Author: philg

Assisted Living Inflation

by philg

We recently received a notice from my mother’s senior fortress. The basic “room and board” charge for her assisted living apartment (i.e., not the nursing care component) is going up from $8,100 per month to $8,750 per month, effective January 1, 2025. That’s an inflation rate of 8 percent.

Apparently, the average age of moving into any type of “senior dorm” is going up. From McKnights Senior Living, 2023:

the mean age of an older adult moving into assisted living is 85 (by comparison, it’s 82 for independent living and 83 for nursing homes), a finding that aligns with the results of other research.

It’s cheaper to stay in one’s existing house or apartment, even if some aides need to be hired, and there is more freedom, e.g., from coronapanic-style lockdowns. A middle-class American who did not purchase long-term care insurance (my mother has a John Hancock LTC policy and the company has been great about paying for most of what she has needed since transitioning from independent living to assisted) will have a lot of trouble accessing the necessary care. The standard path is for the old person to be wiped out financially and then Medicaid kicks in because the old person is now poor. In Florida, at least, the value of a homestead (primary residence) is excluded, but otherwise the only workaround is a Medicaid Asset Protection Trust and it must be done five years ahead of when it is needed (explained by a NY lawyer).

“Recent Immigration Surge Has Been Largest in U.S. History” (New York Times, today) quotes an economist saying the 10+ million Bidenmigrants “helped cool wage growth” (code for “lowered wages paid to native-born working-class Americans“?), so maybe the cost would have gone up more than 8 percent if the U.S. had defended its border?

Here are some pictures of my mom’s senior fortress…

The “wow” for prospective residents and their families is provided by the outdoor fountain:

(We offered her the chance to live in our guest room, but she wanted to have the opportunity to socialize with others her age.)

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Why would Luigi Mangione blame an insurer for the ineffectiveness of modern medicine?

by philg

“Luigi Mangione’s pals say CEO shooter ‘went crazy’ and fled to Japan after giant screws put in spine” (The Mirror):

The Ivy Leaguer accused of murdering a top CEO may have spiraled into madness following a botched back surgery that required ‘giant screws’ in his spine, according to friends.

Luigi Mangione, the alleged killer, had shared X-ray images on social media showing his misaligned spine, which was reportedly worsened by a surfing accident.

Some of those looking into the 26-year-old former high school valedictorian believe that this severe back injury, which required screws in his spine, led to a concerning decline over the past year.

Former classmates of Mangione suggest that the failed surgery could have pushed the Maryland man to the edge.

It’s a shame that current medical technology isn’t sufficient to fix the typical back problem, but why is United Healthcare to blame? Luigi Mangione was inspired by Harvard’s Ted Kaczynski, educated at Penn and Stanford, and presumably gifted with a high degree of rational reasoning. How did he come up with a model of the world where his back would have been fixed by surgery if United Healthcare had done something different?

Separately, given that people have so much familiarity with the inability of medicine to fix what ails them, their friends, and their family members, why do people accept uncritically the idea that a doctor can transform a man into a woman or vice versa? Who looks at the photo below and says “doctors have never been able to solve half of the seemingly simple health issues that I’ve brought to them, but they seem to be great at gender reassignment surgery”?

Finally, is Luigi Mangione further proof that mask orders can’t work? He had a huge incentive to keep his mask in place and might well be a free man today if he had done so, but his mask discipline wasn’t perfect, even in an all-Democrat city that encourages mask-wearing, which resulted in a security camera getting an image of his full face and then some McDonald’s workers recognizing him.

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Would the world be better off with no cryptocurrency?

by philg

Here’s a thought-provoking post:

Here’s the biggest point:

[Bitcoin and similar have] given utility to some individuals, by making them rich. But since no new service or good has been created in the world, this comes at the price of making everyone else a little poorer.

Can this be true? Crypto has burned up a huge amount of electricity so it made at least some electric utilities richer as well as holders of crypto currency becoming richer. Sam Bankman-Fried and at least one of his sex partners are making the prison-industrial complex a little richer. But would the world overall be better off if crypto had never been developed or used? Think of all of the important mRNA vaccines we could have enjoyed if some of our best and brightest minds weren’t sidetracked into crypto fever.

The same author on X explains why we have to hear 24/7 hype from Bitcoin holders whereas those who own Malaysian ringgit are mostly peaceful: “… for people who hold it, it is pure economic advantage to hype it. This predictably creates a landscape of self-reinforcing hype.”

Related:

  • “LUIGI hits all-time high at $60M market cap after Luigi Mangione’s arrest for murder” (Crypto News): The Luigi Inu (LUIGI) token first started gaining traction following Mangione’s arrest in Altoona, Pennsylvania and charged on Dec 9. The token’s market cap reached $29 million before it rocketed higher to $60 million, after the arrest was confirmed. Originally launched by anonymous crypto traders, the token is trending on Raydium, the automated market maker built on Solana. The connection between Mangione and the memecoin lies in the fact that his arrest and the subsequent media attention have significantly boosted the token’s popularity and value.
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HOA fee inflation

by philg

Chronicles of an Inflation-free Economy, #4822…

Our neighborhood HOA fee is going up 18 percent for 2025. The management fee (same firm) is going up 43 percent. Xfinity’s fee for cable TV to every household is going up 7 percent (each house must separately purchase Internet service). Xfinity’s fee for telephone/Internet service at the clubhouse is going up 70 percent to $7,000/year. Landscaping and irrigation services are going up substantially, but perhaps that reflects the landscape and systems getting older (22 years). “Janitorial” (cleaning our clubhouse/gym, mostly?) is going up 13 percent. Insurance is going up 10 percent.

From the Official Newspaper of Inflation is Transitory….

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The pit bull named “Buddha”

by philg

Happy Bodhi Day for those who celebrate. Gemini says the following about this holiday:

Bodhi Day commemorates the day Siddhartha Gautama became the Buddha, or the Awakened One. The name Bodhi comes from the Sanskrit word for enlightenment and the species of tree under which the Buddha meditated.

Nonviolence, or ahimsa, is a core principle of Buddhism and is central to Bodhi Day celebrations … Some Buddhists observe vegetarianism on Bodhi Day to practice non-violence and compassion.

“Woman killed by her own pit bull in Roxbury was “heart and soul” of family” (CBS, last month) is a story about a Maskachusetts woman who won’t be celebrating Bodhi Day:

Brady-McGinnis was mauled by her pit bull Buddha outside their home on Dennison Street in Roxbury around 4:30 p.m., according to McGuire. … Investigators said the dog also attacked Brady-McGinnis’s husband as he tried to save her and two Boston police officers. All four were rushed to the hospital. Brady-McGinnis died in surgery, according to McGuire.

ChatGPT failed to generate an image of a Buddhist pit bull named Buddha, but Grok obliged:

Related:

  • “Pit bull that fatally mauled 4-year-old girl in San Joaquin Valley was her ‘playful’ family dog” (Los Angeles Times, September 8, 2024): Zoey Hawkins loved to sing and dance, especially in her Cinderella dress, and she loved to play with the family dog. Since Zoey, 4, was adopted two years ago, she and the pit bull were constantly together. … An investigation found no evidence of neglect or criminal wrongdoing, and the dog had no history of violence or aggression, said Elizabeth Jones, the department’s public information officer. … “She and the dog were inseparable,” Vargas said. “They played with each other, they were around each other and the dog was always super playful. We have literally no clue why the dog did this, or turned on her in this way.”

From the $2 trillion/year federal Department of Health and Human Services today:

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What is happening in Syria?

by philg

Our media is full of stories about fighting in Syria, but they all seem to be targeted at people who are smarter than I am and/or who have a much deeper understanding of history and geopolitics.

From the New York Times:

An array of different groups have been taking territory from the government in other parts of the country as well.

Clear as mud, in other words.

A few questions, for starters:

  • I thought that Turkey was fighting to prevent Kurds from having their own country. But now Turkey is also fighting to depose Assad, the secular ruler of Syria, so that Islamists can take over?
  • Syria declared war on Israel in 1948 and, like Lebanon but unlike Egypt and Jordan, was never interested in a peace treaty or recognition of Israel. If there is a new government, is Syria then still at war with Israel?
  • Does Israel have a dog in this fight? Would Assad retiring to Jeddah, as Idi Amin did, be good for Israel?

I would appreciate an overall high-level explanation.

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Coronapanic lockdowns made American kids nearsighted

by philg

Today is Pearl Harbor Day, in which we remember that the Japanese attacked American military installations in Hawaii on December 7, 1941 (2,403 total killed, nearly all military, in response to which we killed nearly 1 million Japanese civilians via aerial bombing, including 100,000 in one night over Tokyo; will the Queers for Palestine protest this “disproportionate” response today?).

Let’s look at the most recent major war on U.S. soil, one that we started and fought against an indifferent viral foe. “Increases in Myopia Progression in Kids Tied to the COVID Pandemic; Closure of schools and cancelling of activities likely played a role” (MedPageToday) is a new-to-me wrinkle in the old coronapanic story of “cure worse than the disease”.

In the overall cohort of over 2,000 children in this retrospective observational study, the change in mean spherical equivalent from 2020 to 2021 was 2.2 times greater than the change from 2019 to 2020 (0.42 D vs 0.19 D), reported Rebecca Mets-Halgrimson, MD, of the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, and colleagues in the British Journal of Ophthalmology

… it’s important for clinicians to understand the impact of screen time and near work on myopia progression, particularly in younger age groups …

Looking at the prevalence of myopia grouped by age, 8-year-old and 17-year-old patients had the greatest increase compared with baseline. When grouped by refractive error, children with low myopia (-0.5 D to -3.00 D) showed the greatest change in mean spherical equivalents in 2020 to 2021.

The choice of language is interesting. It is not the Covidcrat-ordered lockdowns and school closures that caused 8-year-olds to suffer lifetimes of impaired vision. It is the virus (the “pandemic”) that killed 80-year-olds that attacked our children. Also, before coronapanic we couldn’t have imagined that there was anything wrong with parking kids in front of computer/tablet screens for 8-10 hours per day. Our understanding of Science is constantly evolving (except when the Science is settled).

Related:

  • “COVID lockdowns led to spike in kids’ vision problems, 1 in 3 now nearsighted, study finds” (from the Deplorables, September 2024): Myopia can progress rapidly during critical growth periods, particularly in children and adolescents, Chen noted. … “Prolonged indoor living reduced outdoor activity for children and adolescents while increasing screen time, potentially exacerbating the ocular burden on this population and worsening the myopia crisis.”
  • ChatGPT’s response to “generate a picture of an extremely near-sighted child using a personal computer” is below. (Gemini refused to do this so we can’t see what a nonbinary child of color would look like in Coke bottle glasses.)

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How does the “Ferrari for sale” scam work?

by philg

Here’s a recent text message:

How does the scam then work? I respond with “Sorry, but we ran out of SF90s last Wednesday” and… then what? How does this person (or robot?) end up with my not-very-hard-earned-and-certainly-undeserved Bidies?

Or maybe this SF90 shopper is legit. I took some pictures of a Ferrari SF90 (fewer than 2,000 produced?) in Fort Worth, Texas back in May 2024:

I can’t remember if I posted any on Twitter or Facebook.

Perhaps the sender assumed that because I’m committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion that, naturally, I would own a car made by a company that is committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion. (But, then, why would I want to sell a car that will remind me of DEI with every trip to Publix?)

From the Ferrari web site:

The photo of an all-white team seems to have been purged from the Ferrari site, but it was up long enough for X to capture when Ferrari proudly posted about their plan to discriminate by race, gender ID, etc.:

Meanwhile, let’s check on the rare collectible vehicle that we actually do own. Its value seems to be increasing. Received November 24, 2024:

Speaking of scams, here’s a recent invitation for me to become friends on Facebook. The account is owned by someone with the Arabic male name “Kareem” and the pictures are of a blonde:

And a Facebook comment exchange (original post is about San Francisco)….

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Parallel New York universes

by philg

The front page of the New York Post right now has no fewer than four stories about Daniel Penny, the man on trial for murdering the mostly peaceful Jordan Neely. Penny’s fate is currently being decided by a jury.

The front page of the New York Times right now has zero stories. In the parallel universe of the NYT, Jordan Neely was never killed and Daniel Penny was never put on trial.

Photos from May 2023:

Separately, what are people thinking about the Manhattan murder of Brian Thompson, the UnitedHealthcare CEO? A customer whose relative died after claims were denied for a treatment that, in the killer’s mind, might have saved the relative’s life? A disgruntled former employee? It can’t be an unhappy long-term shareholder. Before adjusting for inflation, the stock is up 100X compared to 30 years ago (outperforming Apple and NVDIA? (tougher to compare with NVIDIA because the company didn’t go public until 1999)):

Related:

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What happens with federal tax policy?

by philg

Now that folks have had a chance to digest the Election Nakba… what are you all forecasting for tax policy? This is one of the few areas of federal policy where we could productively change our behavior given a change in the policy.

My guess is that the Trump Big Bang tax law that went into effect 2018 gets extended, more or less unchanged, thus revoking the expiration dates of 2025 and 2028 for various individual and business tax provisions. My basis for this prediction is that Congress hates cutting spending, but enjoys cutting taxes. That’s how we get the deficit spending that started in earnest when Congress refused to implement Ronald Reagan’s proposed spending cuts, but did oblige him on the tax rates that he suggested.

My first prediction for a change is that the limit on state/local (SALT) tax deductibility will be raised or eliminated in order to get some cooperation from the Party of the Economic Elite (i.e., the Democrats). My second prediction is that there will be some sort of enhancement of the current system for extracting money from the childless (the “drones”) and giving the cash to those with children, e.g., via tax deductions or tax credits or “refundable tax credits” for those who don’t bother to work and instead enjoy playing Xbox with their children for all after-school hours. There is nothing that American politicians love more than making the childless work another few hours every week so that parents can enjoy time with their kids.

What would I do about taxation if I could be dictator for a day?

  • no change to current tax rates (I assume these are already the revenue-maximizing rates and the federal government needs at least $36 trillion just to pay back debt)
  • no change to the mechanisms that Donald Trump put in place to keep multi-national companies from parking all of their profits offshore
  • the IRS prepares a draft tax return for every American income taxpayer (i.e., about half of us) with all of the information that it has received and enables us to edit it
  • eliminate the estate tax, which generates a huge amount of unproductive legal and accounting activity and hardly any revenue (about $20 billion/year against a federal budget of $7 trillion)
  • eliminate the Generation-Skipping Transfer Tax, which is a complicated add-on to the estate tax
  • eliminate the step-up in basis that assets get upon an owner’s death (so capital gains liability would increase on inherited assets once they’re sold)
  • index capital gains taxation to inflation so that fictitious (inflation-driven) “gains” aren’t taxed (see Uncle Joe’s capital gains tax (what could have been, unburdened by what was) for an example of what would happen to a long-term investor in GE stock who actually lost money in real dollars and then loses more to a tax on inflation)
  • eliminate charitable donation deductions (this prevents multi-billionaires from escaping taxation by giving money to the foundations that their kids control, etc.; Warren Buffett has already announced that the U.S. Treasury will get bupkis after he croaks because 99.5% of his money will go “to a charitable trust overseen by his daughter and two sons when he dies.” (USA Today))

Despite the elimination of the estate tax, note that the above changes would result in a huge increase in revenue from dead people and their heirs. Right now someone can inherit a $20 million house from two parents, completely tax free (estate tax exemption for a married couple is about $28 million), and the basis is $20 million, not the $1 million price that they paid in nominal dollars way back when or the $3 million price that is the $1 million adjusted for inflation. Thus, the heir could sell the $20 million house and pay no tax at all because the basis was stepped up to $20 million. If the above changes were implemented, an immediate sale of the inherited house would subject the heir to capital gains and Obamacare tax on a $17 million inflation-adjusted gain or 0.238 * $17e6 = $4 million. Same deal with a $2 million house (i.e., a Biden starter home!), but it would be perhaps $400,000 in revenue for the Federales rather than the current $0. (States that impose a capital gains tax (i.e., not Florida!) could be similarly fattened by these changes.)

Since my ideas are never popular with anyone else, I guess we can say for certain that none of the above changes will ever happen!

Readers: What do you think will happen?

Background…

and what if Congress can’t agree on any bill?

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