How Do You Talk to Your Children?

    B has dutiful children. Her two sons call her on the phone about once a week. Her older son lives some 60 miles away, in his own apartment, and he will call when he gets home from work if he's not doing anything with his girlfriend. We also see him once or twice a month. In fact, we drove down to have dinner with him and his girlfriend over the weekend.

     Her younger son lives more like 800 miles away, in South Carolina with his fiancee. He also calls his mom once a week, usually on his way home from work -- yes, he has a hands-free phone -- although we obviously don't get to see him as much. He was home for a long weekend last Christmas; and B flew down to see him over the summer. He and his fiancee are planning another trip home around Thanksgiving.

     So that's how B talks to her children, mostly by voice, over the phone, and occasionally in person. Kind of the old-fashioned way. In fact, she was thrilled when she found out her older son did something almost unheard of among the 20-something crowd -- he installed a land-line telephone in his new apartment!

     Maybe the way you communicate with your children changes once you have grandchildren. But for us, we're not there yet. And I wonder if we're at all typical; or if we're missing out somehow.

     As for my daughter, she will not pick up the phone. She simply does not use the phone for voice communication. She communicates by messaging. If I call her, she never answers. If I leave her a voice-mail message, she will not respond. And she never calls me. But she will message me; and she will respond to a message. That's just the way she communicates, and I've found that I just had to adapt.

     My daughter lives almost 400 miles away. We see her a couple of times a year -- largely (I think) because despite the fact that she's crossed the 30-year-old threshold, she's still living an itinerant lifestyle and is storing most of her worldly possessions in our basement. She stops off a couple of times a year to drop something off, or pick something up. Although this past weekend I met up with a friend of hers whose family lives near us, and the friend was home for the long Columbus Day weekend. We met at the mall, and I gave her my daughter's snowboard, and some winter clothes, to take up to her. That's how I "communicated" with my daughter this past weekend.

     But honestly, my daughter is better at visiting me than I am at visiting her. But she's living in Buffalo -- which means the visiting season is short. We drove up there in August, which was my first-ever visit to Buffalo and Niagara Falls, and I did enjoy the trip. But I won't be venturing up there again until after the snow stops flying -- sometime after mid-May.

     My son, who lives in New York City, will not answer the phone either. But he uses aol instant message at work. I can never reach him on a weekend. But during the week when he's at work, he's on AIM, and he almost always answers me. That's good, because I feel like he's available pretty much whenever I want to talk to him (you know, as long as it's not a weekend).

     My son occasionally comes to visit -- usually when he travels home to see a friend -- and he'll often stay with us overnight. But even then he doesn't really talk to me. The exception -- when I drive him back to the train station. Do you remember those days, when your kids were young, and the best time to talk to them was when you were alone in the car, driving them to soccer practice or piano lessons?

     Well, for me, it's still true. The car is dark; you don't have to look at the other person. There are no distractions; and you can't walk away. The perfect time and place to find out what's really going on in your kid's life.

Short Takes for October

      In my Sept. 28 post What Are Boomers Blogging About? fellow blogger Meryl Baer reported on her visit to the Flight #93 Memorial in Shanksville, Pa. Sadly, USA Today and several other news outlets have reported that there was a fire at the memorial on Oct. 3. The fire destroyed the flag that flew over the U. S. Capitol on 9/11, as well as a number of other artifacts. The cause of the fire is unknown, but no foul play is suspected -- it was possibly a result of some construction going on at the site.

     Meanwhile, a lot of people were interested in my two posts on the subject of long-term care insurance -- as well as the more authoritative one Is Long-Term Care Insurance for You? brought to us from financial adviser Jeremy Kisner. As a follow-up, if you're interested, here's another pretty clear and thorough look at the issue of long-term care insurance from Rodney Brooks at USA Today.

     I'm not saying LTC insurance is for everyone -- but just maybe it's something to put on your Bucket List.

     And speaking of the Bucket List, Rebecca Mead takes a jaundiced view of the whole concept of The Bucket List in an article in The New Yorker. Her piece was prompted by President Obama's recent hour-long side trip to Stonehenge as he casually quipped that he'd "knocked it off the bucket list" -- before jetting back to Washington an hour behind his official schedule.

     I myself have not made a Bucket List. And my travels have been closer to home -- to Buffalo, NY, and Cape Cod, Mass. But I'm at a loss right this moment. We have no vacation planned. None at all. And that makes me feel anxious. Aren't we retired people supposed to be traveling all the time? One problem: B is still working, which cuts into our vacation time dramatically.

     And so for now we're both staying home, trying to stay warm (we dipped down to 41 degrees last night) and focusing on our health by getting our flu shots and scheduling annual physical exams.

     It distressed me to learn that Medicare will pay for an annual exam -- but only with a physician's assistant, not with a doctor. If I want to see my primary care physician, I will have to pay $185. To me it's worth it. He knows my history; he knows my usual aches and pains vs. something that might be unusual, atypical or possibly serious. But I thought Medicare was supposed to focus on prevention, since prevention costs a lot less than tests and treatments and follow-up visits.

     Oh well, Medicare is saving me a lot more than $185 compared to my previous medical insurance plan, so I guess I don't mind paying. Besides, Medicare did pay for my flu shot.

     Finally, in case you do not want to follow Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel's advice to die at age 75, here are two health notes:  

     1. Artificial sweeteners make you fat. Several previous studies have suggested that artificial sweeteners can give people a "sweet tooth," making them more likely to seek out sugary foods. But a new study from Israel suggests that the artificial sweeteners might have a direct effect on the body's metabolism to make weight gain more likely.

     The Israeli researchers studied the use of saccharin and aspartame in a group of mice, and they found the artificial sweeteners raised the level of blood sugar in the animals and increased their glucose intolerance -- which can in turn lead to obesity and diabetes. The researchers then gave saccharin to an admittedly small group of volunteers (only seven people) and four of them developed glucose intolerance, suggesting that the effect of artificial sweeteners shown in mice could also show up in humans. So if you want to stay thin and healthy . . . no Diet Coke for you!

     2. Standing up is good for you. A group of Swedish scientists took blood samples from a group of sedentary, overweight men and women, all over age 68. The researchers measured the length of the subjects' telemeres -- the ends of DNA that typically shorten and fray with age. Half the volunteers then started a moderate exercise program, which included less time sitting down, while the other group just continued with their normal lives.

     Six months later the Swedish researchers found that the telemeres of the normal group had shortened, as expected. But those of the exercise group had actually grown longer -- their telemeres had become younger. The surprise:  the telemeres of the volunteers who had done the most exercise grew less than the others, and in some cases not at all.

     So the most beneficial factor in lengthening the telemeres was not exercise, but simply time spent standing up. Or conversely, the less time people spent sitting down, the more their telemeres grew, and the healthier they were. The conclusion:  Exercise is good. Standing up is even better.

     Finally, on a happier note (I think): I saw my first Christmas ad the other day, for the holiday extravaganza at Radio City in New York. I know, the ads for Christmas seem to show up earlier and earlier every year. But Christmas is the happiest time of year, isn't it?

Are You Supposed to Die at 75?

     The Atlantic recently published an article called "Why I Hope to Die at 75" by Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel. He is a Harvard-educated doctor who's the brother of Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel. He also heads the Department of Medical Ethics & Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, and served as an adviser to the Obama Administration in developing the Affordable Health Act.

     Dr. Emanuel says that he wants to die at age 75. Why? First of all, he argues, most people have made whatever contribution they will make to society by the time they are 75 -- or even long before that. In fact, most people see their most productive years in their 40s, and after that they slowly decline and fade away. By age 75 any man or woman will have lived a full life -- they will have finished their career, raised their family, seen their grandchildren begin to grow up. By age 75, there's nothing left to do but hang on and suffer the degradations of old age.

     He then points out that modern medicine has lengthened our life expectancy -- and for a long time it also improved our quality of life. But in recent years, he says, increases in longevity have instead been accompanied by increases in disability.

     He cites a study by Eileen Crimmins, a researcher at the University of Southern California, who found that between 1998 and 2006, the loss of functional mobility in the elderly actually increased. In 1998, about 28 percent of American men 80 and older had a functional limitation; by 2006, that figure was nearly 42 percent. And for women the result was even worse: more than half of women 80 and older had a functional limitation. Crimmins’s conclusion: There was an “increase in the life expectancy with disease and a decrease in the years without disease.”

     Dr. Emanuel's conclusion:  "Over the past 50 years, health care hasn’t slowed the aging process so much as it has slowed the dying process. The contemporary dying process has been elongated ... So modern Americans may live longer than their parents, but they are likely to be more incapacitated. Does that sound very desirable? Not to me."

     Dr. Emanuel does not want to live with inevitably decreasing mental and physical abilities. He also doesn't want his grandchildren to remember him as a dottering old man, but as the man he was when he was in command of his abilities. And he doesn't want to subject his children and grandchildren to the "very real and oppressive financial and caregiving burdens" that fall to people who are responsible for the aged and infirm.

     Dr. Emanuel is not in favor of euthanasia. He has no plans to commit suicide at age 75. What he plans to do is refuse any preventive care after age 75. He will instead let nature take its course. He will have no more colonoscopies, prostate exams or flu shots. He will not undergo heart surgery or chemotherapy. He will accept palliative care, if need be, to lessen his suffering; but he sees no point in going to extreme measures to extend his debilitated and useless life after age 75.

     So ... do you buy his argument? I might. Except I'd put the age at 85 instead of 75. But then, I'm a few years older than Dr. Emanuel. So we'll see. Dr. Emanuel is 57 years old. Let's check in on him, and see if he still holds the same view, in 18 years.

     Meanwhile, as a postscript, another doctor, Atul Gawande, a professor at Harvard Medical School, has written a book called Being Mortal, which addresses end-of-life issues from a similar but slightly different perspective. He points out that modern medicine has focused on fixing and managing both injury and disease -- and continues to try to fix problems right up to the bitter end, beyond the time when it can really be of much help, and in the process often causes a great deal of physical and emotional suffering.

     Dr. Gawande argues that there comes a point when medicine should focus on a person's well-being more than their life expectancy. That instead of trying to prolong a person's life by an extra week, or an extra month, doctors should instead offer them as much comfort as possible, and let them go with some degree of autonomy and dignity.

     And I'd agree with Dr. Gawande. Let me go with some degree of autonomy and dignity ... you know, in 20 years or so.

Do Low Interest Rates Cut Your Income?

     
     Honestly, a lot of my friends (not to mention B) are sick of me bellyaching about low interest rates. But as many of you know, while low interest rates are a boon to 20-somethings who want to buy a house -- if only 20-somethings wanted to buy a house -- they make life difficult, and often poorer, for those of us who are retired.

     Why? Because you can no longer go to the bank, deposit your savings in a CD, and get 5.0% interest, which might provide some decent income in retirement. Instead, you buy a CD (as I did last week) and you get 0.15% interest.

     So, for my $5,000 CD I will receive $7.50 in interest for the year. Not a lot to live on.

     But low interest rates don't just affect those of us who want to keep our retirement savings in a safe, secure, federally insured bank deposit. They mean less income for retirees who buy an annuity, less income for retirees who sign up for a reverse mortgage. And they certainly bring less income for people invested in bonds or a bond mutual fund . . . while exposing them to a lot of risk.

     My problem is that I don't know what to do about it -- other than to bellyache. Or, as the Journal of Financial Planning says much more eloquently, "Turning [someone's] wealth that has been accumulated over a lifetime into a sustainable paycheck throughout retirement is one of the most important investment challenges for retirees . . . "

     All I can say is, amen to that. Especially if you don't have a lot of wealth.

     So I decided to turn to my friend, and financial guru, Jeremy Kisner of Surevest Wealth Management in Phoenix, AZ, to get some insight about interest rates. (He previously gave us some good info. on the question Is Long-Term-Care Insurance for You?).

     He explains things quite well, and may even make us more financially secure:


      Low interest rates have plagued fixed income investors for the past several years. Each year, analysts predict that rates will go up, and then ... they stay low or decline even further. Many consumers see this when they walk into a bank and are offered virtually zero interest on their savings and checking accounts.

     Coincidentally, banks just announced near record quarterly profits. Apparently, charging 4.5% on loans and paying 0% on deposits is profitable. However, banks don't really set interest rates. Rates are set by the demand for Treasury bonds from investors (many of them from other countries) and somewhat influenced by the Federal Reserve. It seems that investors will continue to buy bonds regardless of their yield. See graph below:

     If you think it is bad in the U. S., where the ten-year government bond is yielding around 2.4%, do not look over to Europe. Earlier this month, the yield on the ten-year German bond fell below 1.0%, and even economically challenged Spain borrows ten-year money at 2.1%.

     You might be thinking, "Okay, interest rates are low, but what's your point?" I have a few:

     1.  There is real risk in the bond market. Prices move in the opposite direction of interest rates. This has been good for bond investors over the past 30 years, but is likely to go the other way sometime soon. It feels similar to the bubble that formed in residential real estate in the mid-2000s, which was overvalued for about three years before the market finally crashed.

     2.  Never design your investment plan looking in the rearview mirror. Many investors stick with a 40 - 60% allocation to U. S. government or investment grade corporate bonds just because that is what worked in the past. Today, you might want to diversify the bond portion of your portfolio by using other assets that have an equal or higher yield and also have the potential to appreciate. Some examples are: Real Estate Investment Trusts (average yield 3.25%); Oil and Gas Pipelines (ave. yield 6.0%); Covered Call Strategies (ave. yield 6.0%).

     All these asset classes can be purchased easily through ETF's, which are fully liquid and trade just like stocks. However, some may present more complicated tax issues, and different risk profiles, so it's best to consult a financial adviser before jumping into these more sophisticated issues.

     Finally, you can also think globally with your bond allocation -- not to Germany or Spain, but to emerging market debt which has an average yield of 4.4%. Are these markets more risky? Maybe. But many of these countries run budget surpluses, rather than deficits like the U. S., which suggests that they will gain economic strength as time goes on.

     3.  A retiree's income portfolio should always be designed with a total return objective -- as opposed to building it for yield with a "live off the interest and don't touch the principal" strategy. In other words, if someone has, say, a $1 million portfolio, and needs $50,000 per year, many people will buy bonds and other investments with yields of 5% or higher.

     But this can be very dangerous, especially in these days of low interest rates, as many high-yielding investments can be more volatile. You are better off designing a portfolio where you expect a total return of 6 - 7%, but the yield from dividends and interest may only be 3%. This means that you will need to sell some investments and re-balance periodically. There will be years when your portfolio will decline in value and you will be using some of your principal. However, there will also be years when your returns are higher than your long-term average.

     This may seem uncomfortable, but it is likely to give you a higher probability of not outliving your money. And if it makes you more comfortable, this strategy was validated once again by research published in this month's issue of the Journal of Financial Planning.

     4. Your short-term emergency fund money still belongs in the bank -- regardless of any other decisions about your investments, or long-term plans for retirement income, and despite the low interest rates currently being offered. You don't want to incur any risk with the money you need to live on over the next few years. But long-term money should find a better place.

   

Remember Him?

     He was born in Westfield, Alabama, some ten miles west of Birmingham, in 1931, and he later admitted that he sometimes went to school barefoot. But 73 years later, in 2004, he received a Doctorate of Humane Letters from Yale University. He went on in 2007 to receive another doctorate from Dartmouth, and then in 2009 he gave the commencement address at San Francisco State University, and was awarded yet another doctorate in Humane Letters.

    The man's field of expertise, however, was not academics. The three degrees were all honorary. In fact, he never even came close to attending college at all.

He was named after the president

     In Fairfield Industrial High School, he trained to work in a laundry. But his real interest was on the playing fields. He quarterbacked the Fairfield football team, and averaged 20 points a game for the basketball team.

     Baseball was his main sport, however. His father, William Howard (named after William Howard Taft, who was president at the time he was born) worked in the steel mills, and played semi-pro baseball in and around Birmingham. Fairfield High did not have a baseball team, so while still in high school, he played second base and center field alongside his dad in the industrial league, and then he went on to play for the Birmingham Black Barons of the American Negro League.

      Several major league baseball teams sent scouts to watch him play. The Boston Braves wanted to sign him up, right away, but the Birmingham manager wouldn't let him go; and the Braves wouldn't wait, so the deal fell though.

     The Brooklyn Dodgers also came calling. (Jackie Robinson had broken the color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers four years earlier in 1947). But it was the New York Giants that finally signed him, for $4,000, and sent him to play Class B ball in Trenton, NJ. He went hitless for his first four games, but ended the season with 108 hits and a .353 batting average. In 1951 he went up to the Triple A team in Minneapolis. Then, 35 games later, he was called up to the Giants. It was May 24, 1951. He was only 20 years old.

     He started his major league career with no hits in his first 12 at bats. But next time at the plate he pounded a home run off the Braves future Hall of Fame pitcher Warren Spahn, who was interviewed after the game. Spahn cited the distance between home plate and the pitcher's mound of 60 feet, 6 inches, and then told reporters, "Gentlemen, for the first 60 feet, that was a hell of a pitch."

     He came up hitless for another 13 at bats. But after that he went on a tear. He was named  Rookie of the Year, and helped the Giants win the 1951 National League pennant. Actually, the regular season ended with the Giants tied with the Brooklyn Dodgers. He was in the on-deck circle on Oct. 3, 1951 -- when Bobby Thomson hit the Shot Heard 'Round the World against the Dodgers to win the three-game playoff. The Giants went on to the World Series, but lost 4-2 to the Yankees.

     He was drafted in 1952, during the Koran War, and spent about a year and a half playing baseball for the U. S. Army, before returning to the Giants for the 1954 season. The Giants played the Cleveland Indians in the World Series, 60 years ago, and during the first game he made a spectacular over-the-shoulder catch in center field, which prevented two Indians players from scoring, preserved the tie game, and allowed the Giants to go on and win the game -- and the series.

     William Howard Mays -- named after his father, who was named after President William Howard Taft -- was generally considered one of the best players in the history of baseball, winning 12 Gold Glove Awards to go along with his 1956 batting championship, his two Most Valuable Player awards, his 24 All-Star appearances. 

     In 1958, Mays moved with the Giants to San Francisco, where he continued his all-star career. Then in 1972 he went back to New York to play for the fledgling Mets. He played for almost two years, then went on to serve as a hitting and fielding instructor until 1979 -- the year he was elected to the baseball Hall of Fame, in his first year of eligibility.

     Mays was also known to play stickball in his off hours, with kids in the streets of New York, and then he played sandlot ball with kids in San Francisco. He later worked for the Baseball Advisory Board, a nonprofit organization that helps former baseball players with financial or medical problems.

      Today, the number that Willie Mays wore, Number 24, is retired from the San Francisco Giants. The stadium is located at 24 Willie Mays Plaza; and there is a larger-than-life-size statue of the "Say Hey" kid out in front of the stadium. Mays was actually nicknamed Buck when he was younger, but the name Say Hey Kid stuck -- from when he first hit the big leagues and could not remember the names of all his teammates, so when he saw a fellow player, he would call out, "Hey, man. Say hey, man."

     Mays was married twice -- once divorced, once widowed -- and has one child. Today, at age 83, he is still affiliated with the Giants, and is still considered one of the greatest baseball players of all time. A recent Los Angeles Times poll named him the best center fielder in history, beating out Mickey Mantle and Ty Cobb for the position.

     And if you think you can argue with that, take a look at "The Catch" from Sept. 29, 1954.