I, like many others my wonderful wife and I know in Arizona, am suffering from bad allergy symptoms at the moment. “Well, why don’t you take something?”
I recently had to discontinue a prescription medication for allergies because I developed side effects such as disturbed sleep patterns. OTC antihistamines are a no-go due to other side effects. Nasal steroid sprays literally make me ill. Nasal antihistamine sprays destroy my sense of taste. I’m not bringing a knife to a gun fight; I am totally unarmed.
Yes, of course I wash my face regularly and use nasal saline. Those steps don’t come close to giving me long-lasting, meaningful symptomatic relief. Oh, the Navage device I recently purchased now only works intermittently. Also, using it as directed–twice a day–caused my Meniere’s Disease symptoms to worsen. Rock, meet hard place.
The first 12-16 months I lived in California, my body had such a reaction to “new” allergens that I often had a low-grade fever and chills. Thankfully, those reactions diminished.
As my current ENT practice keeps telling me, seasonal allergies are not life-threatening. However, QUALITY of life matters, not just quantity. It’s like people obsessed with counting calories; it’s not just about the quantity of the calories one consumes, the quality also matters.
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According to this CNBC article titled, “The great wealth transfer is underway. Here’s how to prepare,” an estimated $84 trillion in wealth will change in hands by 2045. No, socialists and communists, that money does not belong to you or to the government.
Most of the assets will be inherited by members of the Gen X and Millennial groups. You know, I can’t keep these groups straight in my head, so I looked them up. Gen X is the group born after the Baby Boomers of the immediate post-World War II period, so Gen Xers were born, roughly, from 1965 to 1980. Millennials were born after that, roughly from 1981 to 1996.
Like the many anecdotes about poor people winning millions in a lottery only to be bankrupt not long thereafter, I wonder if these generations are equipped to handle large inheritances. For example, I suspect millennials think they are financially savvy, but wonder how they would do on a finance quiz.
In general, Americans do not understand finances very well. Here are three questions offered by Professors Annamaria Lusardi and Olivia Mitchell:
1. Suppose you had $100 in a savings account and the interest rate was 2% per year. After five years, how much do you think you would have in the account if you left the money to grow?
2. Imagine that the interest rate on your savings account was 1% per year and inflation was 2% per year. After one year, with the money in this account, would you be able to buy more or less?
3. Do you think the following statement is true or false? Buying a single company stock usually provides a safer return than a stock mutual fund.
In 2021, only 30% of Americans could correctly answer all three questions. What’s worse is that people taking the quiz thought they had financial knowledge, giving themselves an average score of 5.1 on a 7-point scale in terms of such knowledge.
Of course, many people overrate their own abilities, that’s just human nature. However, when it comes to money such a disparity between actual and perceived knowledge can prove to be disastrous.
I am, of course, a Baby Boomer as is my wonderful wife. My parents came to America in the late 1950s with virtually nothing and, as such, I inherited virtually nothing from them. Whatever I have I have more than earned. Learning how money and investing work is a huge reason why we are debt-free and in good financial shape. I just wonder if those soon to inherit wealth will know what to do with it.
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A comment from Dirty Dingus McGee in yesterday’s post got this response from me: I believe I also have eclectic tastes in automotive design. How else can my affinity for the 1958-60 Rambler American 2-door or the Buick Reatta be explained?
I am not a fan of knee-jerk behavior of any kind. I believe, for example, that being a knee-jerk contrarian is no more insightful or profound than being a knee-jerk conformist. I don’t think I have a rote affinity for oddball cars; I just like what I like.
I am enamored of many cars considered to be design classics, but–again–also seem to have some oddball tastes. Here are two of those oddballs, one of which is mentioned above.
The top photo shows a 1959 Rambler American while the bottom shows the one-year only (1991) Nissan Figaro. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, or beer holder as Dirty Dingus McGee wrote in his comment from yesterday. If one is willing to buy a car with some miles on it, a Figaro can be purchased for less than $20,000. Apparently, some of these that were purchased were put away and not driven much, if at all.
Only 8,000 were supposed to be produced, but demand for the Figaro was such that Nissan ended up building 20,000 of them. While I have seen a few here, they were all built with right-hand drive and I don’t think the US was part of Nissan’s intended market for the car.
As someone who is not tall (I’m 5’7″ while the average American male is 5’9″ or 5’10”) access and egress for the Figaro is not difficult for me at all. No, I am not about to buy a Figaro, but who knows what the future might bring?
#AllergiesInOctober
#LackOfFinancialLiteracy
#OddballCars