10.13.22: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

10.13.22: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Producer:
Any examples used are for illustrative purposes only and do not take into account your particular investment objectives, financial situation or needs, and may not be suitable for all investors. It is not intended to predict the performance of any specific investment and is not a solicitation or recommendation of any investment strategy.

Producer:
Welcome to Your Retirement Unbroken with your host, Merrit Strunk. Merrit is a licensed fiduciary and financial advisor who always places your needs first. Merrit works hard each day to educate Americans like you on how to reach the financial freedom they've worked so hard for. And he can help you, too. So now let's start the show. Here's Merrit Strunk...

Merrit Strunk:
All right. Welcome to the Retirement Unbroken show. I am your host, Merrit Strunk. And I am the president of Momentum Financial here in San Diego. And to the unbroken nation, I just want to welcome Matt McClure, our producer. How you doing, Matt?

Producer:
I'm doing great, Merrit. How are you?

Merrit Strunk:
I'm doing fantastic, actually. Quite well. Quite well. And to all the listeners of the Retirement Unbroken Nation here, then you've heard this before, but if you're a new listener, we'll just bring it on board for you, which is our mission here is to transform our listeners into more educated, more equipped and financially savvy individuals so that you can make better financial decisions for your future and unlock what is possible for your financial future. So the truth of it is, folks, is that for many, many people out there, their retirement is already broken. They just don't know it yet. The only way they're going to realize that is in the future. It's in the future where they start running out of money and then it go, you know what? Something's not right here. We're going to have to cut our spending. And I hope we don't run out of money. That happens to a lot of people statistically and research over and over and over again. It backs this up. So here's a peek at what's coming up on the show. We're going to cover what's going on in the markets and just touch on that briefly. And we're going to talk about a problem solver, how we helped a couple in retirement get greater income than what they were doing. They were a little bit afraid of, you know, spending their retirement income. We are going to dive into Medicare and the parts of Medicare because it's AEP, which is the annual enrollment period.

Merrit Strunk:
And we need to hit that again and talk about how smart retirees kick the IRS out of their retirement. And we're going to cover the three P's politics, profits and peak inflation. Let's just hit on what's going on in the markets today. You know, we were green for a while. And then right as the market was closing, we went right into red. It was slid right into red, right into pessimism. Once again, the Dow is down, the S&P is down, the Nasdaq is down, global Dow is down, gold is down and oil is down. You know, normally we see a little peek in in that oil situation. It's been that energy and staples have been a highlight on the market for the year as everything else is looking quite red. All those indexes that we just listed there are all under 1% in terms of it's negative territory. So the hotter than inspected US price index readings and that CPI, that's inflation have triggered some of the stock market's biggest one day sell offs in 2022, serving to get all investors focused ahead on the latest measure. And that's coming manana. It's coming on Thursday, right? So we're recording on Wednesday here. It's going to be on Thursday and they're going to release the next inflation numbers. And that's what the market is worried about. So the CPI, reading from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which tracks the prices paid by us for goods and service and groceries and everything else, it's expected to show an 8.1.

Merrit Strunk:
That is a rise from a year earlier, but slowing from 8.3 year over year that we saw in August. So this is coming from the survey of economist by Dow Jones. And so let's say the S&P is close to down right about 25 and some change year to date. So that's that's giving you kind of a reading on how inflation being the thing everybody is talking about has really dragged down the market. So according to data track research, the saying the most single days on the market that that are responsible for the market's decline occurred on or around the CPI reports and fed and fed related events. So two of the SAP's nine largest down days this year have come on days when the CPI data was released. Without those nine days, the S&P would have been up 8.6% year to date through the end of last week. So I'll just tell you, you know, related to inflation, everybody's looking at it. And that's where the Fed is taking its lead, whether they're going to do large draconian increases in the Fed lending rates or not. So that brings us to a great quote that we're going to share with you on financial wisdom. Enough of the yuck. Let's get into some fun. Mat honors are yours.

Producer:
And now for some financial wisdom, it's time for the Quote of the Week.

Producer:
Yeah, we do love to share some great financial wisdom from some folks who really do know what they're talking about here. And one of those people is John Bogle, otherwise known as Jack Bogle, just an absolutely stellar American investor and philanthropist of Vanguard fame. He credited with creating the first index fund as well, avid investor and money manager, of course, and preached investment over speculation. And that really does fall in line, as you were saying, Merrit, with exactly what we're talking about today. And this very apropos quote from John Bogle is if you have trouble imagining a 20% loss in a stock market, you shouldn't be in stocks.

Merrit Strunk:
Right. If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. If you can't lose money, get out of Vegas. So I got you. That has a lot to do with your risk tolerance and your psychological mindset in terms of investing. And that risk tolerance can change depending on who you are, how you're brought up, your socialization, your tolerance for risk, losing value and your age and your financial horizon. So as we get older, we have lower risk tolerance. Low and behold, many times we we work with folks and we find out they're overexposed to market risk. And they shouldn't be. If you don't know what your market risk is and you're playing Vegas here, go ahead and give us a call. You can go to a RetirementUnbroken.comand give us a call. Talk about your risk tolerance. Figure out what's a better plan for you.

Producer:
It's time for this week's problem solver.

Merrit Strunk:
Okay, That brings us up to an actual case here. We are working with a couple. There were older there, there ages or 80 and 83, and they're in the middle of their retirement and they started to get worried about their spending. You know, one of the worst things you could do is outspend yourself in retirement. So spending too much and this is quite common amongst folks who are in retirement, especially around eighties, is whether substantiated or not, they may be thinking, well, save, save, save, spend, spend, thrift or thrift because we don't have enough money. That may be true. It may not be true. And it would be a false false sort of reading on their part. So they came to us. We're taking a look at and upon inspection, we often talk about smart inspection as a great thing to do. It looks like they were overinvested in bonds and they had about 25% of their portfolio in those bonds since the start of 2022. Very, very common. And they didn't know that they could update. They also had an income annuity. You know, they didn't know they could update their annuity. Right. So what we did in terms of trying to ascertain some solutions or what's the best course of action for their income situation and retirement, they asked us to evaluate their annuity, amongst other things. And so we do what we call an annuity x ray, and we were able to show them all the possible options for upgrading to a more suitable solution for them. So we selected the best option that nearly doubled their annuity income payout from where they were about 32000 to 61000.

Merrit Strunk:
So can you imagine how happy they were? That's a big increase. So in that situation, just to remind it, they will pay no fees for this portion of their portfolio and they'll receive that income that they can start using right away. They don't they don't need to worry as much about spinning anymore because they got a huge raise and they can plan for what they what what to expect here. So for a couple in their eighties, this is a gigantic deal, as you can imagine. And we're so happy that we could help that family out. Can we help you take a look at some of your income income options for retirement? So just give us a call at 858521 9700 or go to retirement unbroken website and you can reach out to us that way. You know, it's often been said that the happiest happiest retirees are ones that know that they have guaranteed income. So we find too, that many couples in retirement have that like we talked about, that fear of outspending themselves of their hard earned money. So and I think an interesting point here is there are a lot of misinformation about that particular solution that we talked about. So investors that use annuities don't they didn't lose a penny during the financial crisis of 2008. Remember that called the Great Recession And they didn't lose a penny due to market volatility and they haven't lost a penny in 2022. That's just the way these things are structured. The consumer cannot bear the market risk. That's the way the rules are and that's the way it set up.

Merrit Strunk:
So even though the market is down 25% or more this year, if a couple has an annuity for income and they are having as a part of their overall strategy the different buckets of their of their assets, they're not going to take a hit there. So some people call it a no loss provision. I don't think it's called that and all the paperwork. But that's that's really the way it kind of works. It helps to position it in your head. So that brings us to what's going on right now. And October 15th to December the seventh is Medicare's annual enrollment period. So everyone over 65 in general, if they're not working anymore, Right, is needing insurance of some sort, health care insurance. And so Medicare is the federal insurance for those folks who are retired or after 65 and no longer working. So we're going to try to make some sense of this, although we've done several shows about Medicare, this is the right time to review it with our listeners here. So it does affect everyone. Even if you are younger than 65 or are still working and not yet there, you may have parents or grandparents who. Participate in Medicare and it can be confusing. So we're going to do a smart health analysis of this and share this with you. And here we go. So there's different parts and options. So do you happen to know how many Americans, Matt, are living in America? Do you know how many folks those are, give or take?

Producer:
Well, let's see how many people live is it 300 and some odd million, right? 373, 60, something like that?

Merrit Strunk:
Yeah. You're spot on there, buddy. You do your research. Good job.

Producer:
I try

Merrit Strunk:
So, yeah, about that, you know, give or take. Right. And then there are more than 61 million Americans that are covered by the Medicare health plans right now. So that's a lot of folks, a good chunk of the American population. So the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare in 2020 said basically it's 18.5% of the US population on Medicare. That's a lot of folks. 18.5. Round up. Say 20% of population. So almost four out of ten Medicare consumers are also enrolled in what's called Medicare Advantage. And that statistic comes from the Kaiser Family Foundation in 2021. So for 2022, the Medicare beneficiaries have access to 39 Medicare Advantage plans, 39 different Medicare Advantage plans. And that's just a lot to make sense of, especially for people who are seniors and may be well over 65 years old. So and then 89% of Medicare Advantage plans offered in 2022 include prescription drug coverage. Okay, So let's talk about the specific individual parts of this. And a lot of this comes off the medicare.gov website and you can find it there if you're needing some definitions of things. And so the first part of this is Medicare Part A, This is also known as hospital insurance. So part A is hospital and it covers inpatient hospital stays or skilled nursing facility care, hospice care, and some home health care. So when when mom or dad or yourself or grandma and grandpa go to the hospital, one of the things you probably need to know is that hospital is covered under your Medicare plan and also under your med plan.

Merrit Strunk:
You don't want to go to one place or another or go to a one medical care provider or another and find out, no, that actually doesn't work with your plan. That's a bummer. Okay. The next part is Part B, which is known as medical insurance. So this covers not the hospitals. That was part A, this is part B and it covers doctor services, outpatient medical supplies and preventative services. So some people automatically get part B, but others have to enroll. That's something we covered in some of our past episodes here. You could be subject to a late enrollment fee if you don't sign up for part B when you first become eligible. But so, you know, if you're on Medicare, you already know this. You're you're living this, actually. As everybody gets older, you have to see your doctors a little more often in terms of your the care that you're receiving. And so, you know, you're going to a doctor that accepts Medicare Part B, and if you have to have certain tests or procedures, that doctor's office is calling to find out and make sure that it's all covered. Right. Don't want a nasty surprises now. So we covered A and B, So what's left? Well, Medicare Part D, it's also known as drug coverage, prescription drug coverage.

Merrit Strunk:
And the plans cover a wide variety of those plans. However, Medicare doesn't cover 100% of your medical expenses oftentimes. Right. And sometimes it doesn't cover the medications that you may be prescribed brand name, but there might be some generic type things you could do. So in order to cover the difference between the 80% that Medicare does cover and what it doesn't, that leaves 20% elsewhere. Many times, folks, you don't have to, but many times folks have what's called is Medigap or Medicare supplement insurance. Versus Medicare Advantage, right? These types of insurances are designed to fill the gaps. Why? They're called Medigap in both the part A and part B plans. But you can have both the Medigap and the Medicare Advantage. So you can't have both. You just need one or the other. About 81% of the beneficiaries who have parts A and B supplement of their coverage with Medigap and Medicaid or employer sponsored plans. So about 81% of these beneficiaries have these Medigap policies and that also have an A and B supplement. So Medicare and plus Medigap. Right. So there are some plans that are more expensive than others. If you have Medicare plus Medigap, it covers hospital and doctor that accepts Medicare and there's no need for prior authorization or referral from your primary doctor. So it's great for people who have specific doctors or hospitals they want to use. Medicare Advantage is also known as part C. Medicare Advantage plans cover hospitals and doctors and often include prescription drug coverage and other coverage not included in parts A and B, you may have seen And Matt, we did this episode together.

Merrit Strunk:
We talked about Joe Namath and Kid Dynamite on the television constantly for folks and saying, you know, get get the Medicare Advantage plans and check out your zip code and you even get rides to doctor's visits. So Medicare Advantage operates as an HMO and they the limit the people who are covered by this plans to doctors and hospitals inside of their network. So you've got to you've got to do this within the network and just like your regular HMO, but it operates under what's called Medicare Advantage. If you're kind of wondering, like, what's going on with that? Right. So how do smart retirees navigate the jungle here? Well, some people, you know, when they think about their entire they step aside and they think about the entire situation here. Now, obviously, this is going to be more difficult as time goes on. So you want to think it through in your strategy ahead of time as much as you can, or talk to somebody like us. So some people will buy an annuity that will cover the cost of Medigap plan plus any co-pays and deductibles. And we can help you out with that if you would like to, to see how that would do that. And so to if you want to cover those costs and not having to worry about it, this ensures that your health care needs will be met and can give you a peace of mind.

Merrit Strunk:
You can take old money from before one K and put it and fund it that way. And then you can use this strategy to provide the income to cover medical costs once you turn 65 years old. So there's the standard way of doing it. There are other ways to do it. There are pros and cons to both. It really just depends on your situation, your expenses, your overall plan, and if you've never had a. He stepped aside and done a retirement income analysis or a retirement feasibility analysis. And we go into a lot of detail and a lot of depth of that. It just involves all your aspects of your entire financial life and finding out how will we do, how we will afford and pay for things, including goals like vacations and things if you've never had that walk through. We do that at no cost. We do that as a complimentary consultation, and it's normally very, very illuminating for folks who have never been able to stop, step aside, take a look at it. And this includes people who may have a financial advisor, may think that they're okay. And in fact, they're setting themselves up for what the premise that we say is your retirement is already broken. You just don't know it yet because there's a blind spot or there's a couple of blind spots in things that may happen soon.

Merrit Strunk:
They may. They may. We don't know, right? We don't know what's going to happen in in life. There are certain gotchas. Well, we're living through some high inflation, low rate of return. Could you experience a loss of a spouse or a serious health illness type of situation? All right. So here's here's the Medicare that we're talking about. We're talking about Medigap and we're talking about covering those health care expenses. But there are a lot of things that Medicare will not pay for. And one of those is long term care. One of the one of the episodes we're going to have is we're going to bring on our long term care expert and interview him. It'll be a great episode and I don't want you to miss that. But we'll we'll promote that as it's coming up and you'll be able to know. But we're going to take a quick break here and then we're going to come back and we're going to talk about some cost cutter ideas to lower the cost related to your Medicare plan and join us right back. Again, my name is Merrit Strunk. This is the Retirement Unbroken show and podcast. And if you haven't already just dropped by RetirementUnbroken.com And check us out. We'd love to hear from our listeners. All right. We'll see you after the break.

Producer:
You're listening to our Retirement Unbroken. To schedule your complimentary consultation with Merrit, visit Retirement Unbroken dot com.

Producer:
I'm Matt McClure with the Retirement Dot Radio Network. Next time you head to the pharmacy, you could be in for some sticker shock. So do you need to plan now for higher drug prices in the future? First, let's spell out the problem, and it's not necessarily a new one. Prescription drug prices have been rising faster than inflation for decades, according to AARP. To put it in perspective, the group says if gas had risen as much as prescription drugs have over time, regular unleaded would cost more than 12 bucks a gallon by now. For seniors on a fixed income, being able to afford prescription drugs is essential. Ron Mastrogiovanni of Health View Services recently told CNBC.

Ron Mastrogiovanni:
Whether you're affluent or whether you're the average person, I'll tell you what, when you look at your Social Security check, you're paying for health care.

Producer:
Prescription drug insurance plans provide some coverage, of course, but not all plans are created equally. And it's important that you know the details of your plan, especially what it will and won't cover.

Ron Mastrogiovanni:
You really. Need to. Look at the coverage.In those types of plans to determine what makes the most sense for you.

Producer:
Lawmakers in Washington have been trying to come up with solutions on several fronts. They include things like allowing the government to negotiate drug prices, capping the cost of insulin and more. But those proposals have stalled. They were part of President Biden's build back better plan. It passed the House, but that massive piece of legislation hit a roadblock in the Senate, even though surveys show big majorities of U.S. adults approve of those measures. It seems like everyone agrees something needs to be done to control costs but just can't agree on exactly what that might be. In the meantime, what should you do to prepare for higher drug prices in the future? Well, putting more money in savings surely couldn't hurt, according to the experts. But that can only go so far. And what can you do now to save money at the pharmacy? Well, that is a key question to consider as inflation continues its upward climb with the Retirement dot Radio Network. I'm Matt McClure.

Producer:
Are you concerned about inflation, political uncertainty, rising taxes and how it could all affect you and your family during retirement. If you have an IRA balance over 400,000, you could save six figures in retirement taxes that you would be paying over a 35 plus year retirement. Find out how much you could save today by scheduling your free Roth conversion consultation with Merrit Strunk at RetirementUnbroken.com. In this part of today's show, your Retirement Unbroken is available wherever you listen to podcasts and online at RetirementUnbroken.com.

Merrit Strunk:
All right. Welcome back to the retirement and broken show. This is Merrit Strunk And we're going to talk relative what we just covered here. We we we did go through the Medicare touching on the various aspects and giving it some definition because it is the annual enrollment time. So now just a couple of tips here on cost cutting related to Medicare. If you don't reevaluate your Medicare plan every 2 to 3 years, you actually could expose yourself to potential loss of money to see if there's not a better deal. So by evaluating your new options each year, you may find that you can save money and cut cost out of your Medicare expenses. So some people do a medicare coverage check every year. So just in case that they have the opportunity to save some cash, and I think it's a pretty good idea. So we encourage you to do that. Okay. So we also within the we offer all of our listeners a complimentary analysis, and that will be part of the conversation when we do. So this brings us to a point we just want to cover what some of the the hot points of what's going on in our country right now. And we're going to bring us to the three P's. Everything sounds great in in threes, right? So in this case, we're going to talk about politics, profits and peak inflation.

Merrit Strunk:
So a lot of stuff going in our politics here. And so markets have historically rallied and post term post midterms, Wall Street likes gridlock. So DC likes likes the gridlock because it's policy certainty, which is okay, Policies may not change if there's gridlock. So it's more like the devil you know versus the devil you don't. A divided Congress remains the most likely outcome in post November. So maybe the Republicans take over the House, but they don't quite get the Senate. And of course, we have a Democratic president. So if the Republicans get both the House and the Senate, then you'll have a lame duck president who knows how things will go and get approved. So markets are generally higher regardless of the balance of power, but the mix has mattered a bit. So a 2023, this is the third year of the presidential cycle. And there are certain things in the third cycle that haven't really changed and we've never seen a market. And the third cycle where the market hasn't been good, this may be the case where it's it's different. So ultimately it's policy, not politics that matters when it comes to DC And when we do an analysis of whether you're red or you're blue and how that matters, you know, it it doesn't really matter actually.

Merrit Strunk:
You look through the different presidents all the way back to 1962 with John Kennedy, who was Democrat 12 months before the election. The stock market was -18 and then three months after the election with up 17%, six months after 24%, 12 months after 31%, you might pick say that was Democrat, you might pick pick George W and 12 months before the election, the market was down 16%. Three months after was negative three, six months after 22 and 12 months after 24. And that's the way it goes. And when you look at all the way back to 1962, all the way straight up to Donald Trump, who is Republican, 12 months after the election, the stock market was always up. Isn't that interesting? You would expect some variation in that, but it was always up. Then you look and in the third year of the presidential cycle, the and relate that back to recessions, you know, so all the way back to 1948, all the way up to 2018, you look at that there was no recession in the third year and the third year of the presidential cycle. Isn't that interesting? So that's interesting. Is this the time where it flips and it's different or not? It seems like there's no difference in history of the partisan control and the S&P, whether it's Democrat or it's Republican.

Merrit Strunk:
Recessions just operate on something a little bit different than that. Okay. That brings us to that was politics. So let's take the second P profits. So earnings are actually OC across. We just we just finished up some earnings cycles here and as a percent of the S&P companies that beat their quarterly earnings estimates, the average is 76.8. This comes from FactSet in 2022. So recent data, the average on the earnings is 76.8 per. Percent of the S&P 500 companies saying, you know, we've hit our earnings and in 2022 second quarter, we're at 75. So we're right in line. Eps earnings per share, beats beat rates. They're in line with historical averages. Very, very interesting. So there's a lot of this doom and gloom and there's certainly a lot of reasons to be concerned about that. And primarily the CPI, which is inflation. But we've got the political situation we cover which says there's really no difference who's in the White House and or in control, partisan control. We've got the profitability situation where we're right in line with past historical expectations. We've got a lot of you know, it doesn't seem like those factors play too much in what's going on here. Now, whether the Fed cares about this situation is another matter. So the Fed has been raising rates at a historically rapid rate, you know, 75 basis points three times in a row, unprecedented.

Merrit Strunk:
So Chairman Powell has noted the Fed can't do anything about, say, supply chain issues, but it can moderate demand through a higher cost of capital. So the cost of borrowing money, and that's what they're doing by raising their rate. So the Fed is all in on the inflation fight. So this is coming from chair pals, Jackson Hole speech. They're all in on the fight. And right now it seems they are very hawkish, very hawkish in this situation here. So can we expect another hike in the rates? You know, the betting the bet right now is yes. Now, the Fed could still go too far, too fast and that could push us into what can be defined as a deeper recession. So, yeah, the United States fits the definition, the technical definition of a recession, but they're not admitting it. So they're not saying, well, not yet. You know, so one path forward. There's a couple of paths here related to does the Fed care. One path is inflation trends towards the Fed's 2% goal, which is good. The Fed becomes confident in the inflation battles being won and the magnitude of the interest rate hikes begins to moderate. And therefore that equals into a soft economic landing. You know, the soft landing of people air quotes say all the time, the soft landing, that situation could lend itself to a soft economic landing.

Merrit Strunk:
And then the outlook and the sentiment towards the economy and risk assets rises. The risk assets would be the stock market. So that's one path forward here. The other path is inflation proves persistent, like it's like the economy is strong and inflation is high. The Fed doubts that inflation will moderate without meaningful destruction that they will bring. So the magnitude of the interest rates increases, it remains high. That would equal a hard economic landing and becomes probable and the economy contracts sharply. Corporate corporate profits go down, risk asset struggle, labor markets struggle as well. So those are the kind of the the two paths. Could there be a third possible? Who knows? You know, the other day there was a tweet by somebody and the tweet was, when do you all think they're going to announce that we're going into a recession? And that was from somebody named Cardi B. And I frankly, I didn't know who it was. I had to go look at that. But when Cardi B becomes aware of recession and inflation, she's, I guess, a performing artist. And then I guess we all have to pay attention, right? So, Matthew, did you know who Cardi B was? I did not.

Producer:
I did only because I'm not, you know, cool people listen to listen to, you know, cool music. And I'm not like a cool person, so I don't do that. But I did because I used to live in New York and actually I had to cover her. She had she made a court appearance one time in Queens and that I was actually covering that that day. And so, yeah, it was that was my awareness of Cardi B.

Merrit Strunk:
Got it. Got it. You know, and, you know, there's things that are external to the United States that may have, oh, what do they call it, a contract or a spreadable situation in England. So England is having a bit of a tough time over there. And they, the generally economists are a little concerned that can can the situation over there than than spread. Certainly when the United States catches a cold the rest of the the globe economic cold the rest of the globe kind. That goes. Gesundheit. So, you know, yes, there's plenty of pundits out there talking about negativity and things that are not great, but the economy actually has some some things going for it into the year end. So the US consumer and US companies are in fine financial shape. That's a good thing. You know, this again comes from FactSet Data and then there is $7 trillion. That's a lot of moolah in corporate cash right now and 2 trillion in excess in household savings amongst consumers. So that's a good shape. The labor market is exceptionally strong when you have sub 4% unemployment rate. So there's a high demand for people to come to work. The question is where are they? Home prices, although tamping down, they are still at an all time high. That means there's tappable equity in homes for consumers. Some inflation data points are peaking. Others are not. There's no signs of meaningful sector or industry imbalance. Credit conditions aren't overly tight. These are all good. And however, the recession seems to be the consensus call and 1% real GDP growth is still possible in 2022.

Merrit Strunk:
So that's pretty good. And right now, you know, another one is retail sales are still somewhat strong and the unemployment rate is low, like I said. So those are those are some of the things that we've got going for us. You know, we'll have to just stay. We'll have to stay on on the watch out. So where we're coming from right now is we're urging our clients is to to stay in broad diversification. Even greater importance is given given to heightened uncertainty. It widens the range of potential outcomes. Right. So the US is advantaged by nature of the US dollar being as high as it is the labor market and the rates and energy profile. International equity looks more attractive when the US dollar crest as high as it is and the geopolitical dynamic improves. We're looking at relative inflation between the Europe versus the US and where it peaks here at home value. What the capital A Capital V value stocks is currently favored from where we're standing more than growth. But that could shift depending on the intensity of the Fed's monetary tightening policy and degree to which it tamps out economic growth. So our bias is towards dividend payers. And again, I'll give a kind of a blanket, blanket blanket sort of disclosure here is that it all depends on your situation. These aren't recommendations. These are just high level views. Of course, it all depends on who you are, where you are and what's going on.

Merrit Strunk:
So we encourage diversified exposure within fixed income is very important. Take credit, not interest rate risk. When yields have peaked moving, we're going to watch how the yield curve, whether or not that makes sense and exposure to uncorrelated strategies remains appropriate, like alternatives. When the Fed has reached the end of its rate tightening campaign, this will be a time to consider leaning away from that. So, you know, it's interesting. You take a look over history and you just have to turn on the television on occasion. We'll get a call from a client. They say, hey, you know, so-and-so says the sky is falling. And I was like, okay, interesting. So when you look back over history, by the way, you look at history from the eighties all the way up to 2022, and you look at the S&P 500 max chart of time, you see that S&P 500 just going straight up, right? A nice hike up a mountain, Kilimanjaro. How about that? Kilimanjaro going to Kilimanjaro. So back in the eighties, Businessweek had an episode. They had a edition, rather. And August 13th, 1979. Yeah, right back in 1979, it says the headline said, Death of Equities was the headline. That was back in 1979. Look what the market has done ever since. If you just dropped out of the stock market back in 1979, imagined the potential wealth loss you would have had, you just never would have had it. In March 12th, 2009, Forbes had an article. It said, How low can the stock market go? How low can it go back in 2009.

Merrit Strunk:
And of course, that was down right after the Great Recession there. And then in November nine, 2016, you had a Paul Krugman on. The Daily CALLER says that stock markets will never recover from the person who was running for president. They're never going to ever. We're going to recover. Well. Wrong again. A pundit missed the mark again. And then you've got Rich dad, poor dad Robert Kiyosaki out there right now. He was out there saying, you know, sell everything by gold and Bitcoin and real estate when everything just crashes. And so I guess the moral to the story is it's super easy to be negative and miss the data points and the technicals and predict negativity because it's too easy to do. And it could be a career maker for you if you're right. Right. And so that's what they're doing. I mean, they're essentially doing that. So I'll I'll I'll kind of hit that back over the fence on the tennis court here and say that, you know, Warren Buffett, to all practical measures, is a guy who's done very, very well and he's a value investor. And he has a quote that says, Never bet against America. That is as true today as it was in 1789 during the Civil War and the depths of the Depression. That is his quote. So the GDP, the US is only been in recession 12% of the time since 1980. I hope you get this. I mean, that's a really nice kind of like, Sky's following.

Merrit Strunk:
No, it's not. We've only been in recession 12% of the time since 1980, and the average length of recession here since 1980 has been nine months. Okay. Pretty pretty short of time to get the penalties set out on the bench and wait till the game gets going again. The S&P price index, the average return has been it's a little higher now. I think it's more like 11. But the data from FactSet says 10.3 and the average intra calendar year drawdown. So we have we have corrections all the time is only 14%. So what that says is America is strong. We will always come out of this and the data supports it no matter what those negative pundits say, we're going to take our hits. Those things are going to happen. I view these things as the rain has come and it has cleared away the sickness. And we are we fix what was wrong and now we're back on the road again towards building wealth and prosperity in the United States. So that brings us to a break here. We're going to break. And if you've never been to our website, go to RetirementUnbroken.com. Click on the button at the top says Complimentary consultation. And if you are unfamiliar with many of the concepts we talked about or you need to kick the tires and do a smart inspection on your plan, there's no cost and obligation to that. Please give us a buzz. All right. We'll join you again after the break here on the Retirement Unbroken show.

Producer:
Are you concerned about market volatility, rising taxes, economic uncertainty, and how it all could affect your future in retirement? Then tune in to your Retirement Unbroken with your host, Merrit Strunk, to learn how you can protect and grow your hard-earned money, your Retirement Unbroken every Saturday at 1:00 PM right here on FM 96.1 and AM 1170. The Answer. Protect your hard earned money today and schedule a free no obligation consultation now at RetirementUnbroken.com .

Producer:
Have you experienced age discrimination in the workplace? I'm Matt McClure with the retirement radio Network. Powered by a Life. If you're 50 or older, chances are you've either seen or personally suffered from age discrimination at work. That's true for nearly two thirds of workers in that age group, according to research from AARP.

Bill Rivera:
And the pandemic certainly contributes to that persistence, with one in four people who have been let go or otherwise left the workplace during the pandemic, having trouble finding a job if they're 50 or older.

Producer:
Bill Rivera is senior vice president for litigation at the AARP Foundation. He says spotting age discrimination is not always easy, but there are signs to watch out for.

Bill Rivera:
For example, are promotions or training opportunities or key assignments given to younger workers routinely over older workers. Do you hear around the office? And does the company tolerate jokes about age and ageism, Like referring to the idea that you can't teach old dogs new tricks?

Producer:
Rivera says if you see possible age discrimination, it's important to document it.

Bill Rivera:
And you want to do that as close in time to when it happens. So note the date, what you saw, what you heard, who else was there? Talk to your supervisor. A lot of times you can resolve these things informally, but if you can't, you may need to go up the chain.

Producer:
And he says the AARP Foundation has several resources available to help older workers.

Bill Rivera:
For example, Back to Work 50 plus, which has free workshops, tools and career coaches to help you, as well as AARP Resume Advisor, where we will for free review your resume and provide advice and tips to make your resume stand out, as well as AARP's job board to connect you with employers who've indicated they are interested in an age diverse workforce.

Producer:
So what would you do if you see or experience age discrimination at work? That's a key question to consider. As Americans are living and working longer with the retirement radio network powered by a marriage life. I'm Matt McClure.

Producer:
You're listening to your Retirement Unbroken. To schedule your free no obligation consultation with Merrit visit RetirementUnbroken.com .

Merrit Strunk:
All right. Welcome back to the retired unbroken show this is merit your host and we are also joined by Matt McClure, our producer and we covered a lot of data here. You know we we kick the tires and talked about a number of different points about Medicare because it's the annual enrollment period that we're going through. And then we just talked about politics, profits and peak inflation, the three P's there. And now for the time that we have leverage is going to share with you a little bit some ideas on how to kick the IRS out of your retirement plan. So, Matt, let me ask you a frequent question here. Hands yay or nay, do you think taxes may go up in the future?

Producer:
I do believe that, yes. I think they're going to have to.

Merrit Strunk:
Yes, indubitably, some folks would say so. Most people do believe that taxes are going to go higher in the future. So you may want to consider a strategy that kicks the old IRS right out of being your partner, your silent partner in retirement so you can reduce future taxes and rate hikes risk by implementing a Roth conversion strategy. We've talked a lot about that on previous episodes. And smart retirees can diversify their money in different tax buckets. A lot of folks don't have enough tax diversification. So in general, there are three types of investment accounts. You've got taxable tax deferred and tax free. In the taxable accounts. You've got brokerage accounts, which you get a 1099 investment accounts, bank CD, something like that. On tax deferred accounts. You know, these you're you folks who are working have these it's your employer sponsored retirement plan like a 401. K If you're self employed you might have a Sep IRA or maybe it potentially you've got annuities which are tax deferred and the tax free bucket Roth IRAs and life insurance. Those are the only two tax free investments in America today. So would you be interested in generating tax free income? During your 30 plus retirement years, tax free income during your retirement. I daresay a lot of people would be interested. The problem is they don't ask the question, how do we do that? We've got proven legal strategies to help you do that.

Merrit Strunk:
If you'd like to find that out, give us a call at 858 521 9700. So also since the market is down this year. Now may be the opportune time for retirees to convert tax deferred IRAs funds that they have into a Roth IRA. So if their income is down and the market is down, this might be the time to do that. Time to convert your tax deferred IRA into a tax free forever bucket. Think of it this way tax deferred or tax forever. And the left hand pocket and tax free forever into your right pocket. So why would you continue to pay ordinary income taxes decades after you stop working? Right. That's a choice you can make. You just have to ask the right questions. You got to talk to the right people. And like I say, if you've never been to our website, go to RetirementUnbroken.com or give us a call at 858 521 9700. This has been Merrit Strunk. We work with everyone throughout the United States and particularly here in San Diego County. So give us a call and please join us back here for the Retirement Unbroken show. And we'd love to hear from our listeners at any time. So drop us a line, ask us a question, and we'll cover it here on the podcast and radio show. Thanks. And we'll see you next time.

Producer:
Thanks for listening to your Retirement Unbroken. You deserve to work with an experienced and licensed expert who will strategically work to protect and grow your hard-earned assets. To schedule your complimentary no obligation consultation with Merrit, visit RetirementUnbroken.com Or pick up the phone and call 858 521 9700. That's 858 521 9700. Advisory services are offered through Momentum Financial and Insurance Services LLC, an investment advisor in the state of California. Insurance products and services are offered through Merrit Strunk an independent agent. California License number 07510. Certified Financial Fiduciary as a FINRA recognized Professional Certification.

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