Usually I don't start threads. I saw a thread in prschology that mentioned persistence re making money. I use 8 doublings of money velocity as my model for going from novice to expert. For me all making of money is based upon the compound interest folmula with the one caveat that you take your inital capital out to elminate every having to lose money over your wealth building career. I suggest it for psychololgical reasons. I looked at the author's bio of the persistence article and the statement Baron made when he through me out of ET because a group of like minded people could not handle the three thinkgs they determined for Baron that I did here. See just below. bubba7 / Jack Hershey has been banned due to numerous complaints from other members recently. As a result, this thread has been closed. Keep in mind that although we have moderators, ET is largely self-regulated. So if I get an abnormal number of complaints from other members about the same user being disruptive, annoying, abusive, etc., then that user is gonna get booted out - no questions asked. Right now I am being disruptive, annoying and abusive to those involved with Medicare D. I am old so I get mail from SSA and CMS. I also read stuff and at this point it has taken me to a point where I am revealing whats wrong and I am providing a small persistent cure for the problem a la the style of thinking of the guy whose bio I mentiioned just above. I will do a series of post here to play out the problem and the solution. Here is the context. The SSA and the CMS each have their stove pipes. They do not cross link. SS and Medicare are in trouble in the US. I have had to build a paradigm to solve the current problems. This week I doubled the salaries locally and I am adding two staff every two days at this point including Sundays. I will do a series of posts of scanned documents and notes and at the end post a copyrighted set of two pages that SSA and CMS have written to me that they will preserve as my property. A week ago at the request of the regional SSA I granted persmission to them to allow their weekend staffing at pharmacies to give me as a referral instead of the local 501 (C) (3) which owrks to solve the general SSA and CMS problems in lieu of those who "sell" plans from the private sector. Just let me post a series of attachments to paint the picture.
Here are the two stovepipes and the client base. the SSA has "extra Help" based ONLY upon income and resourses. The CME has a Medicare D beased upon a progression of dectibles (250), copays (25/75), a doughnut hole, and catastrophic help (5/95). the client base is 45 million approximately. See attachment.
Harvard check out the scene. 61 percent of the eligibles have decided to skip it for reasons stated. Next you will see some more newspaper articles that back up the Harvard conclusions. The Tucson Daily Star has made over 27 errors so far presenting the Medicare D stuff. See the attachment with Harvard's facts.
the harvard commentary is a pdf file; others would not work or were too blurry. It says tha 61% of the eleigibles "had little or no understanding of how Part D would work. I will redo the article and get it posted. Maybe someone can get a connection to the Kaiser Familt Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health report on this. Now I want to turn to the local causes of this lack of success on the part of CMS and SSA to get Medicare Part D the prescription drug program across to the public. Here is the first Q and A I want you to consider. I will comment on my conversations with ADS (Arizona Daily Star in the next post.
Grob i agree with your comment about taking your initial capital out of trading once you have replaced those funds through earnings with whatever profitable trading system you use. one thing i did years ago when i did just that was to take my initial capital out {i put it into a portfolio i set-up of several safe instruments that i am comfortable with}. now one thing i have done in addition to this each EOM {end of month} is to take 1% of my total trading accounts value and shift that into the portfolio that i created ---- kind of a "pay myself first" mentality after the gains at the EOM are now "accounted for" in my various trading accounts. after all the years of doing this it has amazed me how fast this side portfolio builds/compounds and you are right --- there is a very good psychological feeling/effect to this practice. the side additional affect for me is to work extra hard and return in the next 30 days through profits, what i have removed the previous month while still building my trading accounts net worth {my minimum trading goal for my trading accounts is 3% growth per month after all expense}. and whatever you are talking about here with medicare or ssn you are probably right --- they are in shambles.
So my local paper thinks that a 7% penalty on a 30 dollar a month premium is 14.70. Naturally I called the cell phone of the financial editor with whom I work occassionally. since I am a finalist judge for the national business school competition hosted by the private sector and held on the local UA campus, I am a known quantity. the editor of the Q and A section is not the financial editor, however. She called to speak with me at the financial editor's request. As a warm up drill for the four mistakes you see in that Q and A, I suggested that she imagine a lunch date where she was paying 30 bucks for lunch and half her usual tip of 15%. I asked what the tip would be. She said she did not have time to chat about lunch tips. I then suggested that 14.70 would be a high value for a lunch tip. She suggested we get back to the Q and A. I asked if 14.70 was 7 % of 30 dollars as stated. She siad she did not know but that they had expert resourses in Washington with CMS and she would call them about it. A correction was printed the next day and I did not receive the call back promised. Not were the other three mistakes in the Q and A corrected Ready for the next one?
Here is a fun Q and A on discount cards for prescriptions and just how they relate to the doughnut hole. As you know the doughnut hole is a federal invention that take a Medicare user from the end of the copays to the beginning of catastrophic coverage. It looks like a Congressional committee was meeting over coffee and had to think up a name for this gap in coverage. Do you think someone said "pass the doughnuts,please?"
So now you get to see the writer's mentality for helping seniors get across the doughnut hole. She and her editor feel that it is best to get across as fast as possible to reach the catastrophic level of coverage. She feels getting there fastest is done by NOT using a discount card like the Copperstate card the State of Arizona offers. It is best to pay 100% for your drugs after the copay ends and get quickly to the catastrophic level where you only pay 5% and the government pays 95%. This, of course is the opposite of which should be done to save money foir the year on prescriptions. the executive editor, the business editor, the Q and A editor and the writer are sticking with thier guns on this one. Whom have I talked to who feels that they are incorrect. SSA regional director CMS regional Director Senator McCains staff (economics major) One exception so far: Congressman Kolbe's flunky. He could not use nor read the results of using his calculator to get a 7% tip on a 30 dollar lunch. (three tries).