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My name is Gene and I'm a retired IT manager with 34 years experience in IT. After college I did a stint in the USMC in the mid-70's, conductor on the railroad, and then during an economic recession went back to school and got a 2nd bachelors degree in computer science. I then did half my IT career in corporate America and half as a civil servant. I grew up in the southwest and after military service returned to the southwest to raise my family (1 girl & 2 boys). I went through an unwanted and unexpected divorce at 49, but remarried 11 years later to a wonderful companion who's truly my soulmate. We both retired in 2018 and we're having a great time in retirement. We're currently in good health and live in a 55+ community. We love our home but we plan to ultimately move into a CCRC at some point to remove that uncertainty and risk.
Comments
So true. My wife and I will try our GP, but then if they can't work us in we use MD Live for a tele visit if all we need is a prescription for something simple like antibiotics. Not sure how that'll work in 2026 as I heard Medicare is ending this option Jan 31, 2026, but congress is considering making it permanent. Who knows what'll happen.
Post: What’s Really on My Mind These Days
Link to comment from November 26, 2025
I like your last sentence. I remember as a young U.S. Marine back in the mid 70's an "old" gunnery sergeant telling me that I should expect to hear very often from my fellow marines how "their last duty station was wonderful and how bad their current duty station is". Sure enough, I heard that a lot. I'm sure for some of them it was true, but for the rest it might just be human nature.
Post: What’s Really on My Mind These Days
Link to comment from November 26, 2025
Hi Michael. Sorry, but I don't have anything to share about Interactive Brokers security as I've never used them.
Post: Which Brokerage Works Best for U.S. Expats?
Link to comment from November 23, 2025
My understanding is Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA's) need to be spent by the end of the year (with minor exceptions allowed by the IRS that employers may choose to allow or not). HSA's don't have that limitation as they automatically roll over year to year without limit. FSA's can be used with any type of health plan while contributing to an HSA is limited to people on an HDHP. Gene
Post: Year-End Tax Planning Moves
Link to comment from November 22, 2025
Regarding dental insurance, I could be wrong but it seems like dentists can charge whatever the market will bear for a given procedure. I've also heard the argument before that dental insurance with a low cap isn't worth the cost since one can get the same preventative work done for about the same cost. It makes me wonder if (low annual cap) dental insurance might still be worth it so one has guaranteed access to the negotiated rates for more expensive procedures. My understanding is in-network dentists can't exceed those negotiated rates for policy holders, even if the patient has exceeded their cap and is paying out of pocket. I don't know but I wanted to share the idea and see what others on HD thought about it. Gene
Post: Health Insurance Double Take
Link to comment from November 21, 2025
Good question. My opinion is that it matters since the government is trying to assist it's citizens with a particular goal, in this case saving for retirement. Similar to the special treatment from taxes, funds in retirement accounts generally have various enhanced legal protections (eg. ERISA, state law, etc) from court judgements that aren't afforded to brokerage accounts. So from various points of view under the law, retirement accounts are treated quite differently than brokerage accounts.
Post: I think billionaires are under appreciated
Link to comment from November 19, 2025
Good question. I'll be interested to hear how others handled this issue. For myself I developed a "income plan" spreadsheet so I could plan (discretionary) income decisions (which for me was mainly brokerage actions, Roth conversions and IRA distributions) to stay within the desired IRMAA bracket. A little bit of work, but it lets me coordinate my Roth/HSA withdrawals into my taxable events to keep from going over the threshold I'm planning to.
Post: I think billionaires are under appreciated
Link to comment from November 19, 2025
The brokerage account analogy fails since it's not a retirement account. Retirement accounts enjoy special consideration in the U.S. tax code. That said, no doubt it is complicated (such as the different rules with 401K's versus IRA's) and I'd vote for a simpler system, but I think you're missing that the optionality of choosing pre-tax or post-tax retirement savings (in a retirement account) allows a worker to decide which option will work out best for them. For the "typical" worker who would be in a higher tax bracket while working and a lower tax bracket in retirement, the traditional IRA is still the best option. But for a worker who has additional income beyond social security and has been saving for a long time (and will thus face large RMD's at some point later), the Roth option wins out. But as with so many other things, it's left to the individual to choose wisely.
Post: I think billionaires are under appreciated
Link to comment from November 19, 2025
The logic for a Roth's earnings not being taxed is based on the math. The math shows that the "after tax value" of investing in a Traditional IRA or Roth IRA is the same if the tax rate is the same at withdrawal as it was when the investment was made. But if the tax rate is lower when invested as compared to when it's withdrawn, the Roth IRA returns more. And if the tax rate is higher when invested as compared to when it's withdrawn, then the traditional IRA returns more. This assumes the same rate of return, the same length of time invested, and the same gross dollar amount (which in the case of the Roth results in a smaller dollar amount initially invested since taxes are immediately paid). This isn't intuitive, but it is correct.
Post: I think billionaires are under appreciated
Link to comment from November 18, 2025
I certainly don't know exactly the context Graham was considering when he made that statement, but I suspect one (possible) aspect is that anything that's useful will be less useful if everyone knows it and practices it. For example, early on Bogle himself said chaos would result if 50% of the stock market was index investors. Bogle later revised it to 70%. Clearly, if 100% of investing was index based there'd be no market price setting and the system would fail to efficiently allocate capital to the more deserving companies. So reflecting on Grahams statement, any advantage in the stock market (including even index investing) really only lasts as long as everyone isn't using it. In the case of index investing, I suspect it does apply to index investing but I doubt that day is anytime soon. Just my 2 cents. Gene
Post: Why would index investing be different?
Link to comment from November 16, 2025