Joe Kiefer

Comments:

• The TIPS Watch site does extensive math -- more than I care to get into -- on TIPS and I Bonds, so I'd look there for the answers you need.

  Post: David Enna’s Tipswatch.com tribute to Bob Brinker

  Link to comment from September 5, 2024

• Speaking of TIPS Watch, as I noted to Jonathan on Sunday, the site relayed the news that the IRS is ending the option of buying paper I bonds with a tax refund. I can say from experience that it was a hassle for buyers. https://tipswatch.com/2024/09/01/treasury-is-ending-paper-i-bonds-as-a-tax-refund/

  Post: David Enna’s Tipswatch.com tribute to Bob Brinker

  Link to comment from September 4, 2024

• I am a WaPo subscriber. Here's the gift link; I hope it works: https://wapo.st/476evJZ

  Post: Jonathan in Washington Post this am.

  Link to comment from August 28, 2024

• As a reader, I, too, am initially disappointed when I hit a paywall. But as a retired newspaper journalist married to another one, and knowing that our editor and assistant editor also spent many years in newsrooms, I have to ask: How else should journalists (and writers) should be paid to produce the articles you are so eager to read? Should what the free press produces be free? Someone has to pay, and the internet has killed newspaper advertising and the industry itself. I have online subscriptions to The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, and I share gift articles from them with friends, as is allowed. I am a library user/taxpayer and sometimes make use of its print copies of newspapers. Until journalists figure out a business model that works, especially to fund local news -- and they have been trying for decades -- our country/society will suffer.

  Post: Monday is a good day for a rant. Let’s talk everything annoying. People, money, people

  Link to comment from July 27, 2024

• "As you might imagine, my future wife wasn’t as enamored with the hydrocarbon-based version." That mention of hydrocarbon reminded me of a seasonal Washington Post headline on an Opinion piece I saw a couple of days ago:  Why giving roses on Valentine’s Day — or any day — is really a bad idea. I can summarize the story this way: Eighty percent of the flowers sold in the U.S. are imported, most from Colombia and Ecuador. To keep them fresh, the flowers are chilled into a dormant state and then moved to airports in refrigerated trucks. During the weeks prior to Feb. 14, more than 30 flights will move flowers from Colombia to Miami — every day. They are moved into chilled warehouses and inspected by U.S. customs, then loaded onto refrigerated trucks for delivery to U.S. stores as soon as 48 hours after being picked. ... Flowers might be the perishables most damaging to the climate because nearly everything else moves by ship, which has 1 percent the carbon footprint of air freight. (The story pans roses, chrysanthemums, and carnations, which together make up the vast majority of imported flowers. It suggests U.S.-grown specialty flowers such as sunflowers, dahlias, zinnias, peonies, and snapdragons. They are more delicate and don’t travel well over long distances.) But will your significant other buy in?

  Post: In the Doghouse

  Link to comment from February 14, 2024

• I similarly snail-mailed my first mutual fund investment checks -- totaling a whole $3.5K divided among four funds, each in a different fund family (wow) -- around the Aug. 25, 1987, peak of the S&P 500. Two months later, the crash focused my attention, but I just chronicled my loss and began buying shares every month, despite the advice of a friend to get out. I had tiptoed in for the long haul at age 24, and I stuck to that, to my great benefit. Crashes are great teachers, if you strive to learn from them. Your perspective matters, too. And a bit of optimism, tempered by prudence, always helps.

  Post: Still Above Ground

  Link to comment from February 9, 2024

• I, too, have long been a fan of Scott Burns. He is still writing a couple of columns a month at scottburns.com.

  Post: Longtime Worry

  Link to comment from December 26, 2023

• Re REIT funds, I keep ours in a traditional IRA, as is often advised because REITs are required to pay out as dividends at least 90% of the taxable income they earn. However, as I learned only a few years ago, the 2017 tax cuts included a Qualified Business Income deduction that includes dividends from REITs and REIT funds. Our taxable holding of Vanguard Total Stock Market Index (VTSAX) pays out income from the REITs it holds, and its Form 1099-DIV shows the Section 199A income it paid out that qualifies for the 20% QBI deduction -- a deduction available regardless of whether you itemize. To learn more, see: https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/qualified-business-income-deduction

  Post: Location, Location

  Link to comment from October 12, 2023

• My nominee for the best "A Christmas Carol" movie: The 1984 version, because of its inclusion of Scrooge's failed engagement to Belle and its shocking, vivid depiction of Want and Ignorance, the children hidden under the massive robe of the Ghost of Christmas Present.

  Post: Words to Live By

  Link to comment from December 25, 2022

• Here is a another element of the pay-raise vs. inflation-rate comparison: https://ofdollarsanddata.com/youve-been-thinking-about-inflation-all-wrong/

  Post: Funny Money

  Link to comment from May 5, 2022