What I thought might be the most difficult part of operating the Mathmatecum when I first set it in motion has turned out not to be so difficult to date. My biggest fear was placing the Members Monies where they would earn the most. To date those monies are earning and have earned within 1% of the maximum rate of income available for securities with the Mathmatecum format for safety i.e. U.S. Government guaranteed securities. There were in fact six-month periods when the funds were earning the highest rate over the last six years. At present the entire fund earned 4.21% during the month of January. No moves will be made before May 1st. Due to the magic of compound interest and time the rate should increase going forward.
I recently read an article quoting Serena Williams who it is claimed said that Americans obsession with buying a house might be a bad economic route to take to try to accumulate wealth. The article was talking about going forward and not dealing with the past. For most of the boomers who bought homes early that did not look like a good plan. However, no one did the math on the alternative plan. I myself am a pre-boomer and while living in my home and enjoying it, I was aware what I could have been doing if I rented a home instead of maintaining and paying it off. Basically, saving and investing properly should out earn the appreciation in one’s home. Owning a home is a luxury that one continues to pay for year after year.
The new administration is quite active in trying to make changes in the American socio-economic fabric. Hopefully, it will borrow from Formicalism and change Social Security so that payments are not cut off at an arbitrary figure. I would advocate that payments continue on for all at the same rate no matter how high the income is! Conversely payments should be cut off for all based on the cost of living to be decided every five years.
Last week I recounted a story that to me defied coincidence – the mathematical odds to my mind at least being too great. Here are a couple more that happened to me after I moved to Hawaii. When I first arrived on Oahu, I could not wait to go into what they call is a shark cage. When I was on the boat and going out to view the sharks, I struck up a conversation with a recent college graduate who had come to the islands to teach under a yearly contract, his first teaching job. Like me he was originally from N.J. and was raised in Caldwell. I told him that I sold my law practice to a man named Al Cifelli some 29 years earlier. He told me that he was friends and went to school with then Judge Cifelli’s son!
A few years later I was driving a cab in Waikiki and picked up a young Naval officer at a hotel on a Saturday morning and brought her to her home across town. During the ride I told her that her accent reminded me of where I lived in South Carolina. We both lived in the same county of Beaufort, me on Hilton Head Island and she in the city of Beaufort. In fact, she told me the job her dad had with the Sherriff’s department, and I told her his name because he was someone with whom I was very familiar!
JAI BABA
TTFN
JU
