Phat Unplugged

All our behaviors are biochemically mediated.That was a hard lesson for me to learn.Though we have little prior history of mental illness in my family tree, there was quite an eruption in my father and brother, both diagnosed with diverging degrees of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia -- mild in my father, florid in my brother. I feared that fate, and sought multiple psychiatric evaluations for reassurances, which I got. I'm merely neurotic.But when I spent some years in a medical mill of injury, illness, and lengthy hospitalizations with high fevers and heavy opiates, I experienced states akin to ICU psychosis: alternately frankly and mildly delusional, ill-tempered to enraged, infinitely distracted. I threw out the opiates, and focused on my physical health: I returned to normalcy (whatever that is for an Omnivorous).My perspective on "mental illness" changed dramatically. One day, while insisting to myself I wasn't mentally ill, I realized that ALL "mental" illness is physically grounded. It isn't a flaw in character or a snapped mind: the mind is the brain is the body.I'm not suggesting you are mentally ill; rather that when' one's thoughts become notably disordered, first look to your physical health.Plato said, "Mente sana en cuerpo sano.” (“A sound mind and a sound body.”) That's not merely a truism; it's the truth.I have great personal affection for your presence here. Like AZ said, get right, get healthy, come back. I'll still lash you with limp noodles if I think you're wrong, but I hope we'll both be smiling.

Isn't it just awful?My wife is 12 years younger and just retired at a youthful 60; I'm about to turn a well-worn 72, medically forced into retirement years ago. She is now a professor emeritus with retained university privileges, giving me enormous access to academic libraries and online journals.There are classical and Shakespearean warnings against boasting of one's wife, but fuck 'em, i just won't name her. She's a brilliant poet, a lovely, petite woman who stays toned and trim with Pilates, yoga and hiking with me, an enormously popular professor whose students stay in touch for decades, and for reasons I classify alongside exotic matter, she loves me without reservation.Folks have asked how I caught a wife like that, and I say I used to be a lot cuter; she says I have a great big heart.I've waited impatiently for her to join me in retirement. She has had to endure being told several times in hospital waiting rooms that I might be slipping away. My physicians speak of a Lazarus syndrome: the patient multiple times balking at death's door. They speculate on some quality in me.Me? I credit her.If death knocks, Theo, just say no in your wife's name. If love can't save you, nothing will.NB: I don't watch TV of any kind. I read. The last time my set was turned on was January 6. I tuned in to watch an historic peaceful transfer of power with a sense of great relief, but instead I spent the day watching fascist scum defile every value that raises the U.S. above just another oligarchic empire.I couldn't look away, my big heart broke, and now, like the fascists, the TV sits in a dark corner and broods.

But he looks forward to both a pension and Social Secuity, a circumstance enjoyed by a vanishing number of Americans. Only about 10-15% of the population qualifies for a pension, and a good number of those in state and local pension plans do not pay SS taxes and will not receive SS payments.Phat has provided for Phat. Good on him.Perhaps he has also hoarded gold. When the global trade order collapses from climate disasters and fascist wars, taking the industrial food supply chain with it, he can cast a golden calf to lead him through the US Patriots First roadblocks.He can't eat it; anyone stronger can take it.That's real money.

The kudo was sincere. I consider self-reliance a virtue.My main point was that your gold will be useless in the apocalyptic world you predict. It's heavy enough for bullets, but too soft. Also, you are more future-secure than most -- but you whine about it like tribal women keening for a death, i.e., like a little bitch.Otherwise, you bemoan national debt but mock progressives' concerns about Trump blowing trillion dollar balloons of it to cut taxes on billionaires.Progressives created Trump? Gee, I thought it was the racial fear and hate he stirred up in Prosperity Christians as he descended the escaltor. That and reality tv.What you regard as thoughts are feelings. Free yourself: Skip the next red pill, substitute a blue.

12 Troy ounces, about 373 grams.

I preach this to my younger friends. Start a tax deferred account, even with just a little, and invest in mutual funds; each year, split your raises between your pocket and those investments. Relatively painlessly, you will reach a secure retirement.We did that. Now we're rolling over as much of that tax deferred money as we can each year into a Roth account, again with mutual funds. If we don't, in later years ALL our minimum required distributions will fall into a higher tax bracket.Of course, Congress keeps fiddling with the applicable laws. I sort of enjoy the gamesmanship, but I take advantage of tax avoidance and deferral opportunities as soon as I can: those Congress critters are shifty.

We've always underpaid--its definitely a gain in financial utility. If you don't gamble.I used to have various side gigs that provoked some nonsense about quarterlies from the IRS, but I ignored them.

We have a marginal rate gap between our current income and her age of minimum distributions at 72 (she's 60 now). Her SS at 70 will also erase that gap. We have to pay taxes on each partial rollover when we file the following year, but our retirement income will never be lower, and one expects tax rates to rise...

It's always good to get professional tax and investment advice. We developed our own plan, but had it vetted by a pro, who used a complex spreadsheet to measure outcomes and confirm our calculations.A determined layman can do pretty well. The strategies are simple in principle, if gnarly in application.