Category: Economy

Purchases

by MAÔ, posted in Income, Writing

I’ve been on something of a spending moratorium. (I’m feeling broke, though I don’t like using that word. It implies something is wrong with me, rather than my financial footing. So when I’m telling myself that I need more work; that I’m broke –  I’ll usually stop and say, “I feel like I don’t have enough money.”)

Anyway, it seems that all the money I’m making goes towards bills, which has been the case for the past couple of months. However, there are some purchases I’ve made that have been well worth the investment.

First, my Sony noise-canceling headphones. I bought them just over a year ago now. They have been used while traveling, in meditation, for walks and occasionally exercise, and when I’m working at home. They are a marvelous invention, and for years I said I didn’t need them. Now I’m so glad I have a pair.

A Patagonia Better Sweater Fleece Vest. I think I got this early in the year, maybe around February. It was just starting to get warmer, and in Florida, we don’t think about cooler weather all that much. But again, I’m so glad I have it. I wore it for much of my time Alaska this summer, and it just hit the sixties here last night. Besides, I’ll be up in Pennsylvania later this month as well.

And finally, another purchase I’m loving this year, my Parker ’51 Fountain pen. Now, I bought this at an antique store for $5, so it wasn’t really a splurge. But I cleaned it up, and it works perfectly. My morning journal entries are written with a Lamy AL-Star fountain pen, but everything else I use my Parker for. I carry it with me everywhere. Currently, I’m filling it with a Pilot Iroshizuku teal ink.

And over the past twelve months, these have been my most used items. I was gifted a pocketknife that I carry with me everywhere. So that gets used a lot as well. But these items bring me a lot of joy. Every time I look at them or use them, I’m so glad that I have them.

That is what purchases should be. Something that will bring you continued joy over the course of their lives. Otherwise, it could just become clutter. (Don’t worry, I have that too…)

Targeted marketing

by MAÔ, posted in Economy

There’s always a moment of disquiet when an ad pops up, or a brief commercial shows before a YouTube video, which is targeted to something that I’ve just researched. The Volkswagen Electric Bus; passive income streams; buying and selling put and call  options; NaNoWriMo (yeah, it’s nearing that time again).

Sometimes I bite the hook, like when I saw a concoction of ashwagandha and turmeric – two supplements I take daily. Sometimes I ignore it. But the fact remains that what we put out comes back in a way meant to entice us to spend money.

This can be good, for instance if our life will genuinely be enriched by purchasing what is being advertised – I think specifically of researching medication options and perhaps a new treatment is shown that you can ask your doctor about.

This can be bad – do you really need another set of pans? Or, in my case, a Honda CR-V? No, I don’t.

I don’t know that there is a way to combat this. Only that we must remain diligent and think rationally when it comes to online enticements.

Hide your stash

by MAÔ, posted in Money

Focusing on personal money is a stressful prospect. Seeing the rises and falls, the balance changing, seemingly out of your control, can imbue a feeling of powerlessness. That’s why the best investors and gamblers view their pools of available money as resource, not expendable cash.

The adage among drug dealers is to never use your own stash. The same can be said for the money that you pay yourself first – savings, retirement, major expense fund… Be careful that you’re not using the resource that you set aside for your self – for your future.

That’s your stash. Don’t use it.

Refinancing

by MAÔ, posted in Income

Looking at my 2019 finances, I’m a bit less optimistic than I was mere weeks ago. One reason is that my healthcare deductible is increasing. Significantly. Like, from $60 to $350.

I set a goal in 2018 to discover what was wrong with me. Whether or not I actually had rheumatoid arthritis. All signs pointed to yes. I’m still off medication, which I’m thrilled about. Really, it’s been like two years.

When I was first put on medication I could barely walk. I used a cane to hobble around, and the time it took me to get out of bed was roughly an episode of The Price is Right. I hurt, and I was slow, and before the diagnosis, I thought I was dying.

The medication let me move comfortably again, but it had its own corresponding health issues. Fatigue (occasionally severe fatigue); responses to food that I used to enjoy – now they made me sick; lethargy; increased aggression for the first few months; and liver problems. They pinballed me through all different kinds of medication, trying to find the right cocktail.

So, not needing it and showing little signs of the initial RA diagnosis, I was certain that I had been misdiagnosed. But my bloodwork last year showed elevated inflammation levels conducive with RA, along with other markers. Long story short, better for me to keep my medical insurance.

Now, that’s one expense that increased dramatically. My work is mostly on a contract basis, so that expense comes out of pocket.

How does someone living in this day and age, balancing student loan debt, the rising costs of healthcare, and basic living expenses, make it? How does one become not only stable, but successful.

My first step is a budget. And with that cornerstone, I am hopeful that the bricks will fit securely.

Relationships with money

by MAÔ, posted in Money

When considering your life style, your finances and living situation, do you feel as if you’re thriving? Or surviving?

If it’s the latter, it may be harder to ever reach a place of thriving.

I’ve been an advocate for the law of attraction for nearly three years now, since I began making life changes that were so drastic that I wouldn’t have believed them possible. Prior to that, I was using reactionary methods of attraction – still creating life, but with little sense of what I was doing.

Even now I sometimes experience the reactionary method (usually around money – major purchases, debt or job issues), and I have to remind myself that what I focus on is what I attract.

So I remind you (and myself) that we live in abundance. This is not a zero-sum game, and we are all capable of winning and achieving our best lives. The trick is to believe that we already are, even if we’ve temporarily stepped out of the abundant circumstances.

We’re all a little sick sometimes

by MAÔ, posted in Economy, Politics

Healthcare. What a broken system. Same with education. Same with criminal justice. As a matter of fact, any system that should be in place to provide services and care to a country’s population, once it moves to the private sector, becomes a cash cow, pumping returns into wealthy investors’ pockets and political coffers to keep sympathetic lawmakers in power.

Want to fix healthcare? Stop letting the insurance companies run the industry.

We’ve been watching premiums rise, yes, since the advent of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), but even before then. There have been grumbling among insurers that costs are just to great under the new political policies to keep premiums at the same level.

However, consider this:

According to an November, 2016 article on Consumer Affairs, Amy Martyn reports that, “UnitedHealth announced record-breaking profits in 2015, followed by an even better year this year. In July 2016, UnitedHealth celebrated revenues that quarter totalling $46.5 billion, an increase of $10 billion since the same time last year.  And company filings show that UnitedHealth’s CEO Stephen J. Hemsley made over $20 million in 2015. To be fair, that is a pay cut. The previous year, in 2014, Hemsley took home $66 million in compensation.”

Okay. Obviously an isolated incident.

However, Ms. Martyn continues on to say: “Aetna, whose CEO Mark Bertolini reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission a $27.9 million compensation in 2015, has similarly celebrated sky-high profits. “In 2015, we reported annual operating revenue of over $60.3 billion, a record for the Company,” Aetna recently told investors.”

Yet in this article from an issue last week of the Waco Tribune-Herald, written by guest columnist Merrill Matthews, there’s a little discrepancy regarding Aetna: “Also in May, Aetna said it would pull out of several other states. According to CNN, “The company said it expects to lose more than $200 million in its individual business line this year, on top of nearly $700 million in losses between 2014 and 2016. Aetna withdrew from 11 of its 15 markets for 2017.”

A simple Google search gives me CNBC’s report on quarterly profits for Aetna from January of  this year:

“Aetna’s net profit fell to $139 million, or 39 cents per share, in the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, from $321 million, or 91 cents per share, a year earlier.

Excluding items, Aetna earned $1.63 per share, handily beating analysts’ average estimate of $1.44 per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.”

Well, man, this is confusing. Either they’re making money, or they’re losing money, but whatever it is it’s in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Okay. Let’s read on in this CNBC report:

“Aetna said its total health care medical benefit ratio — the percent of premiums spent on claims — rose to 82.1 percent from 81.9 percent, a year earlier, mainly due to higher medical costs in its individual commercial products.”

Which means they get to keep 20% of what they bring in, hundreds of millions of dollars. Just for taking money, than turning around and paying to medical professionals.

Yes, they’re moving money from healthy people to sick people. That’s the nature of insurance. But their business model is taking as much in as they can, and pay out as little as they can. That’s profit.

If you want to fix healthcare, get rid of insurance for profit’s sake. Otherwise, it’s one person’s best interest against a corporation driven by profits and shareholders’ best interests.

Why work?

by MAÔ, posted in Economy, Income, Reading, Work

What is the purpose of work? Other than making money, of course. Why are some people so satisfied with their professions, while others are left feeling that what they do doesn’t matter, and they just collect the paycheck and move on with their lives?

To me, work is the calling to something more. We all have gifts, notions about who we are and what we are capable of. I believe that people, deep down, all have a desire to provide help to their fellow man. 
Work is the fulfillment of that desire. Yes, work pays the bills. Or it should. Work is a commitment. Work is the place that we spend a good third of our lives.
Work is not the end-all, be-all. Work is not, or should not be, the daily grind. Work should lift us up, provide a sustainable lifestyle for its employees. We work because we have to, but we should also work because we want to. To do that, the work should be a vocation.
To work is to be interconnected. Within a job, we are part of the whole global economy, not merely isolated in our decisions and choices. What we do, how we do it, and the results of our labors are part of a much larger whole. Neglecting this fact, believing that we operate in a vacuum, is detrimental both to our health and the health of society.

I’m curious right now about the relationship between currency and wealth; of income disparity; the economic state of our Nation and the World. One more topic in the litany of interests I’ll be reading about, or studying, over the coming months. 

The Tides of Change

by MAÔ, posted in Economy, Florida

Driving around town, listening to the Hamilton OBC recording, I realized that a large part of my problem with Daytona (and to a smaller extent, Central Florida) is that nothing is happening here. The area isn’t driving the conversation anywhere. People here can stay put in the time lapse that exists, and change doesn’t come until it trickles from elsewhere. Change isn’t being made here.

It’s an interesting concept. Orlando and Orange County has a thriving virtual reality and simulation industry, but it’s not Silicon Valley, or even Portland, Maine. It’s a smaller semi-hub, and the economic drivers of the area hurts more than aides potential employment. The theme parks create lively destinations, but it’s a tourism-driven industry, and other than conventions or vacations, there’s very little incentive to rock the boat around town.
The thought crossed my mind that perhaps I would feel motivated to spur change here. Some factors prevent me from considering making this home permanent, but that’s neither here nor there.

Change happens where change happens, and that’s historically in the more metropolitan areas. Where bohemia and big business converge, and ideas take shape and take root. There, the tide is continually flowing and all around it either flow with the current or fight to change it. At the outskirts, where the flowing water is rarely felt and merely remakred upon, it’s the quiet acceptance of whatever decisions were made elsewhere. And that’s where dissatisfication lives, or at least a part of it.