Did I call that correctly, or what?

With my last blog post on February 19th, I said "Once people realize that nothing really happened by the Sequester cuts, the stock market will continue its path of slow growth." Well, I hate to pat myself on the back, but I was correct.

Now for my next prediction.

Investment returns are off to a great start this year, but we are liable to see a little dip between the 3rd week of March through April 15th. Why? People have to pay their taxes! In order to do so, they generally will sell some investment positions to free up cash. Historically, this is what we have seen during this time period for several prior years. Once we get past April 15th, I believe that we will continue our slow growth forward. So, do not be overly concerned during this time period if the stock market pulls back.

Stay diversified and stay invested.

It's Not As Bad As It Seems

First of all, the Sequester cuts are not going to have an earth shattering effect as some politicians would have you believe. The people in Washington, D.C. want to scare people into believing that the world is coming to an end if the Sequester cuts go through. This is pure rubbish.

I heard that poor teachers, firefighters and police officers will lose their jobs. The last time I checked, the Federal government does not pay these people their salaries. I fail to see how these people would be affected at all. It couldn't be that the politicians are lying to the American people, could it? Surely not. No politician would ever lie to the American people.

These politicians have been kicking the can down the road so long that they now think this is standard operating procedure. It would not surprise me if they did it once again. They do not want to cut even a lousy $80,000,000,000, which in the grand scheme of things, ($16,500,000,000,000 debt) is a pimple on an elephant's rear end.

I hope the Sequester cuts go through, because it will be the first real cuts by these politicians. Up until now, they have not cut one red cent. We have to start somewhere folks.

Even if the stock market pulls back as a result of the Sequester cuts going through, this will only be a temporary phenomenon. Once people realize that nothing really happened by the Sequester cuts, the stock market will continue its path of slow growth.

Remember, there is always a disconnect between what you hear from a politician's mouth, what you watch on TV and the reality of what will actually happen.

Interesting Elder Care Planning Thought

Not too long a go, I know a lady who got married in her late 60's. She never thought that her husband would come down with dementia a few years later. Of course, she was the one with the assets. Suddenly, she feared that her assets were at risk. There is a five year look back, before you can qualify for Medicaid. Further, your spouse can only keep a little over $100,000. The problem was that this lady had several hundred thousand dollars.

Of course, they had no Long Term Care Insurance, because like most people, they did not think they would need it. Long Term Care Insurance is better to have than not have. It is kind of like car insurance. You pay for it year after year in the hope that you never need it. If you have ever had an auto accident, I would suspect that you are glad you had auto insurance. The same goes for Long Term Care Insurance. You should buy it, especially if you have assets of any amount that you do not want to have spend on Long Term Care expenses.

A lot of people think they would know what to do on their own, without the help of an Elder Care Attorney. Fat chance. At first thought, a divorce was recommended by their friends. The problem with this is that it is too emotional of a decision and may be against the person's religion. Unfortunately, the lady looked to be on the hook for her husband's long term care. The government was not going to pay anything for at least five years. By then, he would probably have passed away.

They went to the Elder Care Attorney for counsel. He did his diligent research and found out something very interesting.

In this case, the best Elder Care decision was made for this couple by the minister that married them. He was a legally authorized minister and could marry people. That wasn't the issue. What he did was actually a good Elder Care Planning Strategy. Instead of filing the marriage certificate, he gave it to the couple to file. When they went to the recommended Elder Care Attorney, he discovered that they were not legally married. This allowed the lady to keep her assets and take care of her ailing husband, without having to divorce him. She was able to take care of him at home until the last few weeks of his life, when he went to Hospice care. He never had to qualify for Medicaid. She was able to be her own Florence Nightingale.

The moral of the story, for those contemplating marriage later in life, may be to tell the person marrying you to let you file the marriage certificate. It could come in handy.

Getting with the program

I have no idea what the beef was that the late Steve Jobs had with Adobe, but he had some reason for not adding Flash to anything Apple. Unfortunately for me, we had an Adobe flash web site at our firm. If we wanted to get with the program and allow people with tablets and mobile phones to see our web site, then it meant me getting advanced HTML5 skills.

I'm one of those people who believes that there is nothing that I cannot do. I already had HTML skills, but had no knowledge of how to do responsive web sites that resize automatically no matter what screen is viewing it. Why not learn about it?

Once in got into this, I quickly realized why web designers charge what the charge. There is a lot of time spent on testing each function of the web site. Also, there is a lot of trial and error. This work is tedious and takes a lot time.

However with a lot of late nights and weekends, I got the new web site up and going. There are some other things, like video that I may add later. For now though, I am satisfied enough to go live.

I hope you enjoy. http://www.marianfs.com.