You wake up with a start. It’s pitch black. You hear an odd noise and than another. We have all been in just such a situation. But this time, in your fuzzy nighttime haze, you note that neither your alarm clock light is on nor the night light in the hall nor the back porch light. How strange. Strange, maybe. Scary, more probable. Now what? What’s your next move? How fast can you react?
In such a potentially dangerous setting, exactly what plan do you have in place for your family? My quick guess is that you have no plan, no plan at all. It is sad but true that most of us are simply reactionary, whether in matters of personal or financial security. It makes little difference as both are intertwined if you are truly in the business of logic, preparation, and strategy. I make no differentiation between personal and financial security. I approach each in precisely the same way, asking where am I most vulnerable, where are my greatest risks? How do I reduce vulnerability and risk to a tolerable minimum? It is impossible to eradicate vulnerability and risk, but with logic, preparation, and strategy, as noted above, you can position yourself to put the odds on your side every time.
I write a lot about inertia as it relates to both personal and financial security. You and I are in the same boat as to inertia. We both know that it is often difficult to translate your best intentions into an actionable model leading to a strategy. If you are a subscriber to
Richard C. Young’s Intelligence Report, you long ago learned how I package a risk-first strategy of portfolio management. Whether personal or financial security, your ability to get off the mark and figuratively or literally pull the trigger is the lynchpin to success. If you share the powerful ability to defeat inertia, you are way ahead of the game as you are in the distinct minority. Looking back at my 2 a.m. night fright scenario, it is long past the time you developed an A-to-Z plan of action. I have done this, and the more I update my plan, the more concern I have on a number of fronts. Quite honestly, personal as well as financial security is a work in progress for all of us. I have decades of experience, but my job is never complete. There are always loose ends, always more to study, and ever-changing conditions to which I must adapt. If you’re anything like me, you are keen on the fast-moving pace of technology. Which means, regardless of the best-laid plans, we are always shooting at a moving target. Your thinking and strategy always needs to be up to date and refined. In upcoming section two of NIGHT FRIGHT, I will begin laying out some of the details of my own home-based personal security plan. Remember, we are looking at an evolving plan—one that needs to be constantly fine-tuned. One facet of the plan I will look at first for you is the subject of night vision optics. I think you will agree that being able to see in a darkened emergency setting offers a real edge. Just check with our military. In advance of my next installment, begin to consider your own vulnerability and risk profile. You will be ahead of the game and most likely ready to kick off a top-down, home-based personal security strategy.
Warm regards,
Dick
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 You can drive yourself crazy preparing for a disaster. Overthinking can be a problem. If you’re checking the exchange rate for Bolivian bolivianos to diversify your U.S. dollars, you’re overthinking.
Keep it simple. Don’t be discouraged by the new web of questions spun every time you check an item off your to-do list. It means you’re making progress. Don’t take for granted how much you’re learning.
Have enough cash for your peace of mind. If you’re losing sleep worrying about safekeeping, then you have too much. Open a safety deposit box, like I have, and keep it there or keep it in your checking account. Cash in your checking account is FDIC insured—$250,000 per person, per account, meaning $500,000 for a joint account.
Back up your survival cash—your U.S. dollars—with something of value. But don’t get too complicated. I backed mine up with gold, silver, and Canadian dollars. I did it in about an hour. You may already have done it through a lifetime of accumulation, whether it’s your collectible car, baseball cards, or diamond ring. Work with what you have.
Crossing off “learn about FDIC protection” on my to-do list created its own list of questions. For one, does FDIC apply to cash at Fidelity Investments or the Vanguard Group? It does not.
Securities in accounts carried by National Financial Services LLC, a Fidelity Investments company, for example, “are protected in accordance with the Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) up to $500,000 (including cash claims limited to $250,000).” But NFS has arranged for additional protection for cash and covered securities to supplement its SIPC coverage. “This additional protection covers total account net equity in excess of the $500,000/$250,000 coverage by SIPC.”
There’s more. NFS added Lloyd’s of London as a provider of excess SIPC coverage up to an aggregate limit of $1 billion. “There is no per account dollar limit on coverage of securities, but there is a per account limit of $1.9 million on coverage of cash awaiting investment. This protection represents the highest level of excess SIPC coverage currently available.” None of this coverage protects against a decline in the market value of securities.
That’s about as clear as wax paper. But I’m comfortable saying Fidelity has your cash covered up to $1.9 million. This doesn’t mean money markets. They can fluctuate in value like a stock or bond—and even fall below your initial investment, which is known as “breaking the buck.” That makes choosing the right money market fund crucial. You see what I mean about the answer to one question leading to another question? I’ll leave that one for another day.
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The Cato Institute is clearly America’s #1 government policy think-tank. My active involvement with the Cato Institute is partially the result of having been associated, if briefly, with Cato Chairman Bob Levy a number of decades ago when we were both in the institutional brokerage arena. Today, Cato is involved in a nasty dispute with the billionaire Koch brothers who, it would appear, want to take over Cato and turn the think-tank into a political beast.
I have never met the highly successful Charles and David Koch and only know them as big time industrialists. The brothers are important supporters of conservative and mostly Republican causes. Over the years, I have found myself most often in agreement with the Koch brothers and have been glad to be on their side.
I want you to read Bob Levy’s outline of the Cato/Koch control dispute linked here. Bob is a Ph.D. and a lawyer, as well as a retired, successful businessman. Bob is 100% committed to the principles of Cato and has zero reason to mislead. In other words, you can believe, without reservation, Bob’s account of the Cato/Koch dispute.
I know you may be confused by what you are reading in the media about the dispute over Cato’s control. If you will concentrate on what I post for you and what you will read from Bob, you’ll be on the right track. Cato’s work is very important to me. I work hard in support of Cato and am saddened about the current circumstances surrounding the think-tank. For Dick Young’s money, under the leadership of Bob Levy and Ed Crane, Cato has done a terrific job for us all and must remain politically unaligned.
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The .50 Beowulf® is the original big bore caliber for AR15 style firearms and remains dominant both in caliber and market share. With more than 10 years of field experience and tens of thousands of rifles in the hands of shooters across the U.S. the Beowulf has proven itself an excellent hunting weapon. Designed to optimize the short range energy the Beowulf has found a home on dusty battlefields in addition to its original role. With a wide variety of ammunition natures from light weight fragmenting to heavy weight solids and steel penetrators the Beowulf is capable of an extremely diverse range of tasks.
-Specifications-
Weapon
- Overall length- fixed stock 34 1/2 inches
- Overall length- collapsilble stock closed 31 1/4 inches
- Overall length- collapsilble stock extended 35 inches
Barrel
- Material- CrMoV phosphated
- Diameter under hand guards 0.980
- Diameter at gas block 0.907
- Diameter at muzzle 0.775
- Length- 16.375 inches
- Rifling- 6 groove
- Twist- 1 in 20
- Muzzle Thread if fitted- 49/64-20tpi
Gas System
- Mid Length 316 stainless hard drawn
Bolt
- ASTM 9310 equivilant, surface refined, case hardened, peened and phosphated
Barrel Extension
Upper
- 7075-T651 forged, Beowulf specific ejection port
Lower
- 7075-T651 forged, AR15 style
Carrier
- Internally honed and hard chromed, M16 type, ATF approved
Source: Alexander Arms
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In a recent Washington Post article, David Ignatius asked Delos “Toby” Cosgrove of the Cleveland Clinic about the changes occurring in the health care marketplace. Although we disagree with Ignatius that Obamacare would be a catalyst for positive change in the market, we do agree that free market reality is forcing changes in health care delivery. A few quotes from Ignatius’ article summarize the major changes happening in the health care market today.
Cleveland Clinic-Sydell and Arnold Miller Family Pavilion
●Hospitals are consolidating. Today, says Cosgrove, 60 percent of hospitals are part of consolidated systems; an example is Cleveland Clinic, which has locations in four states, including its headquarters in Ohio. These systems will keep merging as they drive toward greater efficiency. It’s the same process that happens in every industry, from banking to book retailing. It will make care a little more impersonal — but also cheaper and better.
This rationalization will close small and inefficient community hospitals — one U.S. official estimates that up to 1,000 hospitals should be closed. As a result, we’ll have fewer hospital beds and more outpatient and home care. What’s forcing consolidation is that reimbursements from Medicare are going to be reduced, requiring hospitals to cut costs.
●Doctors are becoming salaried, joining the trend pushed by the Cleveland and Mayo clinics and some other top providers. Today, about 60 percent of doctors nationwide are on salary, up about 10 percent from several years ago. Cosgrove predicts that this will rise to at least 70 percent over the next decade.
Salaried doctors won’t have the same economic incentives to provide expensive treatments that may not make sense for patients. They’ll be paid well (an internist at Cleveland Clinic starts at about $120,000), but they won’t receive the stratospheric salaries that once encouraged many a doc to dream of driving a Porsche.Meanwhile, a shortage of doctors and nurses means that less senior (and less expensive) practitioners are providing more care. A physician’s assistant, increasingly, will treat minor ailments; in operating rooms, says Cosgrove, 40 percent of those present are technicians rather than doctors and nurses.
●Health records are finally going electronic, which should allow additional big savings. It’s an expensive transition (Cleveland Clinic has spent $300 million on electronic records systems over the past decade), but it will pay huge dividends in cheaper and better care.
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In a recent NPR interview, FedEx CEO Fred Smith explained why it is essential to move America away from imported energy sources: “We spend about $70 to $80 billion a year as a country doing that, not just for ourselves, but for the rest of the world as a whole. And that’s even before we get to the $1.3 trillion we’ve spent on Afghanistan and Iraq, and as Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, said pretty plainly, ‘Iraq was about oil.’ Not totally, but … so these are very big issues.”
Smith, a former Marine who founded Federal Express in 1971, has built it into a world leading shipping company. The company owns 700 planes and tens of thousands of trucks and vans. These vehicles burn 1.5 billion gallons of fuel each year.
Smith is working on a three-part strategy to reduce reliance on foreign fuel sources. For smaller trucks and vans Smith wants to move to an all-electric fleet. “An all-electric pickup and delivery van will operate at a 75 percent less per mile cost than an internal combustion engine variant.”
For larger trucks Smith is looking toward liquefied natural gas (LNG) and compressed natural gas (CNG). According to Smith, at current prices the savings could equal 40 percent of diesel costs. “As Cummins and Navistar [Ed. Note: truck engine builders] and these folks put these engines out there, anybody that makes their living driving long-haul trucks, or locally fueled trucks or buses is going to have a powerful incentive.”
The third plank of Smith’s plan is a long-term strategy to develop petroleum free jet fuel. Today’s technology allows scientists to use algae to create jet fuel, but the concept is not yet in use at commercial scale. The Navy has been testing the idea, as are major petroleum producers.
No idea is a panacea. Smith maintains, “You gotta do all of them. You can’t sit on the left or the right of this issue. You’ve got to be willing to maximize our resources and you’ve got to be willing to conserve and transition to non-petroleum-based transportation.”
Smith, also a former member of the board of directors at the Cato Institute, is currently co-chair of the Energy Security Leadership Council. Richardcyoung.com agrees with Smith that America must explore alternatives to petroleum. Not doing so will risk more wars in foreign countries where oil is produced. As Smith correctly concludes, “The most tragic thing is to think about these families that lost these 5,000 wonderful young men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan. The human cost of this reliance on petroleum from unstable and unfriendly parts of the world has cost this country dearly and we need to work as hard as we can to solve this problem.”
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