American Financial & Tax Strategies, Inc.
November 2011 - A Special Lunch

RB

  

Social Security Update

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

It has just been announced that Social Security beneficiaries will receive a 3.6% cost-of-living adjustment in January 2012. Naturally, this is good news. There hasn't been an increase in several years.

 

With Social Security being the the political hot button it is, I wanted to share a few thoughts on it with you.

First and foremost, if you are receiving benefits or nearing that time, your checks will come and they will never stop. The people who print the money can't run out of it.

The problem is not that the check won't come, but rather, how much will it buy? Due to the government printing press and many other factors, each of those dollars will buy less and less as the years go on. Further, Medicare premiums are going up as well as the cost of any supplementary coverage you may have. 
  
What this all means to you is that your assets must be invested for the long run, as maintaining your lifestyle will require greater and greater reliance on the assets you own and control, not government benefits.
 
Now, as always, the Intelligent Decision is too have a prudent, well thought out, written plan and stick to it in good times and especially in bad times.
 
If I don't yet have the privilege and responsibility of advising you on your financial future, now my be an ideal time to give me a call or drop me a line. I am always happy to help in any way I can.
 
I will write more soon regarding strategies  for those of you who are a decade or more from Social Security benefits.

 


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Look for next issue where I will discuss the Fiduciary Standard under which we operate versus the "Suitability Standard" of brokerage houses and insurance representatives.

      
A Very Special Lunch

 

 

Recently I had the unique pleasure of meeting and enjoying lunch with a truly great and important woman. My friends at The Jackson Laboratory introduced me to Carol Bult, Ph.D. I have always told my children (and anyone else who will listen to me) that you will only accomplish something great in this world after you find that thing about which you are passionate, and Dr. Bult is passionate about the work she does.

 

She is a geneticist and bioinformatician working toward cures for cancer by identifying the genetic changes in tumors. Those then become the "targets" for diagnosis and therapy. 

 

You will often read in this space "please call me if you would like a more detailed discussion of the topic". In this case, I have pretty much exhausted my knowledge of the subject in the previous paragraph. If, however, you do want to know more about the incredible cancer research they are doing, please click here. 

 

At lunch, I thanked Dr. Bult for being one of those amazing people who have allowed a wonderful phrase to enter our language, and that is "I had cancer". Think about it - That phrase DID NOT EXIST when I was a kid and today we hear people say it all the time. We still have a long way to go but people like Carol Bult make me very optimistic about the future.

 

I can't imagine that there is anyone reading this who has not been touched by this horrible disease, directly or indirectly. So much progress has been made and awareness is greater than ever. Do you remember, not that long ago, if we had to utter the word "cancer", we would whisper it. Now we say it out loud and these amazing people are attacking it and winning. 

 

The Jackson Laboratory does more than just cancer research (like curing cancer isn't enough). They have major research programs in Computational biology and bioinformatics, Developmental and reproductive biology, Immunology, Metabolic diseases and Neurobiology. If you would like to know more about this great facility, please click here. It is a wonderful website with a wealth of fascinating information.

 

Also, should you ever plan to be near gorgeous Bar Harbor, Maine, the location of their main facility, please let me know and I will arrange a tour for you. 

 

 

 
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Robert
 
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