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OVER THE JULY FOURTH weekend, a friend asked me what I thought about the new financial instrument known as a “stock token.” Developed by the online broker Robinhood, a stock token is designed for investors to buy stakes in private companies such as OpenAI, creator of ChatGPT. It’s a novel concept because private company investments are typically inaccessible to individual investors.
Despite the appeal, I urged caution. Why? These tokens may not perform as expected because they aren’t the same as actual equity in a company.
On July 4th, the president signed a significant new tax and spending bill into law. The text of the bill runs to almost 900 pages and affects nearly every corner of the tax code, including personal, business and estate tax rules.
Below I summarize the provisions I see as most relevant to financial planning. It’s important to note that many of the provisions are retroactive to the beginning of 2025.
The formal name of the law is the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” and it is,
Key Medicare benefits are being stripped away, and patient care is being handed over to profit-driven corporations.
On June 25, 2025, in an unprecedented move, Dr. Mehmet Oz and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), announced that Original Medicare will now require prior authorization for a list of 17 services.
This marks a major shift—and a serious rollback of a key protection retirees have relied on for decades.
What’s Changing?
I’ve been working to educate myself on the US pension system, particularly the retirement decumulation landscape. It’s a challenging endeavor, but through diligent research, I’m slowly grasping the essentials. From an outsider’s viewpoint, the complexity that various US administrations have introduced into this system is striking. As a UK citizen, I find several aspects particularly perplexing:
The Sheer Number and Variety of Retirement Accounts: In the UK, it’s largely about defined contribution and defined benefit pensions,
This is a decision I had to make several years ago when I turned 65. I started out with a no premium five star local Advantage plan to take “advantage” of the free perks for the first year, then switched to traditional Medicare with a plan G supplement, the most expensive plan. To most this would seem quite contradictory, but let me explain my reasoning. Medicare allows first time enrollees to trial an Advantage plan for up to a year,
STATISTICIAN GEORGE E.P. Box once made this observation: “All models are wrong,” he said, “but some are useful.” This certainly applies to finance, where many of the concepts are imperfect but can nonetheless still be useful. Below are four such examples.
Market valuation. Are stocks overpriced? It’s a question without an easy answer. Even academics who have studied the topic can never be entirely sure. Consider the cyclically adjusted price-earnings (CAPE) ratio.
Here is an interesting article I just read on my weekly Boldin (previously New Retirement) newsletter.
Someone on HD asked if my inflation adjusted retirement income today still equaled my base salary when I retired.
The answer is a resounding no. For every dollar of base pay in 2009 I would need $1.50 today. Since my pension does not have a COLA, any automatic adjustment is up to Social Security, but that is less than a quarter of our income.
So, now I am 50% behind – no panic yet, but I am glad I didn’t start out say,
What triggered this post was a Facebook meme claiming the wealthiest 0.1% have gained $4.4 trillion in the past two years, that they have grown their wealth at the expense of average Americans and that “without them your wealth would have doubled”
When I read that, my reaction is “that’s just wrong and so what, they earned it.” I wish I was that smart. But that is not the typical reaction. Many people readily believe such a meme and are willing to bash the wealthy.
My 2014 Honda Accord recently hit 99,000 miles. It’s nothing fancy to look at, but it drives well. Recently I’ve been having an issue with the starter. The push start works intermittently. Sometimes it starts on the first push, sometimes it takes multiple tries. I think the most it has taken is 6 tries. I’ve kept up with the maintenance, but I drive it infrequently, so the time between service has spread out. It was due for an oil change,
I thought the IRS gifting rules were pretty straight forward and I understood them. Any individual can give $19K (in 2025) to anyone else w neither a gift tax or reporting requirement. Seems pretty clear.
Then I dug a little deeper online which was maybe a mistake and came up w some issues.
One was the IRS reference to “gift splitting” by spouses where one spouse can use the other spouses gift exemption to gift in excess of the $19K.
We have discussed many times when to start Social Security and pretty much concluded the decision is personal and need based. I don’t have a problem with any of that, but what bugs me is concern over breaking even considering amount received and years of benefits.
It seems to me the monthly benefit, the income when needed most is all that matters. Since I once again find myself in the minority, I asked a neutral party,
I usually go for my four-mile walk before sunrise. I like to get an early start to my day. I’ve gotten to know a few folks who I see on my way around the neighborhood. We exchange pleasantries as we pass each other.
But there’s one gentleman who is not so friendly. He looks like he’s in his early thirties—about forty years younger than me.
All the people I encounter walk on one side of the sidewalk,
It’s been a topsy-turvy year in the financial markets. Has that prompted you to make any changes to your portfolio’s asset allocation? I’m thinking about four key dimensions:
Stocks vs. bonds vs. cash investments
U.S. stocks vs. foreign shares
Large-cap vs. small-cap stocks
Growth vs. value stocks
If you’ve tweaked your asset allocation, I’d love to know what changes you’ve made—and why.
Throughout my working years, one thing that disturbed me greatly was the lack of concern even disregard shown by many workers for a spouse, especially a surviving spouse and nearly always a woman.
I remember the “good old days” when the husband’s earnings were his money, his pension was his pension. I remember when workers hid their overtime pay from the wife and when they elected a single life annuity pension because only they earned it,
