish to take care of it today. We know based on the end-of-history illusion that we might not know exactly what our future self needs forty years from now, but if that kind of security is important to you, you could save up for it first.

If your kids are important, what is stopping us from saving up the major cost for them today? For example, we know that if inflation is consistent today, a local 4-year degree will cost $40,000 today. If you add in the living cost, its $20,000. Have $60,000 and invest it in a balanced fund and that will do reasonably well. If you are more conservative add $20,000 more. If you dont have it immediately, builds it up over the years. Even if you dont have that amount, it at least takes care of 2 of those 4 years!

But if your child is a degen and you are worried about him or her and would want to take care of him or her with your money, then that is a different thing. Still, in the realm of FI, we have a solution for that.

The question is whether can you fund and are you willing to fund that amount.

And if you give a degen child that, will the child become even more degen?

FI planning looks daunting if you squeeze all your expenses in one ball and squeeze the time period into an even bigger ball.

Then you will have the impression that you cannot have it.

Not having FI is ok.

But you will still need to optimize your resources well.

Looking at everything together doesnt help. Break the problem to smaller pieces.

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His investment broker of choice is Interactive Brokers, which allows him to invest in securities from different exchanges all over the world, at very low commission rates, without custodian fees, near spot currency rates.

You can read more about Kyith here.

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Why Financial Independence with Children is Challenging.

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Emma Corrin explores freedom and repression in two films – Los Angeles Times

Posted: at 11:01 pm

Emma Corrin explores freedom and repression in two films  Los Angeles Times

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Emma Corrin explores freedom and repression in two films - Los Angeles Times

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Thank lost freedom fighters by upholding the principles they lived by – The Miami Times

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Thank lost freedom fighters by upholding the principles they lived by  The Miami Times

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Ron Paul: ‘Twitter Files’ Make It Clear, We Must Abolish The FBI

Posted: at 10:54 pm

Authored by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

As we learn more and more from the Twitter Files, it is becoming all too obvious that Federal agencies such as the FBI viewed the First Amendment of our Constitution as an annoyance and an impediment. In Fridays release from the pre-Musk era, journalist Matt Taibbi makes an astute observation: Twitter was essentially an FBI subsidiary.

The FBI, we now know, was obsessed with Twitter. We learned that agents sent Twitter Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth some 150 emails between 2020 and 2022. Those emails regularly featured demands from US government officials for the private social media company to censor comments and ban commenters they did not like.

The Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF), a US government entity that included the FBI as well as other US intelligence agencies expressly forbidden from domestic activities, numbered 80 agents engaged regularly in telling Twitter which Tweets to censor and which accounts to ban. The Department of Homeland Security brought in outside government contractors and (government-funded) non-governmental organizations to separately pressure Twitter to suppress speech the US government did not like.

US Federal government agencies literally handed Twitter lists of Americans it wanted to see silenced, and Twitter complied. Let that sink in.

This should be a massive scandal and likely it would have been had it occurred under a Trump Administration. Indeed, Congress would be gearing up for Impeachment 3.0 if Trump-allied officials had engaged in such egregious behavior. But since these US government employees were by-and-large acting to suppress pro-Trump sentiment, all we hear are crickets.

What is interesting about these Twitter revelations is how obsessed the FBI and its government partners were with satire and humor. Even minor Twitter accounts with small numbers of followers were constantly flagged by the Feds for censorship and deletion. But knowledge of history helps us understand this obsession: in Soviet times the population was always engaged in joking about the ineptitude, corruption, and idiocy of the political class. Underground publications known as samizdat were rich with satire, humor, and ridicule.

Tyrants hate humor and cannot withstand satire. That is clearly why the FBI (and CIA) was determined to see a heavy hand raised against any American poking fun at the deep state.

There is good news in all of this, however. As Constitutional Law Professor Jonathan Turley wrote over the weekend, a new Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll found that even though the mainstream media has ignored the Twitter files, Americans have not. Nearly two-thirds of respondents believe that Twitter was involved in politically-motivated censorship in advance of the 2020 election. Some 70 percent of those polled believe Congress must take action against this corporate/state censorship.

As Professor Turley points out, although the First Amendment only applies to the US government, it does apply to agents or surrogates of the government. Twitter now admits that such a relationship existed between its former officials and the government.

So now we have proof that the FBI (along with US intelligence agencies and the Department of Homeland Security) have been acting through private social media companiesto manipulate what Americans are allowed to say when they communicate with each other.

Is there anything more un-American than that? Personally, I find it sickening.

We do not need the FBI and CIA and other federal agencies viewing us as the enemy and attacking our Constitution. End the Fedand End the Federal Bureau of Investigation!

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Ron Paul: A Tale Of Two Midterms | ZeroHedge

Posted: at 10:54 pm

Authored by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

Those searching for an explanation of why there was no red wave giving Republicans huge gains in Congress in this years midterm election should compare this years election with the midterm election of 2010. In 2010, Republicans gained a net 63 House seats. While Republicans then did not gain control of the US Senate, they did gain six Senate seats.

These Republican victories in 2010 were propelled by the Tea Party and the liberty movement. These movements became prominent during the waning days of the Bush administration. The liberty movement was advanced by grassroots supporters of my 2008 presidential campaign. The liberty movements focus was, and is, on restoring constitutional government in all areas, ending our interventionist foreign policy, and changing our monetary policy by auditing and ending the Federal Reserve and legalizing alternative currencies. Early on, the Tea Party largely focused on opposition to the 2008 bank bailouts.

There was overlap between the liberty movement and the Tea Party as many members of both groups fought for auditing and ending the Fed, ending bailouts, and preventing Congress from passing Obamacare.

Many Republican candidates in 2010 appealed to Tea Party voters by not just promising to repeal Obamacare. They also promised to work to restore limited, constitutional, fiscally responsible government in all areas. In contrast, in 2022 the average Republican candidate offered little in the way of a substantive agenda. In fact, few Republicans called for reversing President Bidens massive spending increases, much less for restoring the federal government to its constitutional limitations. Despite the controversy over new critical race theory and transgender related policies in government schools, there has not been a renewed push to shut down the Department of Education.

Many Republican candidates in the 2022 midterm election also failed to make an issue out of their Democratic opponents support for mask and vaccine mandates and other instances of covid tyranny. Those who did oppose the covid tyranny, such as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and my son Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, won landslide victories.

The Tea Partys success in forcing the Republican Party to focus on a more pro-liberty, limited government agenda was short lived. Soon after the 2010 election, the Republican establishment returned to its big spending ways. Spending and debt continued to rise under President Trump and a Republican Congress. Republicans even failed to deliver on their signature promise: repealing Obamacare.

The 2010 midterm election showed that people will respond to candidates offering serious pro-liberty ideas and policies. However, the Tea Partys rise and fall also shows the danger facing ideological movements that become too close with one political party. These movements will start pulling their punches when one of our team begins casting bad votes. The argument goes that we must support big government Republicans or we get REALLY big government Democrats.

Fortunately, the liberty movement has remained committed to principles. As the failure of the welfare-warfare state to deliver peace and property and the failure of the Federal Reserve to fulfill its mandate of ensuring stable prices and low unemployment become clear, more Americans will join the liberty movement. Support for the liberty movement will accelerate when the inevitable economic meltdown occurs. This meltdown will be precipitated by a collapse in the dollars value and the rejection of the dollars world reserve currency status. It will bring the end of the welfare-warfare state and the fiat money system. Hopefully, the liberty movement will ensure the welfare-warfare state and fiat money system are replaced by a return to limited constitutional government, individual liberty, and peace.

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Hard Rock Hotel and Casino Bristol still on track to open in 2024 – WCYB

Posted: at 10:52 pm

Hard Rock Hotel and Casino Bristol still on track to open in 2024  WCYB

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Hard Rock Hotel and Casino Bristol still on track to open in 2024 - WCYB

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Mich. man who targeted Black Lives Matter supporters pleads guilty to …

Posted: at 10:46 pm

Counter-protesters carrying Black Lives Matter flags walk past a group of Trump supporters at the Michigan State Capitol building in November 2020 in Lansing, Mich. John Moore/Getty Images hide caption

Counter-protesters carrying Black Lives Matter flags walk past a group of Trump supporters at the Michigan State Capitol building in November 2020 in Lansing, Mich.

A Michigan man has pleaded guilty to hate crime charges after he intimidated supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement by leaving handwritten notes and nooses around his community, the Department of Justice said in a news release.

Kenneth Pilon, 61, pleaded guilty Tuesday in federal district court to two charges of hate crimes. Pilon specifically pleaded guilty to "willfully intimidating and attempting to intimidate citizens from engaging in lawful speech and protests in support of the Black Lives Matter movement" dating back to June and July 2020, according to officials.

Additionally, Pilon pleaded guilty to placing a noose inside a vehicle with an attached note reading: "An accessory to be worn with your 'BLM' t-shirt. Happy protesting!"

Pilon will be sentenced on March 23, according to officials.

In a news release from the Department of Justice, Pilon called nine Starbucks stores across Michigan, telling workers who answered his calls to tell any employees wearing Black Lives Matter T-shirts that "the only good n***er is a dead n***er."

Pilon is also accused of telling one of the employees, "I'm gonna go out and lynch me a n*****."

From June to July 2020, authorities say Pilon left four nooses in parking lots across Saginaw, Mich. with attached notes. Authorities say a fifth one was found inside a 7-Eleven in a beverage cooler.

"Specifically, Pilon intimidated and attempted to intimidate citizens from participating lawfully in speech and peaceful assembly opposing the denial of Black people's right to enjoy police protection and services free from brutality," according to a previous criminal complaint filed in April.

U.S. Attorney Dawn N. Ison said that Pilon's actions were "threatening to an entire community."

"We hope this conviction sends the message that this type of activity is criminal, and that we will take the necessary action to protect the people of our district," Ison said.

Since the protests following the murder of George Floyd, threats against Black Lives Matter protesters have become far too common.

Earlier this year, several Maryland police officers were caught talking via text message about killing Black Lives Matter protesters.

In a federal civil rights lawsuit filed in Maryland in March, a Black police officer alleged that several Maryland-National Capital Park Police officers made frequent comments through text messages that "talked about murdering Black Lives Matter protesters," NBC News reported.

In 2020, a Utah man was caught on video coughing on Black Lives Matter protesters and making threats to the administrator of a Facebook page, according to Salt Lake City TV station Fox 13. The suspect, Robert Brissette, 57, was arrested and booked on charges related to the threat of violence and electronic communication harassment, Fox 13 reported.

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I think they just saw a black girl: Author accuses bottle shop of racially profiling 12-year-old daughter – The Age

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I think they just saw a black girl: Author accuses bottle shop of racially profiling 12-year-old daughter  The Age

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I think they just saw a black girl: Author accuses bottle shop of racially profiling 12-year-old daughter - The Age

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COVID-19 Response | United Nations

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COVID-19 Response | United Nations

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Top German virologist says COVID-19 pandemic is over – Hindustan Times

Posted: at 10:44 pm

  1. Top German virologist says COVID-19 pandemic is over  Hindustan Times
  2. Are Germany's remaining coronavirus restrictions about to be scrapped?  IamExpat in Germany
  3. Calls to end Covid measures as top German virologist declares pandemic 'over'  The Local Germany

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Top German virologist says COVID-19 pandemic is over - Hindustan Times

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