PatchCast Birmingham

Age brings wisdom.  Age also loses flexibility in so many ways.  Things don’t stand still and one must adjust to the universe because it won’t adjust to you.  Having said that, I think that the attitudes to those seeking early retirement vs. those that are retiring because of end of career is very different and they don’t see eye to eye.  Let’s talk about that in this episode.

On a recent news story in Arizona, I was amused to see two news anchors (one an older gentleman and one younger lady) talking about a new AI infused technology that created handwriting of a person by using a robot.  Their reactions to this tell a generational story about social life & expectations in the USA, and so I wanted to expand upon this in this episode.

The advancement in technology brings a lot of fear, uncertainty & doubt to us. And recently one such invention appears to be doing this – GLP-1 inhibitors, used for diabetes but discovered to have massive impact on weight. The most common name you will hear is ‘Ozempic’. On this episode, I’m going to delve into this both from a medical & financial angle, and yes…. I’ve been taking Ozempic now for the past 2 months, so I’ll tell you my story with it as well.

On January 3rd, the US Federal short term debt showed up at $34 Trillion dollars.  This doesn’t take into consideration of the long term liabilities on the balance sheet of country that go to the promised social security & Medicare payments for seniors.  That would add another $80 Trillion to the tally.  But this simply is the accumulation of decades of losses on the profit & loss statement of the country.  In this episode, I’m going to float a theory on how the USA will clear this debt quickly, but I don’t think you are going to like it…

In this off script episode, I get real about the lies they tell you about 401Ks, IRAs, Superannuation funds, etc.  I explain what they promised and what was delivered and why it is far from optimal for retirement vs. residential rental real estate properties.

This is a little tale about the dangers of proprietary technology and, when I broke my own rules, it came back to bite me big time. Let this be a warning to you all – your first option should always be to find an open source version of anything you need.

I’ve made about 16 flights between the USA & Mexico in the past 12 months, and I’ve learned where the deals are, even if you are not using frequent flyer miles. On this episode, I’ll let you know what I found and where you can look to find super cheap deals.

This episode is a reset moment. Maybe one that is sorely needed. Our attention is all over the place these days, and yet we forget the simplest things that leads to true peace. As an embracement of the principles of a Simple Life, I give you something to think about – how you can survive in our journey through life, and to realize the wrong path that most of us are on.

A good friend of mine who works in the community college world in Arizona sent me an article that he found on why international students won’t come to the USA to study.  I spent the next 30 minutes or so explaining the entire reasons, and I thought you might be interested in the whole story.  Here we go…

The episode continues from 224.  More of the things you need to consider as part of an early retirement strategy.

Everyone who slaves over a 50 hour a week job, sacrificing time from the family, the stress of meeting other people’s expectations, living paycheck to paycheck, dreams of exiting the rat race.  The hope of early retirement drives them to save more, work harder now, and one day they can tell their boss, “Take this job & shove it”.   But few understand the reality of what it looks & feels like after that event, and how it is easy to become a non-person in early retirement.

I am recording this episode at the end of the calendar year of 2023. It is at these times, when workers often get some break for the holidays, that their employers will praise them for their annual contribution – and often with some paltry “Christmas bonus” that typically is best portrayed in Charles Dickens “The Christmas Carol” with Ebeneezer Scrooge not rewarding Bob Cratchit with some hopeful bonus for a year of toil. And yet if only Bob Cratchit recognized his contribution and talents, and had the courage to ask for what he was really worth…

Recently the state of Arizona had one of its border checkpoints in Lukeville closed by the US Federal Government.  This was in response to an unexpected surge of inbound travelers and asylum seekers coming into the USA.  The immigration challenges that we hear about on the Nightly news are far from the real story here, so I wanted to delve into the real story of what is going on and how it affects those of us attempting to be unconstrained.

As many of you know, I had a career in the early 90s as a recording engineer in Hollywood.  I left that to make money to feed my family, as I didn’t want to put them through the ‘hit & miss’ nature of that industry.  After 25 years back in the tech space, I didn’t agree with where it was going, and in my mid 50s left it to return to my recording work.  The result was the building of a massive private recording studio in central Mexico.  I wanted to talk through the business case for this and why we need some serious ‘out of the box’ thinking when it comes to funding art in all forms for the future.

I’ve recorded a number of episodes on the perils of AI a few months back. As we march towards this innevitable chapter of our evolution, I realize that most of my issues with it is not because the technology is bad. It is the very limited few that will wield it like a weapon against us. So in what I think will be a thought provoking episode, I’m going to look int to the humans behind all of this and dig deeper as to what we have allowed our species to become.

The song ‘It’s the most wonderful time of the year’ might hold up well for a warm feeling as the temperatures drop, but it was co-opted by the retail industry in a way to control the mind of the masses into mass consumption. Retailers make more money in this season than at anytime in the year, and the constrained are enslaved in debt from being guilted into buying stuff for other people. Let’s go through a few tricks you can use to survive this period without having to be Uncle Scrooge to get through it.

The second half of the answer to the question "How much do you really need to retire?" after my shock of hearing the personal financial industry stating $4 million.  As someone who has been living financially free for quite some time, I can tell you that this is a total lie and I'll explain the truth of what really is required.

I came across this study on Seeking Alpha recently.  It found that younger millennials — those around age 30 — would likely need at least $3.6 million saved up to enjoy a comfortable retirement. To be on the safe side, it might be wise to round that up to an even $4 million. This assumes that you want to retire no later than age 62 and have not yet saved anything except emergency cash.  How the hell can anyone do that?  Well in this episode, I’ll prove why this traditional mindset is just plain wrong, and how you really can do this with 1/10^th of the savings that these so called experts are saying.

I’ve had a lot of first hand experience in the USA at trying to get to simply see a doctor, and I’ve never seen it this bad before.  When I hear recent news that the billionaires are inserting themselves into the tech AI space for healthcare research, and all these unicorn & rainbow stories we hear about how AI will change the game for healthcare research and curing viruses, it seems so disengenuous when the average US person can’t get to see a doctor in a timely basis, or even afford to.  Let’s get the truth of this failed healthcare system in the USA and why it affects your safety and your very life expectancy in your attempt to be unconstrained.

I have tried to avoid any topic on politics because it just divides people. This episode has little to do with politics, however. But I would like to have an open, honest and frank discussion about government – particularly the US government, what I thought it was, what I discovered it was, and where I see this whole thing going.