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I was reading an article yesterday in the latest issue (Dec 31, 2018) of Barron's magazine. It is about a study and a Dec 17 report in the Journal of American Medical Association-Internal Medicine "JAMA" finding suggestive evidence that doctors misdiagnose patients to enrich themselves. “ The...

The year is not over but I am pretty happy with the bond market returns as of now. Vanguard Total Bond Market Index is showing -0.24% today. When I did a back-of-the-envelope calculation at the beginning of the year, I thought that with a duration of about 6 years, 4 quarter point increases...

I enjoyed reading this article. The content will not surprise anybody here. "We went to a steak dinner annuity pitch. The salesman wasn't pleased". https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/30/your-money/retirement-annuities-steak-dinner.html?smid=tw-nytimesbusiness&smtyp=cur

It slipped my mind that there was a $10,000 limit on the purchase of I Bonds in any one year. I made three purchases of $5,000 on different dates this year, and didn't realize my mistake till the Treasury Dept sent me an e-mail very recently pointing out my mistake. When I browsed the...

I asked Fidelity RIP to estimate our (2 person) medical expenses yesterday. I saw their estimate of (Medical+Dental+Vision) jumped from below $2100 at the beginning of the year to around $2750 now. I was definitely surprised. The jump was mainly due to medical insurance cost estimates ($1165 per...

"Article: Safeguarding your wealth from the effects of cognitive decline" - seems like a good article...

I did see references to Roomba but the threads were quite dated. We are looking at getting one (hardwood flooring and a few rugs). We are considering the Eufy. Has anybody used this one? And/or do you have other recommendations for robot vacuum cleaners...

Does anyone here know how often the Vanguard Balanced Index fund does its balancing between the Total Stock Index and Total Bond Index to keep it at its target 60/40 balance? Daily? If daily, that might explain its (relatively) higher expense ratio of 0.07% compared to the 0.04% and 0.05% of the...

I keep hearing that we are in a bear bond market. What is a commonly accepted definition of a bear bond market? How do one KNOW that we are in one?

Yesterday DW got a message (with RED background) on her phone (around 7:45 PM) saying that her connection to the WiFi network had been compromised. I couldn't figure it out, but I did find an update to the Linksys router firmware was available and updated my router firmware. I also updated the...

After a long break (40 years) I plan to start playing bridge again. Initially rubber and perhaps much later duplicate. With humans, face to face. I was curious as to whether any of you had tried (and would recommend) bridge computer games so that I can get re-familiarized with the game. Ideally...

The source is usually reliable but I would still like to get one (or more) opinion(s) to confirm this. Source: Kiplinger's Money Facts If you did not itemize deductions on last year's federal return, don't report a state tax refund as income on this year's return.

Have any of you used the services at Dental Express Ajijic? I would welcome feedback on that or other dental places in the Lake Chapala area. We will be taking a holiday in summer (CR and Mexico). Yesterday DW visited her dentist for a regular cleaning and was told some required work (4...

Are we allowed to sign up for Obamacare now, but have it start in June 2017? If yes, do I need to go to one of the consultants/facilitators to get this done or can I do this myself through Healthcare.gov?

I am new at this, and would like some advice/feedback. Let's say I have this target asset allocation. Stocks 60-65 Bonds 25-30 Cash 5-10 For simplicity, assume the stocks and bonds are all in a tax-deferred IRA. There should be little or no tax consequences for making changes. If...

I do not want this to become a discussion of politics in these states. This article discusses why ACA in one state is not doing well, while ACA in another state is doing reasonably well. The approaches in the two states have apparently made a huge difference. For example, "active purchaser"...

I recently bought a 4 qt Crockpot slow cooker. My attempt is to cook beans. Red kidney beans, black beans, garbanzo beans aka chick peas Most of the recipes that I found on the Internet seem to show that cooking at high heat for 3, 4, maybe 6 hours is enough. My experience: red kidney beans -...

A question to the administrators) is whether there is a way to force "None of the above" into every poll through the poll software, since the person starting a poll doesn't seem to think of it too often.

I have a question about long term capital gain taxes. Consider this scenario for year 2016. Sell a taxable mutual fund in 2016, with ST gains of 1K and LT gains of 19K. Withdraw 30K of IRA in 2016. IRA is tax-deferred IRA, and withdrawals are taxable. All numbers were rounded to thousands...

My understanding of ACA HSA plans after retirement is still poor. I had a 401-k that has now been transferred into an IRA. Let's say I withdraw $10K from that rollover IRA, $5K for medical expenses and $5K for other expenses. Normally $10K would be taxed. Q1. Can I put the first $5K into a HSA...

Is there a way to capture all the posts in a particular thread? I was looking at a discussion yesterday and today about dental plan insurance, and I will face the same problem next year. It was an informative discussion. I would like to capture the discussion in a text file so that I can share...

I was reading an article in BusinessWeek about a book "The Hidden Wealth of Nations" by Gabriel Zucman. He is an economics professor at University of California at Berkeley, and he is a protege of Piketty. The first paragraph of the article in BW says "Inequality is even greater than previous...

I have a cheap ($15) Kyocera phone that cannot download apps. I have a Windows 7 PC. Can anybody here recommend a Whatsapp for PC that works, and is reasonably safe from viruses, spyware, malaware etc The one I tried late yesterday night from download.cnet.com had a version of Whatsapp that...

I got a letter in the mail a couple of days ago (and a second one for DW) saying they had been hacked May 26 2015 and our data had been compromised. I had never heard of this company but Google search showed this link "Medical Informatics Engineering discloses data breach" details at Medical...

I just saw this article at Yahoo http://finance.yahoo.com/news/minting-millionaires-nearly-million-joined-114404552.html Then I gave some thought to how they define a millionaire and saw this in Wikipedia, one definition includes the house/property and another does not...