Can we trust the government to properly state the inflation rate? I used to think so, but not any more. Therefore, when inflation increases, I expect it to be officially discounted if not outright denied. This would undervalue the bonds.
I got direct dispatches from inside two of the hospital systems in NYC and the medical examiner's office as well as getting stuck on the street where the freezer trucks were in early May 2020. The shutdown was necessary. However, the biggest mistake was not reopening in early-or mid-2021. There are so many negative consequences from not reopening, financial and otherwise.
The debt could be reduced if there were a true progressive income tax system without deductions. We need this. People making more money than I do could easily afford a higher tax rate. Another piece of this is capital gains. Estates should not be taxed based on value (just as I think a wealth tax is a terrible idea), but I am firmly in favor of taxes on capital gains (except for primary and maybe secondary residences). And there needs to be a way to capture gains in trusts too. The huge capital gains that get stepped up is incredibly unfair and a drag on closing the deficit.
This is precisely my biggest concern every time I think of maybe retiring. You make me want to sit down with the numbers. The numbers you post for COBRA are 1/3 what I've been thinking I have to pay. Also, I have a top tier health insurance plan through work; I could keep it with COBRA even if it's my choice to stop working? Thank you for posting this!
When my daughter was a baby, I used to walk with her to the supermarket and carry home two bags of groceries (that's what I could carry with her) for a cost of $30 to $35.
Thirty years later, those same two bags of groceries cost $60 to $70, and sometimes more.
During this period, my partner and I each had substantial increases in salary. Over the thirty years, hers increased 4x to 5x. Mine increased 2x. I kept up with inflation; hers exceeded inflation. But in retirement, we will both have substantial cuts to income and it looks like the income retirement accounts generate will only be enough to keep up with inflation. Yet we will have to withdraw capital.
Inflation is a very serious concern.
I keep hearing about how boomers are hoarding houses. Maybe if boomers could sell their houses without having to pay a huge amount in capital gains, they'd be more willing to move. The gains are going to be stepped up anyhow if they hold on to the property until they die, so why not give them the option to sell tax free a few years earlier?
It's going to be very interesting to see how AI changes our ideas about data driven prediction. No doubt it will find trends people have overlooked.
This week at my job a colleague asked me for help with an image analysis problem. After trying a few traditional approaches with minimal success with one metric of feature differences, I uploaded eight images to our firewall protected AI and prompted it to define morphological measurements which would be relevant and on each to rank the images. In about 20 seconds it had ten different features measured and ranked the images with explanations for each too. It correctly grouped the images from their sources, which we knew. Very impressive.
But will it be any more accurate at predicting? Financial markets, or in the case of the images of biology at work, may change suddenly based on events extrinsic to existing data.
Comments
Can we trust the government to properly state the inflation rate? I used to think so, but not any more. Therefore, when inflation increases, I expect it to be officially discounted if not outright denied. This would undervalue the bonds.
Post: Feeling TIPSy?
Link to comment from August 22, 2026
I got direct dispatches from inside two of the hospital systems in NYC and the medical examiner's office as well as getting stuck on the street where the freezer trucks were in early May 2020. The shutdown was necessary. However, the biggest mistake was not reopening in early-or mid-2021. There are so many negative consequences from not reopening, financial and otherwise.
Post: $40 Trillion of Debt
Link to comment from August 22, 2026
The debt could be reduced if there were a true progressive income tax system without deductions. We need this. People making more money than I do could easily afford a higher tax rate. Another piece of this is capital gains. Estates should not be taxed based on value (just as I think a wealth tax is a terrible idea), but I am firmly in favor of taxes on capital gains (except for primary and maybe secondary residences). And there needs to be a way to capture gains in trusts too. The huge capital gains that get stepped up is incredibly unfair and a drag on closing the deficit.
Post: $40 Trillion of Debt
Link to comment from August 22, 2026
This is precisely my biggest concern every time I think of maybe retiring. You make me want to sit down with the numbers. The numbers you post for COBRA are 1/3 what I've been thinking I have to pay. Also, I have a top tier health insurance plan through work; I could keep it with COBRA even if it's my choice to stop working? Thank you for posting this!
Post: COBRA insurance: No need to fear the bite
Link to comment from August 15, 2026
The 1971 view is obsolete. There is no need for a computer clerk.
Post: Today in Financial History
Link to comment from August 1, 2026
When my daughter was a baby, I used to walk with her to the supermarket and carry home two bags of groceries (that's what I could carry with her) for a cost of $30 to $35. Thirty years later, those same two bags of groceries cost $60 to $70, and sometimes more. During this period, my partner and I each had substantial increases in salary. Over the thirty years, hers increased 4x to 5x. Mine increased 2x. I kept up with inflation; hers exceeded inflation. But in retirement, we will both have substantial cuts to income and it looks like the income retirement accounts generate will only be enough to keep up with inflation. Yet we will have to withdraw capital. Inflation is a very serious concern.
Post: Inflation, prices, COLAs, retirement and the last 16 years
Link to comment from August 1, 2026
A question about TIPS: what is the risk that the politicians will grab control of the inflation index and downplay it?
Post: Taking a Loss?
Link to comment from August 1, 2026
I keep hearing about how boomers are hoarding houses. Maybe if boomers could sell their houses without having to pay a huge amount in capital gains, they'd be more willing to move. The gains are going to be stepped up anyhow if they hold on to the property until they die, so why not give them the option to sell tax free a few years earlier?
Post: $400,000 Mistake
Link to comment from August 1, 2026
It's going to be very interesting to see how AI changes our ideas about data driven prediction. No doubt it will find trends people have overlooked. This week at my job a colleague asked me for help with an image analysis problem. After trying a few traditional approaches with minimal success with one metric of feature differences, I uploaded eight images to our firewall protected AI and prompted it to define morphological measurements which would be relevant and on each to rank the images. In about 20 seconds it had ten different features measured and ranked the images with explanations for each too. It correctly grouped the images from their sources, which we knew. Very impressive. But will it be any more accurate at predicting? Financial markets, or in the case of the images of biology at work, may change suddenly based on events extrinsic to existing data.
Post: Market Indicators
Link to comment from July 25, 2026
I lesson I've failed to internalize. I wish I could, but my work ethic gets in the way.
Post: The Paradox of Wealth
Link to comment from July 18, 2026