OPINION
Wallowa.com
Wednesday, June 2, 2021
A5
LAYIN’ IT
ON THE LINE
Steve Kerby
When planning
for retirement
don’t forget
these expenses
here is a massive disconnect between
how much money people think they’ll
need in retirement and their actual
expenses once they no longer work.
Retirement marketing tends to present
highly idealized visions of retirement as a sort
of heaven. In retirement, there is no work, no
nasty bosses, endless sunshine, road trips and
enough time to pursue our favorite hobbies.
Unfortunately, reality often arrives in
the form of overlooked retirement expense,
threatening to prevent you from having any-
thing close to your ideal lifestyle when you
stop working.
Most people are very poor at estimat-
ing things, especially how much things will
cost once they stop getting a regular pay-
check. There tends to be a profound discon-
nect between what people believe they need
to save to attain their retirement lifestyle and
their actual expenses.
A recent bank survey underscored this kind
of magical thinking, fi nding that over 67%
of respondents believed they would need less
than $100,000 for health care expenses when
they retired. Yet an average couple in retire-
ment will need nearly three times that amount,
over $295,000.
When planning your eventual exit from the
workplace, you must be sure to include realis-
tic assessments of where your retirement cash
will go.
Here are a few of the most commonly
overlooked and underestimated retirement
expenses.
Taxes will probably go up in retirement.
Since your income will probably be less in
retirement than it was when you worked, you
will naturally pay less in tax, right? Not nec-
essarily, because historically, taxes almost
always go up. They may even rise to a level
that’s could be as high as it was when you
were still working.
If your retirement plan includes relocat-
ing to another state or country, you will also
need to get a thorough evaluation of potential
tax implications. Currently, there are only 12
states in the U.S. that do not require retirees to
pay taxes on 401(k), IRA, or pension income.
Some states tax retiree income more heavily
than you might believe. Be sure your retire-
ment blueprint factors in enough to account
for tax increases.
Medicare will not cover every expense.
Despite media eff orts to correct the miscon-
ception that Medicare takes care of all retir-
ees’ health care needs, many people con-
tinue to believe that. Unfortunately, thinking
that Medicare off ers 100% coverage causes
seniors to not factor in the money they’ll need
to pay for out-of-pocket expenses and supple-
mental coverage. Plus, if you have to retire
before age 65, you may need to pay for pri-
vate insurance coverage.
Medicare costs can escalate because Medi-
care is not free. Most retirees will pay a
monthly premium based on income. Medicare
does not cover deductibles and co-pays.
Medicare also does not cover den-
tal expenses, vision and eyeglasses, hear-
ing aids or prescriptions unless you purchase
Part D coverage. So, it’s likely you will need
supplemental coverage, which comes with
monthly premiums. Unfortunately, potential
expenses such as these are often omitted when
planning.
Long term nursing home care is also a con-
cern. If you are 65 or older, you have a 60%
chance of needing long-term care services in
your remaining years. Also, the costs for long-
term care services are rising nearly 4% every
year.
And of course, the silent killer of retire-
ment times, infl ation. The Consumer Price
Index recently announced an annual rate of
infl ation for our current year at 4.2%. Also,
the CPI does not include fuel and food in
its interest calculations. Are your retirement
investments earning 4.2%? If not, it could
be time to reconsider your asset classes and
make sure you have installed some level of
Safe Money plan. Exposure to market risk
may not the best idea if the majority of assets
are needed for retirement income.
Bottom line: Many factors aff ect retire-
ment success, including planning that fails
to include realistic estimates of costs you are
bound to encounter with age. Wise planning
pulls your head out of the sand and helps you
avoid making mistakes that could lead to run-
ning out of money when you retire. It’s essen-
tial for you to fi nd and build a relationship
with a conscientious adviser who leaves no
stone unturned. You’ll benefi t from having a
fi nancial expert who isn’t afraid to tell you the
truth about your money.
———
As an avid outdoorsman, Joseph and the
Wallowa area have been a big part of Steve
Kerby’s life since 1964. Steve is a Syndicated
Columnists member, a national organization
committed to a fully transparent approach to
money management. With over 50 years in the
fi nancial services industry, Steve specializes
and focuses on each individual client’s goals.
Visit stevekerby.retirevillage.com or call 503-
936-3535 for more.
T
The hefty consequences of silencing ourselves
ON LIBERTY
Devin Patton
I
n last month’s column, I described how
self-censorship is aff ecting the politi-
cal discourse because publicly sharing
our closely held beliefs often comes with a
hefty price tag. Conversely, silencing our-
selves often has devastating consequences
of its own. When we refrain from debating
and sharing ideas, the dominating narrative
becomes monochromatic and dogmatic.
Furthermore, the inability to freely dis-
cuss ideas with others who disagree inhib-
its our ability to learn. Open, diverse
dialogue is an essential element of any civ-
ilization or organization that values prog-
ress and broadened consciousness.
When censorship inhibits the devel-
opment and sharing of ideas, what domi-
nates is a dogmatic set of ideologies that
lacks diversity and appreciation for the risk
and creativity required to engage in “out-
side-the-box” thinking. We become a peo-
ple predisposed to group-think, one of the
greatest threats to objectivity and eff ective
problem solving. We alienate those who
hold diff erent beliefs and in doing so we
discount one of our most valuable assets.
Many people throughout history have
been able to manipulate the public by use
of censorship, but what is most striking is
the fact that many atrocities committed for
the sake of “the greater good” have taken
place as a result of individuals’ decisions
to silence their conscience. Growing up,
we called this “peer pressure.” One tragic
example of this is illustrated in Christo-
pher Browning’s book “Ordinary Men,”
in which he describes how normal, mid-
dle-aged, working class men in Nazi Ger-
many eventually found themselves perpe-
trators of the mass murder of Jews because
of their fear of being ostracized by their
peers. During their service for the Order
Police, these men were given multiple
opportunities to decline participating in
the violent activities ordered by superiors,
yet Browning explains that the pressure
to conform to the group was a major rea-
son many men chose to participate, even in
spite of their consciences.
The detrimental eff ects of censorship
and group-think reach even further. Con-
sider for a moment how science and tech-
nology have led to rapid advancements in
civilization; this would not have been pos-
sible if not for the peer-review process that
came about in the 1600s as Sir Isaac New-
ton’s publications spread rapidly through-
out Europe. The peer-review process is
vital to economic progress and technologi-
cal innovation because it provides the sift-
ing needed in order to allow the best ideas
to rise to the top. Culture suff ers when sci-
entists and creatives are discouraged from
thinking for fear of making a career-ending
blunder. People have a right to be wrong.
The self-censorship by the mainstream
media after the 2015 terrorist attack on
French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo was
particularly discouraging for those “in the
trenches” fi ghting for religious and polit-
ical freedom. After the attack, instead of
standing in defense of those brave enough
to challenge religious dogma, the media
refused to show the “provocative” cartoons
out of fear of off ending Muslims. Omar
Aziz for The New Republic reported how
one columnist “went so far as to accuse
the dead of ‘editorial foolishness’ and
‘just being stupid.’” He further explains:
“self-censoring not only stereotypes Mus-
lims in the West as crazed and sensitive,
but impedes the progress of free-think-
ing Muslims in the Islamic world who are
challenging Sunni scholars who propagate
the most conservative views. … For my
Iraqi and Pakistani and Palestinian friends
bravely challenging established religious
dogmas in their countries, the threat of a
Paris massacre is a lived reality each day
they sit at their desks, prepared to die for
every sentence they write. What message
do we send to them when we censor the
publication of images because we do not
wish to off end?”
When we self-censor, we do harm not
just to the world, but to our minds, as well.
Freedom of speech is not a right preserved
solely for the purpose of “speaking truth to
power.” The innate desire to speak freely
as addressed by our forefathers in the First
Amendment is God-given and deserving
of protection. We refi ne our ideas by bring-
ing them out into the public and comparing
and contrasting them with the ideas and
knowledge of others. That is the essence
of learning: receiving new information and
comparing it to what we already know in
order to assess its usefulness. Our abil-
ity to learn is what gives us the ability to
change, and as a species we can utilize lan-
guage to facilitate learning on a large scale.
The purpose of language itself is to trans-
mit thoughts from one mind to another,
but what use is that if the thoughts being
shared by others simply echo our own?
The fear that manifests as self-censor-
ship is a fear that ultimately inhibits us
from learning. Thai Nguyen of Entrepre-
neur.com explains how the fear of judge-
ment is one of the greatest obstacles to
learning. He states: “Our egos paralyze us
the moment we’re about to ask a question.
That fear of judgment is crippling. Rather
than asking and gaining new knowledge,
we protect our image and remain mired in
our lack of knowledge.”
To cease learning and rob posterity in
the process seems too high a price to pay
for the sake of harmony.
———
Devin Patton is a third-generation Wal-
lowa County native whose pastimes include
the study of ag economics, history and free
thought.
Why we must rise up and battle antisemitism
OTHER VIEWS
Christine Flowers
ark Ruff alo came out on Twitter
the other day and angered a lot of
people, but not the people he usu-
ally tends to anger.
“I have refl ected & wanted to apologize
for posts during the recent Israel/Hamas
fi ghting that suggested Israel is committing
‘genocide.’ It’s not accurate, it’s infl amma-
tory, disrespectful & is being used to jus-
tify antisemitism here & abroad,” Ruf-
falo wrote. “Now is the time to avoid
hyperbole.”
I actually missed his comments about
Israel committing genocide, but that’s
because I generally tune out that kind of
hyperbole. Still, it was a bit of a gut punch
to see that a person with his far-left follow-
ing would engage in that sort of language,
knowing where it leads.
Antisemitism is on the rise in the United
States, and it’s no longer a product of the
white supremacists, neo-Nazis, survivalists,
domestic terrorists and sociopaths that the
media and society in general has lumped
together under the convenient heading
“right-wing zealots.” They still exist, of
course.
But the true and more troubling source
of anti-Jewish bigotry these days comes
from the left, the tolerant, hate has no home
here, we love all of you, kumbaya, open-
tent, left. That has never been more obvi-
ous than in the days following the confl ict
in the Middle East involving Hamas on one
M
side and Israel on the other.
The fact that the mainstream media has
attempted to frame it as a confl ict between
“Palestinians” and Israel is simply one sign
of the bigotry that is perhaps so internal-
ized that not even journalists who think
they are acting in good faith recognize it.
Israel was not fi ghting against “the Pal-
estinians.” Israel was defending itself
against a terror group that has been funded
as if it were a sovereign nation by other
sovereign nations, including Iran and
Russia.
But that false moral equivalency is only
part of the antisemitism.
Many on the left argue that they can’t be
antisemitic because there are Jews in Amer-
ica, not to mention Israeli human-rights
organizations, that condemn Israel’s pol-
icies in the West Bank and Gaza. That is
hopelessly naïve.
The people who are throwing rocks at
Jews in New York, and tweeting out as a
CNN contributor did that “we need another
Hitler,” and driving through the streets with
Palestinian fl ags waving while screaming
about apartheid Israel are not interested in
politics. They are interested in what Iran’s
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wanted: Removal
of the “cancerous tumor” called Israel.
The fact that very few outlets are calling
out the rank bigotry of the left is troubling,
but not surprising. Network television is
happy to air hours of programming about
the bigoted GOP that tries to suppress
Black votes, the brutal white supremacy
of the police that targets people of color,
the horrifi c acts of violence by white men
against Asian Americans. We’ve all seen it.
But I am still waiting for CNN, for
example, to have one of their “breaking
news” reports about Palestinian Ameri-
cans chasing down innocent boys in yar-
mulkas walking home from yeshiva. We
see momentary clips, true, but never any
in-depth, deep-dive reporting.
And when Ilhan Omar says “it’s all
about the benjamins,” or AOC recovers
long enough from her PTSD to issue some
rant about apartheid Israel, their friends on
the left will make excuses. Always excuses,
never an acknowledgement that this lan-
guage leads to broken bones.
This rise of antisemitism on the left
seems linked in some important ways to
the race-awakening in society triggered by
the Black Lives Matter protests last year.
And that is the most troubling thing about
this phenomenon, the idea that a desire
to respect people of color must come at
the expense of history’s oldest targets of
hatred.
The Wall Street Journal, one of the few
mainstream media outlets that has the guts
to actually focus on this phenomenon, ran
a column a few days ago by Gerard Baker,
who made the following observation:
“All this contributes to an uneasy sense
of a widening clash of civilizations that is
increasingly the objective and likely out-
come of the modern left’s program. The
embrace of critical race theory and woke
ideology in the cultural and political estab-
lishment, like its more traditional marx-
ist forebears, neatly reduces all tensions in
human relations to a simplifying narrative
of oppressor and victim, only this time not
on the basis of economics but race.”
Bigotry is evil, no matter who exhibits
it. But it’s about time to acknowledge that
the left is as adept and talented in their bias
as their political opponents.
Just ask Mark Ruff alo.
———
Christine Flowers is an attorney and
a columnist for the Delaware County
Daily Times, and can be reached at cfl ow-
ers1961@gmail.com.