inflation effects on us

infLATION EFFECTS ON US

kiplingers on inflation
kiplingers estimates that inflation rates will peak at 9% this year

i hope if thats true
then
i hope it starts to decline

obviously gas prices have a big influence on that rate
those gas prices are complicated
the ukraine war will not get better
the russians are one of the big producers of oil
but people are starting to not buy their oil
less oil in the world
more folks wanting oil
means
we pay more for our gas
plus
theres other pressures on the oil prices 
it seems all the countries besides the usa that are the bigger produces are not folks you want to be friends with

my car gets 40 miles a gallon
it costs me at almost $6 a gallon about $60 a tank 
i buy a tank a month
so 
i am spending $30 more a month for gas
my wife she gets $34 miles a gallon and fills hers up twice a month
we then spend an extra $90 a month for gas

when we lived at the country n we bought 12 tanks of gas a month since we both commuted 30-40 miles one way
so that would be about $360 a month more if we still did that

the solution is to drive a car that gets good gas mileage
or
drive an electric car
but
those decisions were made in the past for most of you and cant be made again until the future

a relative has a hybrid car and says she hardly goes to the gas station
another has an electric car and never goes to the gas station

then the other solution is really complicated to fix the gas prices
its more than just fixing inflation

there does seem a lot of greed in those gas prices that we are all paying for at the pump

i thought back over my life during the 70s and 80s and i just dont really remember it affecting us
i know it did but i think we were so busy with college and medical school and residency that we didnt notice it as much

i know i had friends who were paying over 20% on their medical school loans
we paid 10% on our first mortgage which was unsual at that time
it was a owner financed loan

luckily recently we just dropped our interest rate on our mortgage to 2.9% last summer
our college loans totally around $20,000 had rates about low to mid teens
these rates are slowly climbing now so probably more folks will not seek a new loan 
however rents are going up so much now that renting is hard on a lot of folks

when i shop for groceries the one item i notice is the price of eggs
the eggs i buy that we like use to cost around $3 now its $6
they are free range brown eggs
i found white cage free eggs for less than $3

i just got our quote on our liability insurance
its gone up 10%
i expect our car and home insurance will go up that much if not more

im sure our cable and cell phone and hos dues and dental insurance and medicare and medicare supplements will go up again this next year
our long term care insurance went up 25%
this year all of them went up before all this inflation picked up speed

my wife shes teacher retirement does not have a cost of living adjustment
lets say its for $20,000 a year
that means that next year after this inflation it will really only be worth $18400
you can see that over time inflation erodes her retirement

plus she only gets $5000 a year form social security 
if not for the wpi that hurts teachers taking away their social security she would be getting $15,000
teachers make sure you work for a school district that pays into social security 

lucky for us she managed to fund a 401 k for several years that is properly invested based on her age
its a buffer for inflation and for the money the feds dont pay her in social security 

if we needed to we could tap her 401k to supplement the loss of social security 
we dont plan to take any monies out until the feds in the form of rmds make us start to take it out when she reaches ?75

i have to do rmd on mine ira now but we usually dont use it to live on

my social security is at lets say $20,000
it has a cost of living adjustment each year
this year it was around 7%
next year that will be much higher probably around 9%

we have investments outside of our iras that we fund our monthly expenses with
some of this is in money market funds that were paying close to maybe zero
now
with the rising interest rates that fund rates will rise maybe over 2%
so we are only losing 7% on that money 

now we simply adjust our spending on certain items like the eggs to offset the increase in prices 
but
we will still have to probably access more from our funds to counter the rise in prices

luckily we are in a financial situation where we will be ok

sadly 
others especially lower income folks are and will be hit the worst

i call them
our willing workers

if i was a politician in ether party 
you better believe the biggest thing in the next mid term elections will be

its the economy stupid

the organicgreen doctor

organicgreendoctor: alzheimers news-when i was 55 i would have volunte...

organicgreendoctor: alzheimers news-when i was 55 i would have volunte...: ALZHEIMERS NEWS-WHEN I WAS 55 I WOULD HAVE VOLUNTEERED FOR THIS STUDY when i turned 55 my mother was in the final stages of alzheimers disea...

alzheimers news-when i was 55 i would have volunteered for this study

ALZHEIMERS NEWS-WHEN I WAS 55 I WOULD HAVE
VOLUNTEERED FOR THIS STUDY

when i turned 55 my mother was in the final stages of alzheimers disease and my younger brother was about to be diagnosed with alzheimers disease

i had decided that if i ever developed any memory issues i would stop practicing medicine
5 years later i entered the adni alzheimers study in the normal control group so i would be monitored on a regular basis so i could detect any memory issues early on
if they showed up i would stop practicing medicine

memory issues showed up on my first memory evaluation
a month later i was officially diagnosed with mci or mild cognitive impairment that has turned out to be due to alzheimers disease
i stopped practicing medicine the day i was diagnosed

if i hadnt volunteered for that study would i have had more memory issues that could have harmed someone
ill never know

i did what i thought was the right thing to do
im ok with my decision

however
knowing all i know now about alzheimers disease and knowing how it helps to be proactive
had this study below and others like it had been available to me 
i would have been the first in line to sign up and would have traveled to wherever in the us it was being offered

these studies are taking folks between 55-80 who are cognitively normal ie have normal memory testing but have positive biomarkers for alzheimers diseases 
ie positive amyloid and tau levels in the blood
positive amyloid pet scans and tau pet scans

this means they are highly likely to have prealzheimers or prodromal alzheimers disease and will most likely progress over time in a few years to full blown alzheimers disease

when i was 55 and knowing what i know now
my memory testing would have been normal but my biomarkers would have been positive
in fact at 57 i had normal memory testing for my long term care insurance
that memory testing turned abnormal 3 years later when i volunteered for the adni alzheimers study

since then my memory as i described in this blog last wednesday is now normal

a question i got asked a lot this week was it the medicine aduhelm or aducanumab thats making the difference
my answer
i think its making some difference
i do feel sharper as i wrote this week than before

yes 
17 years ago if  this study below was available i would again be the first in line to get this medicine

just think if i had been treated 17 years with this stuff 
how my life would be different
i would not have retired at 60 but probably would have retired at 65 but even then i would most likely would still be doing volunteer medicine

now i cant do volunteer medicine because of my diagnosis

this disease alzheimers will likely be my cause of death on my death certificate one day
had i had access to this drug below at 55 its possible my diagnosis would be
he died of old age

this medicine and others like it and even more that will be available soon can be available to many of you
especially those who are at risk for alzheimers disease

get diagnosed early get treatment early before symptoms start

that time is now for many of you

oh how i wish i could have been on one of these meds when my mother and brother were suffering with it

i couldnt and they couldnt 
but
many of you can

lillys new drug called donanemab is looking for patients who are prealzheimers 
but dont know it
they have to have normal memory and be willing to know that they have it
but
get to receive treatment for it before that memory loss starts

the name of the study is called trailblazer alz 3
here is the link to more information on the study 
here is the clinicaltrials.gov link to the study

in mci and early alzheimers patients this drug slows memory lost close to 30%
it works similar  to my drug aducanumab which slows memory loss close to 20%
hopefully by starting the drug at 55 years old before symptoms start that slow down percentage will be even better

if i could go back to when i was 55 i would again be the first in line to get this drug

my drug aduhelm or aducanumab and biogens drug lecanemab and other similar drugs are starting similar studies 

it takes a commitment to be in a study
you have to realize you may get the placebo
but
the potential rewards can be great

i think about the recent study in rectal cancer patients who received the new experimental antibody treatment for rectal cancer 
all of them a year later have no evidence of rectal cancer

thats what a clinical trial can do

heres hoping that this trailblazer alz 3 study and the other prealzheimers studies will have similar results

wouldnt that be great

just do it i say

the organicgreen doctor