My Desultory Blog

Posted By RichC on January 26, 2020

graphic credit – Enza Financial

There was an excellent podcast on Charles Schwab‘s WashingtonWise Investor (link) last week with Mike Townsend and Dan Stein that summarized the 2020 changes for those planning their retirement – hopefully everybody. Most of the new changes made by Congress last year in the SECURE Act are based on Americans living and working longer than in the past, hence one of the big changes has to do with RMDs (Required Minimum Distributions) from tax differed accounts used by Americans in saving for retirement (IRAs, 401Ks, etc). Oh, if you are wondering about the Washington DC acronym SECURE, it is: Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement.

The big change from my perspective is when we are required to take money out (and begin to pay taxes on) retirement savings that has been put aside pre-tax. Prior to the SECURE Act in 2020, that age as been 70½. Under the new law, you do not have to take distributions until the year you turn 72. The new rule gives more time for your retirement savings to grow before you need to begin drawing it down. That dollar amount come from an IRS published table based on life expectancy and the amount saved. Under the current rules, your first few RMDs are less than 4% of the account value, but they escalate as you get older, getting closer to 7% of the account value by age 85 and close to 9% by age 90.This is important because distributions from traditional retirement plans are taxed as ordinary income, so as the size of your distributions increase, your tax burden may as well.

Probably the other big change is how "inherited" IRAs are handled. Under current law, non-spouse designated beneficiaries can take distributions over their life expectancy, but for many retirement account owners who pass away in 2020 and beyond, beneficiaries will have ‘only’ 10 years to empty the account.

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Category: Financial | No Comments »
Tags: 401k, ira, planning, retirement, rmd, saving, secure act, taxes

Posted By RichC on January 25, 2020

EDIT – A Boeing 777X airliner lifts off for its first flight at Paine Field on January 25, 2020 in Everett, Washington. Getty images – Stephen Brashear

The new Boeing 777X enters the next phase of its rigorous test program. Based on the most successful twin-aisle airplane ever, the Boeing 777, and with advanced technologies from the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, the 777X will be the largest and most fuel efficient twin-engine jet in the world, with an exceptional passenger experience.

LINK

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Category: Aviation, Video | No Comments »
Tags: $BA, 777X, aviation, boeing

Posted By RichC on January 24, 2020

Just your average PSA guys. Just because you use jack stands, doesn’t mean you’re safe. Always throw something else under the car if you’re going to be under it.

My father and I just had a trusty old jack stand fail. Folded right over unexpectedly, luckily he was just rotating tires at the time, so no one was under the car. 2019 Subaru Forester with 6k miles resting on its rotor at front tow hook point. Luckily no damage at all, and thank whatever deity is out there that no one was underneath.

I’ll clarify- these are super old 1.5 ton stands that my father has used for 20 years. Not my first choice, I use HF 3 and 6 ton.

Category: Automotive, Social Media | No Comments »
Tags: aaron peters, facebook, jack stands, psa, social network, subaru

Posted By RichC on January 23, 2020

It has taken years, but I’ve finally decided to move my woodworking bench dogs from the tool tray (see below).

A bench dog is an accessory used on a woodworking workbench to allow clamping of wooden items while being worked or planed.

Ever since building my work table and vices with bench dogs back in the 1980s, I’ve stored the homemade oak and maple “pegs” (dogs) on end in a can or cut off pipe. Unfortunately they stick up too high out of the tool tray or if I put them on their side, they get buried. I thought about eliminated the storage tray, but it is a tradition place to put a few tools off the table’s surface while working on a project and “would” still be nice to have if I used it properly (it is forever a catchall).

The problem with the bench dogs stick up above the table’s surface is that they are in the way when working on projects that extended over the edge of the table. It happen again last weekend when taking apart a few antique Christmas displays inherited from Brenda’s parents, so I had it with moving them. Finally, I took 20 minutes and a few pieces of scrap oak, I added a spot to the side of the table where they are handy, yet below the surface. Now the work table’s surface is flat and clear from any vertical items sticking out of the tool tray … something that should have been done decades ago!

I also left enough room for a small square, but dislike the aluminum adjustable bevel square, so might try to find a simple small antique Brass and Rosewood Try Square … stay tuned (I sort of wish Brenda’s furniture-maker grandfather would have passed one down).

Category: Archive, Personal, Photos, Tools, Woodworking | No Comments »
Tags: bench dogs, clamps, storage, table, tools, try square, woodworking, workbench, workshop

Posted By RichC on January 22, 2020

Just how big is an African Crowned Eagle’s talons? BIG!!!

A wider-view photo below …

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Category: Environment, Nature, Photos | No Comments »
Tags: africa, african, bid bird, birds, crowned, eagle, eagle-hawk, fist, hand, nature, talon

Posted By RichC on January 21, 2020

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Category: Automotive, Blogs, Business, Memories, Personal, Photos | No Comments »
Tags: annalyn, aurora, automotive, cars, cozy coupe, hemmings, hudson, jim mariol, little tikes, newell, ohio, rubbermaid, university of cincinnati

Posted By RichC on January 20, 2020

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Category: Archive, Environment, Memories, Music, Nature, Travel | No Comments »
Tags: good riddance, green day, hiking, maps, mp3, Music, music monday, musicmonday, national parks, road trip, time of your life, traveling

Posted By RichC on January 18, 2020

While working on post highlighting the DJIA crossing 29,000, I realized that the stock market has blown through that milestone and is rocketing towards 30,000 and that I’ll have to start over (probably a “worry-wart” post is coming).

One of the big contributors to this Dow Jones Industrial Average is Apple ($AAPL). It just continues to trade higher. The fact that CEO Tim Cook has learned to put his personal politics aside and work with President Trump certainly doesn’t hurt when gaining favor with US trade negotiations with China. Of course the entire economy benefits with lowered tensions and tariffs, but those who play the game best are the ones who work within the system. Apple is doing this pretty well considering.

On the other hand, passing and signing big trade deals like USMCA between the US, Mexico and Canada and getting phase one in place with China doesn’t hurt either. Personally, I suspect those foreign leaders playing hardball with the US are beginning to think the election in November favors  President Trump … where as they may have been waiting out his term believing a Democrat would be easier to manipulate into a more favorable deal?
(speculation on my part)

All in all, the economy is still holding up well (housing starts up today) and companies who already have a great product AND know how to play ball in today’s divisive political culture, will come out ahead … ahead so much so that I’ve humorously added a Post-It Note to the AAPL chart on my computer monitor (photo left).

Also while thinking about how Apple’s CEO Tim Cook worked with leaders in China and “likely” a leader he doesn’t particulaly see eye to eye with in the US (President Trump), this bit of sage advice that I jotted down a while ago came to mind:

A wise senior business leader once said, “It is impossible to prosper when there is war. You must seek peace first; then you will prosper.”

So .. the sooner you make peace with your adversary, you’ll be able to refocus you energy on mutually beneficial outcomes.

Category: Advice, Apple, Computer, Financial, Humor, News | No Comments »
Tags: aapl, advice, apple, charts, china, deal, djia, economy, financial markets, Humor, investing, News, notes, post-it, quote, stocks, trade, trading, usmca

Posted By RichC on January 17, 2020

Back in the late 1980s when I was starting in the commercial printing and eventually ‘small time’ publishing business (Consolidated Printing and Publishing Co), I didn’t realize how far ahead of the game we were when focusing on the subscription model. Early on we were able to capitalize on few people in the printing industry being computer savvy, so when Aldus Pagemaker (now Adobe) and the Apple Macintosh computer came out, I was able to build “newsletter” templates for customers who were told to stay in touch and/or market to their customers with regular mailings. This was before email or the world wide web, so correspondence was either in person (sales calls) or by using the phone or mail. Eventually we had a decent string of regularly published newsletters and just needed the fresh content to fill the pages (fill the templates).

Fast forward 30 years and the subscription business model has taken over when it comes to technology. Now we pay monthly or yearly for our internet connection and wireless, our software licenses and hardware. We pay for cloud subscriptions that offer everything from online apps to data storage and virus detection. Magazines and newspapers are still focused on the subscription model too … but are likely delivered as digital content to a phone, tablet or connected computer device rather than printed on paper. Music, audio and video that were once purchased on vinyl, tape, cds, dvd or digital files, are now subscribed to with any number of streaming services which automatically bill monthly or annually. The number of subscriptions continue to rise and are likely straining tight budgets.

Do you want to eat this month or pay for your subscriptions? Where is your limit? 

On a lighter note, my 2010 BMW X5 35d is ready for some service as it has just rolled past 180,000 miles … unless odometers no longer roll?

Category: Apple, Automotive, BMW, Business, Cloud, Computer, Financial, Personal, Photos, Software, Technology | No Comments »
Tags: adobe, aldus, apple, BMW, Business, cloud, Computer, cpp, cppnet, cppnet.com, macintosh, model, odometer, pagemaker, printing, publishing, streaming, subscriptions, tech friday, techfriday, x5 35d

Posted By RichC on January 16, 2020

While soring through my office file cabinet to make room for more current folders, I ran across an old lease contract and photo from an “almost happened” business decision. It would have been a decision and a location move that may have changed our future and had ripple effects even for the lives of my kids (like those “time machine” movies).

Flash back to 1986, when I was running a part time printing business out of our garage and basement when we were in our small Aurora-Hudson Road house. I worked a day job primarily in sales and then rebuilt printing presses and ran small print jobs in the evening.

Eventually we decided that it was time to either sink or swim and that I should go into my own business full time. So in 1985, I paid NAPL for some research to understand where commercial printing services were needed and what city offered the best location for a commercial printing business to succeed. I don’t recall all the locations, but remember that our decision came down to either Raleigh/Durham NC or Port St Lucie, FL – not Ohio. Having a sailboat, we opted for Port St. Lucie and put our house on the market at the same time I quit my job, we were having our first child and Brenda would be staying home a few months before going back to work … in a new location! Gulp … but being young, naïve and “without children” had us thinking this was a good plan (Brenda’s parents even sat us down to make sure we had thought this through .. but we opted to forge ahead).

So the week our daughter Katelyn arrived, I headed south leaving Brenda and Katelyn in our SOLD house with Brenda’s mom for the week in our $500 high-mile 1970-something Chevy Caprice wagon. I haul everything that a moving van would not take plus a few tools to get ready to start the business … and find a place to live since the buyers were closing on our current home. It was stressful.

Upon arriving at the commercial unit (photo above), where I previously put down a $700 deposit and had signed off on the remodeling plans, I found out the landlord had left the country. Seriously … he went to the Bahamas. He under investigation for tax fraud and was being sought by the IRS. My deposit was gone, no work was done, I could get the keys to the space to start working on my own and 1000 miles away in Florida without my wife and newborn daughter was the last place I wanted to be.

We made the decision to drop the moving idea and instead looked for a house in Hudson, kept my job a little longer and then the following year with a severance package (Knight-Ridder closed our Ohio office), started Consolidated Printing and Publishing Co after remodeling a freestanding commercial building in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio in 1987 (photo below). 

And as they say, the rest is history … and a history without any regrets! 

Category: Idioms, Memories, Personal, Photos, TBT | No Comments »
Tags: Business, contract, cpp, cppnet.com, florida, idiom, idioms, Memory, port st lucie, printing, stress, TBT, throwback, thursday