A Step Back From Crisis
And breathe... count to 10 slowly. We want to reflect on three of the central philosophies of Retirement Millionaire – ones that are being reinforced and proven true by the events happening today. And we can use those ideas to help us get through our current challenges. Philosophy No. 1: DON’T RELY ON ‘BIG’ ANYTHING No institution cares about you and your family as much as you do. The government, Wall Street, the health care industry... you can’t count on any of them to protect your best interests. I’ve been living my life with this view for decades. We’ve been saying it for years in this newsletter. And it’s never been easier to see it in our everyday lives. Any study of history or biology showed that a serious epidemic was inevitable... It was only a question of when it would strike. The government should have been better prepared for a pandemic. It should have reacted quicker. It could have put the needs of the people ahead of its public relations concerns. But it didn’t. And now, people are struggling. The government has enacted a $2 trillion economic aid package. And Congress is already talking about spending trillions more. But how much is coming to you directly? We’d wager not much. And naturally, the deployment of the aid is already running into problems.
Small-business owners have had trouble getting the loans prescribed by the bill. They must choose between taking a loan that’s only forgivable if they don’t let their workers go ... and helping some workers by firing them so they can collect a special higher unemployment benefit. And of the $2 trillion aid package, $500 billion goes straight to big corporations. At the same time, the Federal Reserve has started buying up investment-grade corporate bonds. We’re not sure how lending support to the largest corporations with the safest balance sheets really helps us... We don’t want to burrow into the details of policy choices being made or what steps our politicians should or shouldn’t take now that the crisis is at hand... Here at Retirement Millionaire , we want to focus on you personally. We’re concentrating on helping you take control of your health and wealth, so you can protect the things that matter to you more than anything. Now, here’s the good part... You can count on family and you can count on community. During times of crisis, communities don’t break apart. They pull together. We’ve seen stories of people sewing and donating face masks... people delivering food to neighbors... people paying service workers for jobs-not-rendered in isolation... folks buying gift certificates to provide a cash infusion to restaurants... and plenty more. And we can’t even begin to recount the bravery of our health care workers.
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May 2020
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