Retirement Planning Show

April 20th, 2024

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Live from the w g y iHeartStudios. Welcome to the Retirement Planning Show
with your host Dave Kopek from theRetirement Planning Group. Every week, Dave
and his team discussed the ways theycan help people make informed decisions about a
wide array of retirement planning information thatcan support you and developing a more certain
financial future for you and your family. Now it's time for Dave Gopec w

(00:24):
g wis for Retirement Planning Specialist.Okay, good morning, good morning,
good morning, good morning. Who'sthat We're in those guys a long time.

(00:52):
That's your generation, my generation.Frank. Absolutely, that's mister Frank
Lang Attorney, otherwise known as hisnickname the Barracuda. Only by David,
only by Dave. I mentioned itand everybody. It's funny. We had
a little housekeeping here. I thinkto all the people that came to the
workshop hopefully enjoyed it. I knowI did. It was a great night

(01:15):
out. Get to see people thatlistened to the show, some for an
extended period of time. You didradio for how many years? Twenty yeah,
fifteen, twenty fifteen, twenty years. It's amazing how many people listen
to the show and then ultimately theymake a decision come in. Oh yeah,
you know after possibly years. Ihad somebody to bring in a cut

(01:36):
out from the Times Union that waswith the date was on it seven years.
I only took her seven years topull the trigger. But for all
the people that went to Crown Plaza, which is the Desmond Crown Plasma and
it's got underneath it still a Desmond, I will applaud them. They did
a hell of a job. Wehad about almost one hundred and fifty people

(01:57):
and the food was phenomenal. Ithought that the gym and the staff and
everybody from the Pure Law Firm,I want to thank them. It's not
easy to put something like that on, and as always we offered that complementary
consultation. A lot of people tookadvantage of that. And we'll see you
soon. You know. I justhad a brief conversation with Frank before we

(02:25):
came on the air, and I'mgoing to stir the pot here a little
bit this morning. So if you'reworried about long term care planning, if
you have a large amount of moneyin iras, and you also bought the
New York State Partnership for Long longterm care for asset protection, the feature

(02:49):
that ensures long term care expenses won'treduce you down to poverty. I got
some surprises for you. I callit the Big Lie. Who could you
trust? Tonight? And Frank andI both have very negative I don't want
to speak for you, I'll speakfor me. I have very negative feelings

(03:13):
about what has transpired with the NewYork State Partnership. Yeah, and I
share most of those concerns because Iremember back, you know, twenty twenty
five years ago, when the partnershipgot introduced and it was touted as this
great panacea where you would self insurefor three years and then if you exhausted

(03:35):
the benefits of the policy, asthe you know, companies would say,
then you're home free. You know, You're you're automatically eligible for Medicaid.
Medicaid gives up its right of staterecovery against you, you know, so
you're basically in what they What theydidn't mention to us was that the income
qualifications were still going to apply.So while you know, the assets that

(03:58):
you had were going to be protected, or at least we thought we're going
to be protected, the income wasn'tgoing to be protected. The second thing
that switched was that because nobody hadreally thought it through, was that even
though your IRA or four one Kwouldn't disqualify you for being eligible for Medicaid,

(04:19):
the mandatory minimum distributions coming off thoseaccounts were still considered income to you
and as a condition of being onMedicaid, Medicaid generally says you have to
turn over all of your income tothe nursing home. Well, if the
only assets that you have at theend of the game were a big IRA.

(04:41):
Again, back then, it wasn'tthe end of the world because most
of the counties in New York Statewere only saying you have to take your
mandatory minimum distribution. But in thelast few years the counties have gotten much
more aggressive and are now trying tosay that, oh no, you don't
have to just take your mandatory minimumdistributions. You have to take the entire

(05:02):
account over an actual elis sound periodof time, which they interpret to me
equal installments over your life expectancy isdetermined by the irs. So instead of
being able to take you know,one twelfth or one eleventh or one tenth,
they want you to take one fifth, one fifth every every year for
five years and then it's gone.So when you hear presentations by experts,

(05:30):
they classify themselves as experts or veryqualified people. And Medicaid planning acid protection
that an IRA is protected from aMedicaid spend down that is total bs.
Well, it's certainly inaccurate. It'sinaccurate, it's not true. That it's

(05:51):
not true. And I'm not goingto mention any names, but I when
you were away on vacation, Iaggressively was trying to get after you because
we had a nine to one toone with a joint client and the son
in law and the daughter were attheir wits end because mom and dad had

(06:15):
bought a New York State partnership policythat basically said that they had total asset
protection for their estate right and oncethey exhaust the benefits of the policy,
New York State would come in andput them on Medicaid extended coverage. Correct.

(06:36):
Oh, we did our job,we paid our bills. And this
woman has been in the nursing homefor what five years now five years with
Alzheimer's and guess what happened? Weget a phone call from the SUN and
says liquidate the IRA. One sendout a check. It said, what

(06:56):
stop Jim Lee's the office says,we got to liquidate this IRA and send
it all out one hundred percent incash. So it was over one hundred
thousand dollars the IRA for her.Okay, that's a taxable event. One
hundred percent of that money is taxesordinary income correct calendar year twenty twenty four.

(07:23):
And this is a woman that hadthe New York State Partnership policy.
And I said, We're not goingto do a damn thing until Frank Lang
tells us what has what has tobe done. You tell the county,
or you tell the Medicaid facility,you tell whoever the hell is that you
there. We're not doing nothing untilwe have legal representation. And what happened.

(07:45):
And I came back and I lookedat it, and I looked at
the regulations and realized, much tomy surprise and sugar in that they were
right under the current medicaid regulations.So the IRA is not protected. It's
not protected. You got attorneys outthere every day that are saying, as
long as you put the policy,the insurance, not you, the IRA

(08:07):
periodic payments, you're satisfying what needsget done. And they can't go after
the IRA, which is not true. Yeah that's not true. Yeah,
that's correct. And and the thingis, you know, it's it's a
very complicated process. There's a lotof computing federal rules and regulations and state

(08:28):
rules and regulations. And the truthof it is that back when when this
was being sold to us, nobodyhad tested it out yet, right,
right, nobody had been all theway through the process. It was all
brand new. Yeah, it's allbrand new, and and and so I
don't know, you know, Ican't throw stones at the at the industry
and say, oh, they theyknew this loophole was out there and they

(08:48):
just didn't tell us. Maybe theygot fooled by it, just the way
we got fooled by it. Butyou know, in good faith, I
think a lot of us, andmyself included, have been have been operating
on the assumption that if you exhaustthe partnership policy, you're home free.
And now it turns out that undercertain circumstances, depending on what kind of
assets you have, no, You'vegot to make a very tough choice,
which is do I want to letthem bleed it out? You know,

(09:11):
because at this stage of the game. Most people's life expectancy under the under
the tables is fairly short. Sure, do what because statistically you're knocking at
that door late seventies, early eighties, correct, and so and so do
I do I cash it out,pay the tax and save you know,
half of what I've got? Maybe? Or do I? Or do I

(09:31):
hold my breath? And and andyou know, bat against myself and hope
that I died before they get toomuch of my ira? And it's it's
a you know, nobody wants tobe in that situation where you're betting against
yourself. So if her IRA wasfive hundred thousand dollars, five hundred thousand
dollars would have been paid in twentyand twenty four. It was if it
was the husband's iray and not thewife's iray. If it was the husband's

(09:54):
IRA, under the scenario we're dealingwith his, he didn't have to do
any But because it's her and she'sin the medicaid facility, correct, her
IRA becomes problematic because that's an asset. So when people say, hey,
Dave, I want to do longterm care planning, you know, I
know that you work in that arena. Well, I've been working in this
arena now for forty two years.When I say that this is really there's

(10:18):
a word that I want to wantto say that I'm not going to say
because it's a dirty word. Itis a blank show. It's a blank
show because nobody, in my opinion, in my opinion, nobody else has
said this besides me, So holdme to this. Really knows what the
hell they're doing right now because they'retelling pinocchios, they're telling tall tales.

(10:39):
So when I hear the iras protectedfrom a medicaid spend down as long as
you put it into periodic payments.Now, I said this to an attorney,
right call them on the carpet,and I said, you know that's
not true. Well, I haven'tlitigated it yet, But I said,
then, what would you do intoday? Right now? What would you

(11:00):
do today if you got a letter, well, we have to liquidate.
So I said, then why areyou telling people that the IRA is protected?
Because you just said to me thesolution is I'm going to have to
cash out the entire IRA and tryto protect it. If not, what's
going to happen. You're going tobe impoverished, You're not going to have
any damn money. This woman hasbeen in there for five years, shouldnt

(11:22):
be in there another ten right now, and it's a problem. And again,
you know, things have changed.So for instance, the Department of
Social Services has changed the way thatit treats iras. Okay, back when,
but maybe they didn't know the laws. I don't think they modified the
laws. They just weren't using theright formula. Well that's no, they

(11:43):
right, they actually changed the regulations. Well they did. Yeah, they
changed the regulations to define what thetime period was over which you had to
liquidate at the IRA. So back, you know, twenty five years ago,
it looked like a minor risk.You know. Now the way that
they're treating it, it's a majorrisk, I'd say so, yeah,

(12:03):
I'd say so with longevity, right, people living longer. Depending flip the
coin, who's got more money inthe i RA. So now it's gonna
now it's gonna change our strategies whenit comes to what we want to do
with the money that's in our iras. You know, can we find some
other way to spend that down andand turn that asset into something that that

(12:26):
can't be forced into an income streamthat that the nursing home light grab.
Well, I say this all thetime, and I know that you're a
major advocate of this because of yourexperience and expertise. Where's your zip code
going to be? Where you gonnalive? Because if you haven't figured that
out and you move to a statethat is much more aggressive, much more

(12:48):
aggressive, we're one hundred percent ofthat money they can go after, like
right across the border in Massachusetts.Oh yeah, right day one dollar one,
they're going after that whole bucket ofmoney. You better know where your
zip code's going to be because andtalk to somebody local who knows the ins
and outs of that of that dameright right. So today we're going to

(13:11):
be talking about what I considered tobe who can you trust? Honestly,
when I say that, who canyou trust? Because my understanding entirely,
And I'm hoping Dan Bouchard is listening. Doesn't want Dan to call in because
he usually listens every Saturday. Ibet you he didn even know this is
he. He is a major advocateof the New York State Partnership Program because

(13:35):
it protects your assets. Noah doesn'tDan, Well, Noah doesn't Dan,
and in fairness. I mean,Dan was, you know, the guru
back in the day. Absolutely.I learned most of what I know about
long term assurances from Dan. Absolutely. And if Dan didn't see it coming,
and I didn't see it coming,and you didn't see it coming,
you know, probably nobody else sawher coming either. So all these people

(13:56):
that have partnership policies that think thatthe r raise detected, they might as
well go out and sit in thefield and, you know, stare at
the sun a little bit well becauseor know what that that's not in hum
and do a little yoga because thatjust is not true. Right, And
but but and I'm not a financialplanner, but maybe maybe you can come

(14:20):
up with some strategy about what youknow. Is there a way to convert
this IRA asset into into something elsethat they wouldn't be able to get their
their teeth into. It's a horriblesituation. It really is a horrible situation,
because you and I both know becausewe lived it. I lived it

(14:41):
with my in laws. You liveit every day. The first two questions
on that form to qualify for Medicaidassistance is do you have cash value life
insurance and a non qualified annuity,right man, what are the going to
do with those? You gotta yougotta change your beneficiary forms immediately. Yeah,

(15:01):
yeah, And that's and that's it. And so when we're when we're
doing planning, we're looking to getthose kind of assets either into a trust
five years in advance, or ifthere's some uh examt transfer we can make
because under certain circumstances, transfers betweenspouses back and forth are exempt. Or

(15:22):
if you have a child who's considereddisabled for social security purposes, we can
make transfer assets to that disabled childor to a supplemental it's trust for the
benefit of that. But you can'tdo it, but you can't do it
with the IRA. But you can'tdo it with the IRA. And that's
the problem. Right. So there'strillions of dollars trillions with a T and
trillions of dollars in iras, anda lot of you're probably sitting there right

(15:45):
now saying, boy, you know, I better get a hold of my
attorney on Monday. You better.I'm telling you right now. If you've
got to Medicaid trust and you thinkyour IRA is protected from a Medicaid spend
down, well you better get ahold of your attorney because things are a
changing, because we're getting letters allthe time in our office. Now we're
no more arm and d Now it'sgoing to be based off of this.

(16:07):
You've dealt on like two or threeof them right with us, with us
and then and it's not every countin New York that's taken that aggressive posture,
but but a good number of themin this area are. Well,
don't you think with what's going onright now? I mean, the biggest,
biggest delay right now in New YorkState, why we don't have a
budget, it's because because of onething. Medicaid. Well, it's a

(16:30):
big issue. It's a big issue. It's a big issue because it's almost
half of our budget right now,and it's the reason why all these counties
are going broke. I think.I think Renstler County nine out of every
ninety percent of their money, ninetycents of every dollar that comes in tax
revenue goes for Medicaid. Now,I don't doubt it. I don't doubt
it. I mean it's it'll blowyour head off, all right. We're

(16:56):
going to take our first break.If you want to participate, you have
any questions for Frank why this isretirement planning show. I'm Dave Kopek,
your host. We're going to behere until nine. Frank's gonna be here
until eight o'clock and we welcome yourphone calls at one eight hundred talk WGY
one eight hundred eight two five fiftynine forty nine. If this hasn't set
your hair on fire, I don'tknow what will. But we'll be right

(17:18):
back the eighty six percenters. Doyou know that eighty six percent of the
population has no defined benefit pension plan. For most of us, we have
to take our life savings and createa paycheck for the rest of our lives
in retirement. What is your planfor retirement income distribution? How you manage
your assets during the most critical yearsof your lifetime. Nobel Prize winning economist
William Sharp has called retirement income distributionthe nastiest, hardest problem in finance.

(17:44):
He points out that investment, uncertainty, and mortality can derail the most careful
laid out retirement income plan. Callour offices today to start the process of
building a retirement income distribution plan.After forty one years of being in the
financial services business, you need tostart to action to start building your own
personal retirement income distribution plan. Howdo you do that? To take action?

(18:06):
Five one eight, five eight zeroone nine one nine. That's five
one eight five eight zero one nineone nine or RPG retire on the web.
Don't procrastinate, motivate to start buildingyour retirement income distribution plan five one
eight, five eight zero one nineone nine. If you would like to
hear more information on navigating your wayto retirement from Dave Kopek, remember you

(18:26):
can listen to this show and pastshows anytime in anywhere on the free iHeartRadio
app, or go to iHeart dotcom and search for a retirement planning show.
If you have any questions, callin now at one eight hundred talk
WGY. That's one eight hundred eighttwo five five nine four nine one eight
hundred eight two five five nine fournine. We are here live in studio,

(18:49):
ready to answer your questions. Allright, we are back. I'm
Dave Kopek, your host's retirement planningshow. Hopefully I'm not upsetting you this

(19:10):
morning. Frank said, I dranktoo much coffee before I got here,
but this is very upsetting to me, and Frank knows that I mean this
has been bothered me for a longtime because when people think that their iras
are protected, you, people canliterally go broke under this current law.
It's yeah, well they can impIs there a level that they can say
stop, we can't. We can'tbasically impoverish you. Not really, not

(19:34):
really. I mean it's your Youcan transfer assets to a spouse, and
that's basically you know, but ifyou're single and you're in this boat,
then there's nobody who can make anexam transfer to screw. You're gonna well,
you're gonna You're gonna die in yournursing home with no money. It's
amazing, It's absolutely amazing. Soin this situation, she takes out over

(20:00):
hundred thousand dollars, is going tobe about fifty left after everything is said
and done between the federal and thestate because of their other assets and their
other income. And then the answer, where's the other fifty go? Now?
Where do you take that fifty?Now that you got your kid,
Ken, she's going to contribute itto the nursing home as a condition of

(20:22):
her eligibility, So fifty of itgoes. So if she's got a seventeen
thousand dollars a month, so theyget nothing. So you're basically saying,
is that fifty goes in tax andthe other the other fifty goes in the
nursing home. So of the onehundred thousand dollars, there's nothing. Well,
no, there's nothing there for thefamily or the kids. Well if

(20:42):
okay, now, and again,if we have a surviving spouse, we
can transfer the net proceeds of theIRA to the spouse and that was protected.
But if if she was single atthis point in time, then it
we're just getting up. Yeah,all right. If you guys have any
questions, it's one eight hundred talkWGY. That's one eight hundred eight two

(21:04):
five fifty nine. We're talking aboutsomething today that I think will you know,
definitely stimulate you for some questions.For Frank, you know, is
the IRA protected from a medicaid spenddown in New York State? What can
you do in order to protect theassets? So there's fifty thousand dollars left.
I want to go back to that. There's fifty thousand dollars left that

(21:26):
goes to the family, right,but it doesn't go to the family because
you're telling me that fifty thousand dollarsit's left after tax, has got to
go to the nursing home. Now, yeah, if we don't have an
exempt transfer that we can make.And so again, if there's if there's
a spouse in the picture, we'regoing to transfer it to the spouse and

(21:47):
it will be preserved. But ifthere isn't a spouse or a disabled child,
so we don't have that exempt transferto make, then yeah, it's
gonna get eaten up by the nursinghome. And so if if our person
lives long enough that all that's gonnaget blood away and go to the nursing
home. And and again, youknow, if that's the case, Frank,

(22:07):
let me ask you a question,because your background doing this for as
long as you have been doing,does it make any sense to do a
four one care in Ira anymore?Oh? Yeah, if if I think
it does, I think it does. But but it may change our It
may change our mind about how muchwe want to fund our ira. And

(22:33):
and are there other things that wecould be doing? So, for instance,
instead of instead of socking it awayin an ira a do we want
to do some of the money inan Ira to like purchase a life insurance
policy that we can then take andput a life insurance policy in the trust
and preserve the assets that way.So what I'm saying is it's going to

(22:55):
be not just my department, butyour department. As a financial planner.
We've got to we've got to figureways that we can the tools that we
can take these assets. Now thatwe know that leaving them in a traditional
IRA format is exposing them, whatcan we do to get it out of
the IRA, or some of themoney out of the IRA, into a

(23:15):
different form of investment that still willgive us the benefits of being able to
pass on in our generational wealth,but but take away the ability of or
take away the risk. I guessI should say of us being in a
position where we're forced to spend itdown on long term care. So if
I've got a large IRA, meJulie doesn't, Okay, I slip on

(23:37):
a banana peel yep, and I'vegot to go into a nursing home,
right and I'm there for an extendedperiod of time. I'm eighty years old,
My life expectancy is five. Let'stake get a million dollars in the
IRA. Okay, Okay, Juliedoesn't know a lot right in our ira,
and you know we need that milliondollars in order for her to have
quality of life. Okay, Okay, So I don't have long term care

(24:00):
insurance. Yeah, I do havea irrevocable trust, which I do,
but the i RA now can canif I have a situation like our clients
where we're in a situation where wehave I have an extended stay in a
nursing home. Ye, is therea possibility that all that money would would

(24:22):
go to the nursing home. Soso my solution would be, what cash
out the million dollars? That's whatThat's what we would We would sit down
and I don't want to sound coldblooded about it, but we would sit
down and figure out, Okay,nobody's got a crystal ball, but how
long do we think Dave's gonna liveunder these circumstances? And if we cashed
it in UH and paid the taxand made it an exempt transfer to Julie,

(24:48):
what's the dollar amount? We wouldsay? As opposed to, if
we roll the dice and they've outlivesit, we could we could lose it
all. All right, We're gonnawe're gonna break. I gotta break for
the news here. When we comeback, we're gonna have more of this
conversation about iras and Medicaid planning.If you have any questions or comments,
give us a call one eight hundredTalk WGY, one eight hundred Talk WGY

(25:10):
will be right back. All right, we are back. I'm Dave Kopek,

(25:30):
your host. If you're a newtime listener, this is a retirement
Planning shaw. I'll be back attwelve to one, topic specific retirement Ready
show, and we're gonna be talkingabout long term care options today. That
will be Retirement Ready Show from twelveto one. If you don't have the
opportunity to sit down, we getover twelve thousand downloads of our podcast last

(25:56):
quarter. Oh wow on iHeartRadio.It's a lot. Yeah, yeah,
I'm so sorry, which is goodif we're helping for helping people. If
you have any questions today, it'sone eight hundred Talk WGY. It's one
eight hundred and eight two five fiftynine forty nine. One eight hundred Talk
WGY one eight hundred eight two fivefifty nine forty nine. We're talking about

(26:18):
the people out there that have longterm care policies under the New York State
Partnership Policy that thought that they hadtotal acid protection. That's not the case.
I found that out last week,got ahold of my good friend here,
Frank Lang, and he called meyesterday and said, liquidate the ir
ray, send the cash out.So it's kind of it's a shock to

(26:44):
me. It's really is a shockto me. Yeah, and it's and
it's come about for a number ofdifferent reasons, including the way that that
some of the counties are are interpretingthe regulations of what time from you have
to take distributions from your IRA from. And up until maybe ten years ago,
it was just taken as a giventhat if you had mandatory minimum distributions,

(27:11):
that's all you had to take wasthe mandatory minimum distribution. And then
somebody came in and read a regulationthat I think is designed only to deal
with annuity contracts, talking about howif you bought an annuity contract you have
to take it over an actually soundperiod of time, which the regulations interpret
to mean whatever your life expectancy ison the irs table. So if you've

(27:34):
got a twelve year life expectancy,you got to take an inequal installments over
twelve years. If you've got afive year life expectance, you got to
take an inequal installments over five years. And so obviously the older you get,
the lower that life expectancy is.In the heart of the bite is
going to be each month or eachyear. Right, But then some of
the counties started saying, oh,that regulation also applies to attributions from a

(28:02):
retirement account. I don't read theregulation that way. Most of the attorneys
that that I've talked to about itwho were in this business don't read it
that way. But unfortunately, someof the counties read it that way,
and they're going to imply it thatway. And so we're forced to say,
Okay, how much of a differenceis it going to make? How
you know, again, if I'vegot somebody who's who's really expected not to

(28:26):
survive very long, it may notbe worth fighting that fight, and it
will just pay an increased amount fora few months. And then let me
ask you a question. You're I'massuming the New York State Bar Associately Association,
just like our business, the financialservices industry have certain people that focus
in on certain areas of expertise.Right, yours is elder law medicaid planning.

(28:52):
Wouldn't your association, the New YorkState Bar Association, litigate this,
would wouldn't they bring the state tocourt and say, hey, listen,
you know because I had an attorneysay to me, is that I'm just
waiting for the opportunity where I canlitigate it. I said, well,
why aren't you doing it now?He says, well, who's going to
pay my bill? And right,seriously, no, And that's a question

(29:15):
that you have to ask. Therewere times in the past, so wow,
I don't know. Ten fifteen yearsago, New York State tried to
outlaw medicaid planning. They passed thelaw. It was referred to in the
newspapers as that granny goes to jaillaw where if a client came to me

(29:38):
and asked me about medicaid planning,that was against the law. And it's
like they walked into a bank witha gun. Yeah, and if I,
as the lawyer, gave them medicaidplanning advice, then that was against
the law. That got overturned sofast because the Bar Association did band together
and say this is we're going tobring an action to have it declared constitutional.

(30:04):
This is a much narrower kind ofsituation and one that I think I
would I would doubt if the ElderLoss section of the Bar Association decided to
litigate this. Doubt you doubt theywould. Yeah, I don't think they
would. I think I think thisis something that's going to get done on
an individual basis. You know,I think there will be a fair hearings

(30:25):
taken and there's some case a lotthat builds up in that arena, and
then eventually there may be a lawsuit. But I don't see anything on the
horizon. Again, if you haveany questions, it's one eight hundred talk
WGY five fifty nine. We're talkingabout the dynamics of what's happening with IRA
in order for medicaid eligibility, especiallyif you did a medicaid your revocable trust

(30:48):
with the remaining part of your assets. Things are a change and people are
it's kind of a shock. Ifyou bought a New York State partnership policy,
which we had clients that did,now they're going after the IRA,
which we did not think. Wethought that that was an exempt asset.
So we're talking about traditional iras now. You know, most people take the

(31:10):
four and k rolling into a traditionalIRA. What's the situation with roth?
With the wroth, you can takethat distribution without task consequences, so you
can you can reposition that into atrust. Yeah, so we would,
we would a one dollar one once. See if I've got a guy coming
in me right now in the sixtiesand they got a substantial amount of money
and wroth under what's going on rightnow? I say, get it out

(31:33):
of there, put and put itinto an irrevocable trust. Yeah, okay,
you're not going to have some ofthe benefits of the wroth, but
we're protecting the money. Right,what are we giving up? We're giving
up tax for an entry who cares. Right then, that's nothing compared to
the government coming in and say,oh too bad, you got to spend
that all down right, That's exactlyright. And i've heard recounties are doing
that. Yeah, I've heard recountiesare doing that. So the one thing

(31:56):
that we didn't talk about, whichI know that something is a viable option
too, and I want to geta little bit more detail about that.
But I want to go back shetakes Let's just say that her IRA was
much more substantial. Let's just saythat she she cast out a half a
million, two fifty was left,okay, all right, and she has
a certain amount that she's going tohave to be responsible for this year.

(32:20):
Okay, let's say seventeen thousand dollarsa month, which I think was the
figure that you gave me. Yeah, seventeen thousand dollars a month. Okay.
How much of that seventeen thousand dollarsa month is Medicaid responsible for?
And how much is she responsible for? So whatever her income is, they're

(32:40):
going to say she has to applyall of her income towards that. So
all five hundred, Well, ifshe's got well, the five hundred is
income to her, yeah, intwenty twenty four, twenty twenty four.
Okay, So so she's gonna haveto pay one hundred percent probably of that
seventeen thousand for twenty twenty four,twenty twenty jesus. Yeah. Now,

(33:04):
well there's there's two hundred grand ontop of the two fifty that she lost
of the five hundred THI I'm usingthe five hundred as a number, okay,
but just mind bear in mind thatall the money that she pays is
deductible. Is a medical expense.So so some of that comes back and
some of the tax consequence goes away. But oh my god, you're hurting

(33:27):
me, man, I'm sorry,but that's you know, this is what
happens when you know the regulations arebasically moving the target. You know,
we do our best to anticipate andgameplay it and say, Okay, if
they do this, we're going todo that. If they do that,
we're going to do this. Butthen you know, something like this comes
out of the blue and the waythat they're interpreting the regulation changes. And

(33:49):
now none of us saw it coming. It wasn't like there was an announcement,
Hey, we're going to change ourmind about how we're treating this regulation.
They just started doing it. Soyou've been doing this for many,
many years. Yeah, and I'massuming that your whole view now on how
to protect people's assets has got tobe changed. Well, it does,

(34:10):
because now it has to be changedbecause now we've got it. Now we've
got a new risk out there thatwe never had on our horizon before,
which is which is this is asituation that I used to say, was
you know, statistically unlikely. Wellnow it's not so statistically unlikely. So
now we're going to have to figureout, Okay, if I've got a
substantial IRA, and if I knowthat there are circumstances under which I can

(34:35):
be forced to draw this down ata precipitous rate, what else can I
do with the money that's in thisIR Can I, like, for instance,
can I go out and buy youknow, sor I start spending it
down and buying like an insurance policywith it that uh you know, so
I spend it on insurance so thatthe policy can uh you know, give

(34:57):
me some build up that will replacethe tax consequence is that I'm losing by
taking it out. Now, Idon't know that's that's well, yeah,
that's above my pay grade. Butbut that's something that's something that we can
take a look at and see ifwe can come up with a strategy that
will that will mitigate that risk.The exempt transfer is for who Again,

(35:19):
So I've got a kid that's eitherdisabled or someone that's lived in the house
for a certain period of time,Am I correct? Yeah? So well,
but so if we've got a caregiverchild who's lived with you for at
least two years, uh and providedhome care for you, we can transfer
the house to that caregiver child.If we've got a disabled child, we
can transfer all the assets immediately,either directly to the disabled child or to

(35:44):
a supplemental needs trust that we've createdfor that person's benefit. Uh. And
if we have a spouse, butyou're talking non qualified Yeah, now you're
talking non qualified assets, right,because but it doesn't protect it still doesn't
protect the IRR. No, becausewhat we've got to do is first cash
out the IRA and then transfer theproceeds. But that's not going to get

(36:06):
us out from under the tax consequence. Okay, So they cash out the
IRA. Let's just keep it simple. They got two hundred thousand dollars left
of the five hundred Okay, theyreposition that into the trust that's already been
established. He has an event twoyears later, the husband, that's still
money that can go after because ithas been five years. Yeah, it's

(36:29):
got Yeah. So again we're sixtymonths. Yeah, we've got to get
through the five year look back forany of those shuffles. So well,
I always say to people, isthat what's what's happening in our world today?
Because I see it all the time. By doing this now for pretty
close to forty three years, whichis hard to believe. The dynamics of
healthcare pills bypass surgery has changed thedynamics of retirement planning. Oh yeah,

(36:54):
yeah. Now the world changes,you know, our our expectations about how
long we're going, and the livechanges. The editor the letter l longevity.
Yeah, greatest risk for a lotof us. We're to take our
final break. We have open lines. I'm shocked that we don't have people
calling in about this because I'll tellyou what to me. It's the greatest

(37:16):
Achilles Hill right now for retirement planning. If you have questions for Frank,
you want to come in and havea chat and give us a call.
But today we're here. You havea question. It's one eight hundred talk
WGY. The phone's working, Zach. Are they you sure? Did you
try him? You don't get themall trying. I see him back there.
He's taking the snooze, smoking acigarette. I called him myself.

(37:36):
I wanted to check for you.One eight hundred talk WGY. That's one
eight hundred eight two five fifty nineforty nine. Uh. Changes are coming
which are going to be very problematicfor people, and you better get ready.
The eighty six percenters. Do youknow that eighty six percent of the
population has no defined benefit pension plan. For most of us, we have

(37:57):
to take our life savings and createa paycheck for the rest of our lives
in retirement. What is your planfor retirement income distribution? How you manage
your assets during the most critical yearsof your lifetime. Nobel Prize winning economist
William Sharp has called retirement income distributionthe nastiest, hardest problem in finance.
He points out that investment, uncertainty, and mortality can derail the most careful

(38:20):
laid out retirement income plan. Callour offices today to start the process of
building your retirement income distribution plan.After forty one years of being in the
financial services business, you need tostart taking action to start building your own
personal retirement income distribution plan. Howdo you do that? To take action?
Five one eight five eight zero onenine one nine. That's five one
eight, five eight zero one nineone nine or RPG retire on the web.

(38:45):
Don't procrastinate, motivate to start buildingyour retirement income distribution plan. Five
one eight five eight zero one nineone nine. Will you run out of
money in retirement? Will your investmentsprovide income for possibly decades. How do
you navigate the two greatest risk inretirement, sequence of returns in longevity At
the Retirement Planning Group, Our Bucketof Money approach addresses these concerns, and

(39:06):
we offer a complimentary consultation to discussthis with you. Call our office today
for a free complimentary consultation to developyour own personal retirement income distribution plan at
five eight five EID zero one ninenine. That's five eight five EAD zero
one nine one nine. All right, we are back. I'm here with

(39:35):
Frank Lang. We're talking about thechanging dynamics of protecting high raise. If
you're trying to qualify for medicate,even if you have a New York State
Partnership policy, you're in deep weeds. So let's go to Gary and Glenville.
Go ahead, Gary, Yeah,Hi, Frank, Hi, Dave.
Yeah. I'm very upset here.I bought a long term care policy
New York State Partnership HILPS Total AssetProtection yep. And you know I've called

(40:00):
in the past. You know,the premiums keep going up. I'm set
up with that, and now you'resaying I'm not protected. I don't quite
understand. How can they how canthey do this? How can they do
And I'll tell you total asset protection, I don't understand. Yeah, and
we're just as we're just as distraughtabout it as you are. That years
ago, years ago, I actuallywent to school to take a course to

(40:24):
learn how to sell long term careinsurance. I never sold it, but
but I wanted to understand it sothat when clients came into the office and
said, Hey, which is thebetter route for me? I would know?
And and I remember the professors,I remember the agents all swearing to
us up and down that your youryour premium will never go up because the

(40:46):
New York State Department of Insurance isso tough. They would never let us
raise the rates. They're they're goingto make us raise rates on future customers,
but they would never let us goback. Well, it was going
to be like a trunch. Yeah, the newer policies would make up for
the other people exactly. And itwas a total pinocchio. And that's and
that's exactly the way that they describedit. And you know, and I

(41:07):
believe them. Uh. And sowhen I was sitting down saying to clients,
well should we should I do atrust for you or do you want
to take a look at long termcare insurance. I took them as their
word that that was true. AndI'm and I'm and I'm shocked to see
because I got clients coming back nowsaying, you know, they're they're they
want to double my premium or worsethan double my premium or caught my benefits.

(41:30):
You know what, what what canI do? So it's yeah,
it's it's very problematic. And thenthen to find out on top of that
that that because of the way thatthe Medicaid has changed its interpretation about about
retirement accounts and the and the rateat which you have to spend down that

(41:51):
retirement account, it's a huge problemnow. And I can see it's not
it's a nine to one one.Yeah, And I could see if if
if you know how people were inthat situation are blindsided by it, because
frankly so was I. Yeah,Well, could I ask a question,
is this county, River County?Is some one county different than another county?
Solve any different than you know,Oswego County or something. That's That's

(42:14):
what I don't understand either. Well, so each each county has its own
department of social services, and eachdepartment of social services interprets the rules and
regulations, you know, as bestthey can. And and it's problematic because
they're Medicaid is a joint state andfederal program. So there's federal laws and
then there are federal regulations, andthen each state that decides to opt into

(42:37):
the Medicaid program gets to pass itsown laws and its own state regulations.
And then in order to make surethat the counties are more or less interpreting
those regulations, uh, you know, uh equally across the board, then
there's something called administrative directives that areissued by the Department of Health to tell

(43:00):
the counties how they're supposed to interpretthese various rules and regulations. And an
ADM, an administrative directive came downa few years ago that talked about retirement
accounts, and then a couple ofyears after that, another administrative law directive

(43:21):
came down that talked about annuities.And I think that some of the counties
are mistakenly using that newer ADM thattalks about annuities and trying to apply it
to retirement accounts. And I havesuccessfully argued and convinced some counties that that's
the case. But there are somecounties that I haven't convinced and continue to

(43:45):
operate on the assumption that their interpretationis the correct interpretation. And sometimes we're
able to negotiate with them and reacha compromise. Sometimes we go to a
fair herring and win the hearing.Sometimes we go to a fair hearing and
lose the fair hearing. And andit's so there's there's kind of a patchwork

(44:07):
out there. Some counties don't pushit, some counties do. Some counties
push it very aggressively. And unlessand until there's you know, somebody actually
goes to court and litigates it andwe get a reported decision that has presidential
weight. This is going to bean open question and and and and again.

(44:28):
You know, I, as along time trial attorney, have a
hard time telling people that they shouldspend their money to litigate this because there's
no clear answer. What I'm yeah, what, I'm all right? We
got other phone callers. Thank you, Gary, God blessed. Thanks so
much. J Is calling in fromLong Island. Hi, Jay, good
morning. Just I look at theshow pretty much every week as I'm going

(44:52):
to work. Uh, got alot of concerns here. I'm a civil
service employee. I have my pensionalready said, I have another pension.
I'm working on a couple of fourone ks some four fifty. How do
I isolate this so I can makesure that my daughter and my family are
well taken care of. Shift Iyou know, something happened to me,

(45:15):
or I get need long term care. That's I've worked too hard over my
last thirty years to just paid allin taxes. Yeah, and it's and
it's and right now, the shortanswer is, Dave, and I don't
know exactly what the right answer is. We're we're going to sit down and
talk about it and look at waysthat we can, uh, you know,

(45:36):
leverage the investments that are in theIRA and see if there's something we
can do to accelerate the draw downwithout without killing ourselves with taxes. This
was, to be honest with you, Jay, When I got this message,
it was like somebody hit me inthe forehead with a baseball vet because
it went against everything that I thoughtwas truly existing under this policy. And

(46:00):
when they called me the same thing, I said, no, no,
that that that can't be right.Let me go look at the regulation,
and I was shocked when I lookedat the regulation that and uh, Dave
and I were just discussing this.We're going to go back and see at
the at the point where our clientbought this policy what the regulation said that,
because it may just be that andthey'll intervened in twenty years the regulations

(46:22):
have changed. This is what Iwould say to you, Jay. Make
sure you know what you own.Make sure you understand what you're creating,
especially if you're putting a lot ofmoney in qualified plans right now. Four
fifty seven four O three b's,et cetera. Okay, Okay, if

(46:42):
I guess I'm going to have totake a shift to all the others now,
well, come, we can domost of it right over the internet
and zoom meetings now, believe itor not, So give me a buzz.
Absolutely. I appreciate you guys,Thanks very much. Okay, brother,
take cares. Go to Mike andLatham. Good morning, Mike,
Yes, Hi, good morning.I'm just looking for some clarification of what
I thought I heard you guys sayearlier. I have a long term partnership

(47:08):
policy total asset protection. I alsohave a substantial traditional IRA and Let's say
I get into that situation in thefuture where I have to liquidate that IRA
to avoid the nursing home taking acceleratedr M d S or whatever I want
to call that. One clarification I'mlooking for is why do I have to

(47:32):
transfer that money to my spouse.It doesn't that money after tax become an
exempt asset at that point. It'san asset. But if you're still on
it, well, let me thinkabout that. It goes into a state,

(47:54):
it's an asset that they're going togo after it's no longer yeah.
Yeah, And that's technically, Mike. What was going on is that they
considered to be the IRA it exemptasset because they could take the income but
they couldn't take the asset. That'sno longer true. So if he puts
it back into the no, no. But once it's out yeah. So

(48:15):
so if I if I take myIRA and I cash it in now,
they now they can't make me doanything with it. Now. It's an
asset and it's and it's been init's been you know, in my trust
for more than five years, soit's an exempt asset. But he's not
saying that if I take it outand tomorrow. But but but not in
a trust, not in a trustthat it should fall under. The total

(48:37):
asset protection is now not an iRA that I'm forced to take distributions from.
I went and paid my million dollarsto the federal government, and I'm
left with another million dollars. Let'ssay, and that that other million dollars
that is now a protected asset rightand and you're right, You're actually right,
because that's actually a very good question. Because New York State is of

(49:00):
the partnership. Police in New YorkState gives up its right of a state
recovery against you. So yeah,so it may be it may not be
necessary to make the transfer. I'mthinking I would have. I would still
transfer to the spouse anyway, justto be double safe. But but you're
right it probably they probably could notrich it. Okay, thank you,

(49:22):
Thank you for that. That wasa terrific question. Thanks for that question.
There's also going to be a lotof people out there are going to
be mad as h e double hockeystick. Oh yeah, well, a
lot of people are going to beyou know what, I'll tell you what
this for financial advisors that have beenin the business as long as I have
been, and I think about theguys that have always sat at the table

(49:43):
and said, listen, you paya little bit of money, you do
the front end, the state willcome in and protect you for the rest
of your life. Statistically, thatmight not happen because really, I mean,
what we're talking about is really theworst case situation, correct, where
you exhaust the benefits of the policy. But still when people say to you,

(50:05):
okay, you have a policy,most of the people that come to
you and I don't want to buya policy, right, So there's no
policy, there's no bumper. Sowhat they're doing is that they're going to
say, immediately, do you havelong term care? No? Okay,
where's what's your income sources? Okay, see that IRA, you got to
start spending it down based on fiveyears a million dollars, you're not going

(50:30):
to have to spend two hundred thousanddollars a year and it's all going to
go to the EDDY. That's prettyfrightening shocking. We got one last phone
call. We're going to try toget it before we got to say goodbye.
You got about a minute, Mike, go ahead. Yeah, So
I'm just curious, does a wrothIRA conversion provide any help in this issue.

(50:52):
Well, the only so if it'sin a wroth, now we can
cash out the wroth without having immediatetax consequences. And again, uh we
if we have an exempt spouse totransfer it to, So I could I
could cash in my wrath, givethe give the proceeds to my wife,

(51:15):
and I would be in a positionwhere I'd be eligible for medicaid and they
couldn't force me to spend down myI RA. So I think that's like
maybe the only you know, I'lltell you what it's like walking around in
the dark. Yeah, it reallyis. This is really I mean,
yeah, this this kind of hitus like a bolt of light and we're
gonna have to sit down and playthrough the scenarios. Okay, thanks,

(51:39):
Thanks, give us a call Mike, maybe we can help you this.
What they ought to say is that, you know what, Uh, I
didn't want to get into it.I just think there's so much misinformation out
there right now. Well and againyeah, it's it's uh. I think
everybody is surprised. I'm shocked tofind this. You can tell just by

(52:00):
the way I'm talking to I'm shockedwhen you called me and told me what
to do. I actually didn't believeit. I you called and spoke to
somebody in my office. I calledyou back. I said this camp,
I talked to Jim about it.You did. Yeah, okay, all
right, we're gonna have to saygoodbye. What's always good in you're here?
You know, give us a call. Frank's office is five one eight
six nine zero zero six six eightand all that inside and out. Gives

(52:24):
me a call. Give me acall in my office and I can facilitated
meeting. Bye. Live from thewgy I Heeart Studios, Welcome to the
Retirement Planning Show with your host DaveKopek from the Retirement Planning Group. Every
week, Dave and his team discussedthe ways they can help people make informed
decisions about a wide array of retirementplanning information that can support you and develop

(52:46):
being a more certain financial future foryou and your family. Now it's time
for Dave Gobeck, w g wi'sretirement planning Specialist. All right, we

(53:25):
are back. I want to thankFrank for coming in. Frank Lang,
I'll tell you, folks, welive in a world today. Who can
you trust? Who can you trust? Promises made, promises kept. Maybe

(53:50):
maybe tell you a real quick story. I went to my attorney the beginning
of this year and I had achat with him, going through some personal
stuff, and I said to him, I said, does a contract,
does a verbal commitment? Does thatmean anything today? And he says,
no, don't trust anybody. Thatwas the direction from my attorney. Don't

(54:15):
trust anybody. It's pretty sad.It's pretty sad that that's the world that
we live in today. But thething is is that I got kicked in
the teeth this week. I wasaway in Florida on business and I took

(54:36):
a couple of days with my wifeand got a phone call from the office.
There was a nine to one onein regard to a client of ours
that had health issues. She hasbeen in a nursing home for an extended
period of time. I'm not gonnahighlight what we just discussed, but when

(54:58):
I said, I was scratching myhead and I said, now, there's
no way, there's no way thatis true. Well, it is true.
It is true. Promises made,promises not kept. So the thing
is is that in this world thatwe live in today, there's two things.

(55:19):
Two things that really have to bethe focus for all of us that
do not have pension benefits, andits sequence of returns and it's longevity.
Sequence of return speaks for themselves,the type of net return you get on
your portfolio in order to put youthrough those golden years without stress and anxiety.

(55:45):
Longevity, Well, that's changing thedynamics of retirement planning drastically, drastically,
and with that becomes more complicated thingsthat we have to talk about,
such as long care planning, protectingiras from a Medicaid spend down, all

(56:05):
the things that most of our parentsand our grandparents never worried about. But
today, you know, it's notuncommon for a lot of people that come
into us to have seven figure irastheir life savings. It could be eighty
to ninety percent of their life savingsis allocated into those types of accounts.
Like Mike that called from Long Island, I've got a lot of my money

(56:29):
and qualified assets. Well, there'sforty trillion dollars out there in those assets
right now, forty four to ohforty trillion dollars. So you better make
sure that you're dot in your eyesand crossing your t's and you're understanding exactly
the cake that you're baking, becausewhen it comes out, sometimes you can't
make modifications, you can't adjust.Well I really didn't want that. Well,

(56:52):
too bad, you got it.Cake is baked. Now what are
we going to do with it?Now? What are you gonna do with
it? No one wants to facethe reality that you're gonna get older,
You're gonna have health issues, andyou're gonna have to figure out how to
pay for it. The counties NewYork, the mass exodus that we're seeing
in New York is probably gonna getworse because there seems to be an unlimited

(57:16):
amount of money that they can takefrom the taxpayers for Medicaid. Right.
Well, I think what's happening isthat counties are starting to look and they're
starting to say, guess what,we can't do this anymore. We can't
do this more. We can't haveour high net worth people leaving in droves
because it's just unacceptable the tax burdenthat we're putting on these people. That's

(57:44):
the reality. That's why I fly. I'm flying this week to Florida Thursday
to see more clients Thursday and Friday. That's why we have a satellite office
down there. It's not because Ienjoy flying so much. I've got to
take care of my clients. That'swhere they are. They're in Florida.
If not, they're going to findsomebody else. The ball just keeps on

(58:07):
bouncing down the road. Just keepon kicking the can. Well, kicking
the can is killing us. Andall I'm saying right now is that we
are in a situation. And Frankhas been in the medicaid elder law business
for years decades. I've known Frankfor over thirty years. He used to

(58:29):
be with her Zog and he startedhis own firm. He understands us.
He understands it inside and out,the mechanics. When I hear somebody with
his experience and expertise basically saying Idon't know what to tell people right now
about their iras. Boy, thatain't good. That ain't good. You
better have a chat with your spousetonight. And all these people that called

(58:49):
in at the end of the show, you better have a chat. You
better figure it out. You betternot put it on the back burner because
it's gonna come back to bite you. You know where I know personally myself
I'm going to try to figure thisout in a very short period of time.

(59:10):
You know, this week, we'regoing over portfolios, we're doing adjustments,
we're looking at what what course ofaction we're going to take with some
of our portfolios, working with Fidelity, working with some of our other team
members. You know, there's beensome volatility where bonds and stocks have shown
a little bit of volatility here overthe last couple of weeks. It's not

(59:32):
unexpected. We've had a hell ofa run up over twenty five percent since
October. So after a twenty fivepercent run, you can expect, just
like running a marathon, you're goingto take a deep breath. But the
tone in the markets right now haveshifted. You know, you're starting to
smell a little bit of that bearright. But you know, all the

(59:58):
smart people will tell you what todo. Like I say all the time,
diversification with your friend. And Ihave one of my best friends on
the phone right now. I've askedhim to call in today, Droiello because
his chrystals good morning, your crystalball has been broken. Oh on the
interest rates. Yet, it's beenreally difficult this year, probably the most

(01:00:21):
difficult year in my thirty years ofdoing this, it's been very hard to
predict what's happening. You know,we know the eventual outcome will be lower
rates. It's just I honestly wouldhave thought we would have started to see
a move a year ago and westill haven't seen it. So yeah,
we're correct. It's been a roughride in the bond markets. Luckily,

(01:00:46):
unlike say twenty eighteen when rates weregoing up. Luckily, the housing market
is super strong, very resilient,and that's obviously mainly due to more demand
than supply at the moment, andwe see that continuing for a while.
I think that's happening here locally,Drew. But I can tell you one

(01:01:06):
thing. I've been to Florida quitea bit recently. I'm actually flying down
Thursday again to see some clients,flying back, and then on Sunday with
Thursday and Friday, I'm seeing someclients. But bottom line is, we're
starting to see a lot of forsale signs in Florida and we're seeing prices
dropping dramatically, houses dropping fifty sixtyseventy five one hundred thousand dollars that are

(01:01:29):
ripped in Florida. Why do youthink that is well, yeah, they
had see Florida. See, we'vehad some good appreciation here. Like we've
seen maybe thirty percent, forty percentin certain markets over the last four years.
Florida's seeing probably one hundred percent someof them, So some of them

(01:01:49):
last four years, last four years, some of the zip codes down there
have seen anywhere from one hundred andfifty to two hundred percent capital appreciation just
in the real estate value. Yeah. Yeah, I did a mortgage for
a friend of mine that bought inFlorida. Maybe it was twenty twenty one.
I think in the March of twentytwenty one. I think got the

(01:02:10):
house for three ninety. Houses thisneighborhood are selling for eight nine hundred right
now, and you know they hada crazy Is this a repel? Is
this they come back? Is thisa repeat of what we've seen in the
past. I don't. I don'tthink so, because what happens, Say,
if you're referring to say two thousandand eight, two thousand and nine,

(01:02:32):
I'm talking about when they used tobuy a house. They used to
buy a house on Monday and theycould sell it for more on Friday because
the market was so hot in Florida. Remember those days and all these yeah,
all yeah, all those people gotburned and they got crispy because it
cratered like a you know, nuclearreactor went off and the values of real
estate and Florida just crashed. Yeah. I don't I don't see that.

(01:02:58):
That that that almost like hot potatomusical chairs. That happened where you're right,
I would buy a house. Yeah, and before I even took ownership
of it, I already had itsold to you. Yep, right,
that's what was happening for fifty onehundred thousand dollars in profit. We don't
see that now, just because thelaws of change and rules have changed.

(01:03:21):
The underwriting guidelines have changed. Peoplehave to qualify with pay stubs, taxes,
insurance, tax returns, you nameit. So we didn't have we
don't have any of that craziness thatwas that was around back then. So
at least the underwriting is more stable. Real buyers are buying these houses so

(01:03:42):
that there's not it's not fake demandlike we had back then when that was
happening. So I feel confident inthe housing market. I think, you
know, Florida probably ran up toomuch just because it was like the safe
haven the go to during COVID,right, everybody was flocking to Florida.
They were open to see their rulesand regulations were so much different than say
California and New York, and theyhad a huge run up. So maybe

(01:04:08):
it's just you know, maybe justtrying to get back down to reality and
some stability. But I don't thinkyou're going to see any sort of crash.
Especially once we start to see somemarket weakness in the employment and we
start to see some more headway andinflation, then we will know, because
they've kind of forecasted it, rateswill start to be cut and that'll further

(01:04:30):
boost the housing market. All thefence itters will come back in and it'll
it'll start all over not you know, not one hundred and two hundred percent
appreciation, but it'll it'll absorb ifthere's any supply out there right now in
the Capital Region, there's there's nosupply nationwide. I would say we'll supplies

(01:04:53):
up about fourteen percent versus this time, So that's a good sign, you
know, the market trying to getback to someone normal, and that's what
we need because we're still seeing inthe Capitol region multiple offers people bidding higher
than ask price. I you know, I hear it all the time from
my client. So we lost thisone someone one fifty someone seventy five thousand

(01:05:15):
higher than than what the house waslisted for. So we missed out on
it. You know, we'll getthe next one kind of thing. So
at least at least and as youcan see, you bet you've lived here
almost your whole life, the Capitolregion. We never really take advantage of
those crazy peaks, and we alsonever take advantage of those crazy lows.
We're always kind of like steady Eddy, you know, like like the like

(01:05:39):
the bears. You know, theporridge isn't you know, it's not too
cold, not too hot, youknow, very conservative area. We have
a lot going on here. Youcall me a little bear, a big
bear. I'm a little bear.If you said Dave next to me,

(01:06:00):
there's a big difference. You're abig Well, this is what I would
say to you. Everything that youjust said about the housing in the Capitol
District is true, with the exceptionof Saratoga. You know, the Adelphi
up there is selling is selling forsixteen dollars of square foot, which is

(01:06:23):
Manhattan prices. So Saratoga I thinkis through the I mean, it's just
it's insane. They are. It'sinsane. So this friend of mine actually
bought one of those. Yeah,and you were telling me that the other
day. I was like, areyou are you crazy? But you know
they're trying to make it like afour season with all the amenities. You
know, you buy a condo inthere and you can take advantage of the

(01:06:44):
weight room and all the whatever roomsand facilities and parking and concierg and all
that. So we'll see. Theyseemed to be selling at the moment.
And you still have that strip onFifth Avenue that that comes up against the
Oklahoma track. Yeah, those housesgo on the market and they're gone in
about fifteen minutes. Yeah, andit's all celebrities, it's all it's all

(01:07:05):
people that are there for Portnoy.Yeah, seventy eight weeks out of here.
But this is what you know.The thing is is that we get
a lot of We met with Fidelity, had conversations with them this past week
about our portfolios and some of theresizing and positions that we want to have.
We saw volatility. It's kicked inhere a little bit, uh not

(01:07:26):
only as far as the equity side, but also the fixed income. I
think what it is, I thinkWall Street's having a fit in regards to
what's happening here. Fed rate cuts. Uh. There are some people and
I know that you don't want tohear this because your business that think they
might delay these rate cuts until nextyear. There's there's talk. So you're

(01:07:48):
right. The you know the odds, you know how they have that plot
mass thing that the FED does orthe other whatever you want to call it.
They only have one one right now, one one where we may get
it in the fall, where initiallywe had about three right and so you
know, we hope, we'll hopefulend of last year March, and then
obviously that got moved to June,and now you know we're hoping half it's

(01:08:12):
in September. And then obviously ifthat doesn't happen, you're right, you're
probably next year. Yep. AndI thought, and this is again where
we've been wrong. I really thoughtthat the damage would be done the first
quarter this year in terms of lowerrates, because the inflation numbers we got
a year ago compared to today,I thought would be a huge difference.

(01:08:34):
And it didn't happen. So nowI think for the next you know,
through the summer, it's going tobe steady Eddie where I don't think we're
going to see much of a casefor lower rates in the in the near
term. Is it isn't isn't?You know. I just went by my
truck. You know, I boughta I was really smart, you know,

(01:08:55):
I bought an F one fifty pickuptruck because I was so smart,
and across me now about one hundreddollars to fill the damn thing. And
I drove by the gas I droveby Stuart's this morning. I saw my
good friends when I got my coffee, and I think it's three dollars and
sixty nine cents now for gasoline atStuart's and Clifton. Chief stuff, yeah,
the cheap stuff for the Chief stuff. I like Chief Yeah, the

(01:09:17):
big Yeah, the Big Bear likescheap. Yeah. Well, I go
I have to go to I haveto go to snok Or. I know,
but six, I'm driving a pickup. You're driving one hundred thousand dollars
cars, So you know what thatyou got to go get the fancy stuff.
Listen. So if that's the case, I know that we talk about
CPI all the time. Okay,As far as what energy's not in there,

(01:09:42):
I believe, I am I correct. Energy is not part of the
case. As far as the calculationper CPI, yeah, I don't believe
it is that. The big thingI moved it, I think was the
shelter costs and car insurance, asyou and I always talk about for our
boys down in Florida. It's amazingmy son car insurance of yeah, four

(01:10:03):
increase for my son to move fromCapital District Region to Florida. Four increase
in car insurance and he doesn't havea fraction of the protection that he had
up here. Yeah, my sonjust got a a cheap par to uh
to drive around and put some milesonto his job. And uh was that

(01:10:25):
about? What'd you get? What'dyou get? Hi? Drew a Maserati,
one of those cheap ones. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right,
But I felt bad for him,But I was like two or fifty three
dollars a month just for the carinsurance. Absolutely, And I'm like,
you know, how did how doesyou know the average American handle that right

(01:10:46):
now? And that's that's forty percentversus this time last year on car insurance,
and that's just one thing. We'retalking about rents. They were coming
down, coming down, coming down. In the last report, you know,
we saw rents now increase a littlebit. So this is the stubborn,
sticky stuff that we didn't really predictthat's keeping rates elevated. So I

(01:11:11):
think right now, if you lookat the ten year you probably see it
because you study it every day.You know, their bombs are in a
big trading range. So this volatilitythat we're experiencing and getting, I don't
think that ends at time soon,just because it's a massive almost seventy five
eighty basis points of trading between supportand resistance. So yeah, it's sticky,

(01:11:40):
it's stubborn. I don't think theFED is going to increase rates.
You know, you had some FEDpeople out there. I think it was
FED one of the Fed governor's Williamsout there last week saying talk about increasing
rates. I think he's smoking thewacky tobacco on that. But I don't
think they're going to low lower ratesanytime soon. Maybe in the fall,
unless we see something that's really changed. The two things they're focused on is

(01:12:03):
just the employment and inflation, andright Now, you know, inflation was
coming down, down, down,Now it's kind of stabilized and hasn't really
moved, and you know, tickedup a little bit. Unemployment rate was
going up a little bit. Iwas hoping that would get to maybe four
point one percent. Now that's comeback down to the big I think it
was three seven or three eight.The big thing was retail sales far EXCEEDINGX.

(01:12:26):
Retail sales blew it blight blue rightout of the water. This is
where this is where I'm perplexed,because we know that the American consumer right
now is running on fumes. Rightthe credit card debt is all time high.
People are buying groceries on their creditcards, and you know, paying

(01:12:46):
it off in segments can't paid offin every month. We know that those
employment numbers are a little skewed withthe job growth because most of those numbers,
if you dig deep into those reports, are people get second and third
jobs, not primary jobs. Andthe second third jobs obviously he's telling you
they're trying to make ends meet andthey can't based on their primary income.

(01:13:10):
So you see these things and yousee container shipments, you know, all
time lows and recessionary categories. Butthose that consumer retail sales number just blew
my mind. And I don't know. Maybe because they're gainfully employed, we're
spending more than we make right now. I don't know, it's just that

(01:13:32):
that was a mind boggler. Well, this is what I think. This
is what I think that you know, we haven't seen it yet, But
in order for us to get outof this, we have to be what
technically and what come on, it'sthe R word recession. Yeah, recession.
You don't even hear that word anymore. You hear about soft landing.

(01:13:54):
And the thing is is that I'min the camp, and you know I've
said this. I know that clientsthat might have heard me say this,
prospective clients, we can get afive handle again. We can get over
five percent guaranteed again, okay onthat caier on well, fixed guaranteed rates
fixed, you know, we canwhether Treasure Treasury short term or we can

(01:14:18):
get fixed guaranteed rates for like fiveyears of five percent guaranteed at least,
right, I don't care if it'sa CD, it's an NYGA that's twenty
five percent higher than what modern portfoliotheory says you should take off a portfolio
without the risk of the money goingaway before you go away, right,

(01:14:40):
twenty five percent more five percent?Okay, So even the tenure, which
I know that you monitor because that'sbased off of your business, has been
been tilting, you know, peekingup at five. There are some people
on Wall Street that believe that wehave to hit five on the ten in
order for us to get back towhere we need to be as far as

(01:15:01):
the cuts. What's your perception ofthat, right, Yeah, I agree.
Uh, it's kind of funny,but it's true. The cure for
higher rates is higher rates. Yeah, right, because you saw that bond
March last week. I think thetwenty year they auctioned off. That was
the best showing of absorption of thatpaper that we've seen in months. That's

(01:15:26):
because rates when higher, we mightbe politically screwed up here, but we're
still the safe, safest house inthe world. Yeah, that's still that's
why. That's why that's trillions overseas, that's why that's why people still come
to the good old USA and bythose treasuries. Heah, you're looking at
you know, two year treasury atfive percent, Yeah, the ten year
at four point six. Uh,triple A rated guaranteed paper and so that

(01:15:51):
bond auction I think it was WednesdayThursday. That was widely received, which
is great, and that's what happensas rates go up. Obviously, international
players, obviously American US players areall coming in to get that yield,
and that'll actually push push yields lower. Well, you know the thing is
you asked You asked me a question. I asked you a question about real

(01:16:14):
estate. I personally think the reasonwhy we're seeing these major, major reductions
in Florida is because you had alot of people down there, this this
panacea that prices were never going togo down down there, and they leveraged
because they had interest rates. Theyhad you know, a three year or

(01:16:34):
five year that was going to matureand then they were going to have to
go back and they were going tohave to, you know, either refinance
or they're going to have to youknow, the rate was going to go
up, and I think they thoughtthat this easy money was going to be
here forever. That's in my opinion. You got people in houses that they
can't afford drew and that that wouldbe a problem. If that's If that's

(01:16:59):
the case, that's the problem becausethen it is then that creates a bubble,
you know, in Florida. Sothat'll be an interesting thing to say.
Yeah, so the bottom line isthe bottom line is this. You
know, I'm gonna I'm going totake a break here for the news and
once you stick around for can youstick around for a few more minutes?
Yeah, I have a call ita forty five, So I'm good till

(01:17:20):
that. Okay, Yeah, okay, So I'll keep you around for a
few more minutes because I got acouple of more questions for you. But
again, Droiella's on the phone.You're the company that you're with. Again,
Drew is who is fair Way IndependentMortgage licensed in all fifty states.
But I'm here in Clifton Park,right, and Drew is, I want

(01:17:40):
to get into reverse mortgage because Ihad a client that came in the other
day that I think is a candidatefor reverse mortgage. I don't know enough
about it, but you had sentme a text message about the dynamics of
the reverse mortgage as far as themoney that can come out and why higher
interest rates might be advantageous. SoI'll put that into your brain and let

(01:18:00):
you think about it and when wecome back. That's my question for you
is does it make sense now asas interest rates have gone up if you're
looking for a reverse mortgage, isnow the time to do it. But
with that being said, we're gonnahave to take a break for the news.
If you have a question for Drewor myself, you can call after
the bottom of the hour here afterwe break, it's one eight hundred talk
to me Gy. That's one eighthundred eight two five fifty ninety nine.

(01:18:24):
Still keep those prayers coming for Kelly. She needs them, folks, she
needs them our maid of honors,fight of her life. Keep the prayers
coming. We'll be back after thisquick message. I'm Dave Kopekspen seven thousand
and thirteen days. All right,we are back to your way. I'm

(01:18:55):
Dave Kopek. This is the RetirementPlanning Show. Glad you're with us.
If you missed any of the showor on iHeartRadio, just look up the
Retirement Planning Show or the Retirement ReadyShow. We've had a phenomenal response and
I appreciate that. If you're outsidethe five one eight area code, you
want to have a chat with us. We do a lot of work with
individuals through Zoom meetings. It's almostas good as being face to face.

(01:19:20):
Give us a call at my officeA five one eight, five eight zero
one nine one nine, and againwe have Drew Iello. If you have
a question for him this morning,you better do it pretty quick because he's
got to go in about ten minutesone eight hundred talk WGY. That's one
eight hundred eight two five fifty nineforty nine. And I guess getting to

(01:19:41):
uh, getting down to the bottomline. People have undersaved and because of
that, they've got to look fordifferent tools in the toolbox. I am
a major advocate of reverse mortgages aslong as they're done properly. Drew knows
that we've helped a lot of people. I don't get any compensation for this,

(01:20:02):
there's nothing in it. I believein it. So what's the situation
right now with reverse mortgages? Drew? I agree with you, and I
think you know, if they're usedproperly. As you say, the rules
and regulations and the guidelines are safeguardsthat are in place right now almost make

(01:20:24):
it impossible for them to be abused. So I think there's a lot of
safety guards in there that protect peoplefrom what happened years ago when people would
take money out of their house andbuy insurance products and things like that.
So, for example, I hada lady in my office yesterday and she's
buying a house in Boston, SPA. She has some assets, but she's

(01:20:45):
only going to finance maybe one hundredor two hundred thousand on a six hundred
thousand dollars house. She turned sixtytwo a year from now, and she
has ms early stages, but youknow, so she can't work anymore,
and she's envisioning herself moving to Floridain the next five to seven years.
I said, this is perfect foryou. I gave her some literature.

(01:21:08):
Of course, on the reverse,I said, this is perfect for you
because she's not a fixed income withSocial Security disability and some dividends and newty
income. I said, you canbuy that. You can do a reverse
mortgage on the house here when thetime comes, and buy a house in
Florida for cash. She just wantsa small little condo so she'dn't have to

(01:21:29):
be up here in the winter anymore, because based on her conditions, she's
worried about slipping and falling on theice and what have you, and being
cooped up in her house all winteralong and not be able to go out.
So it's the perfect situation for someonelike that, no husband, no
kids, she has a niece thatshe would like to leave some money to.
I said, that's fine because themost of the reverse is probably going

(01:21:51):
to give her on her age isforty percent of the value of the house,
so there's still plenty of equity leftin the house when that time time
comes where she sells or you know, she leaves this art. So I
thought it was the perfect solution.So to your point, I've actually met
with I would say probably three orfour of your listeners over the last sixty

(01:22:13):
days, and all in that categorywhere you know there's a tremendous amount of
equity in their house right now.They want to eliminate a mortgage, they
want to do home improvements to theirhouse, fix it up, what have
you. And the reverse mortgage comesin at maybe forty forty five percent of
the value of the house, soyou're well protected. And to your question,

(01:22:34):
so if you need a lump sumof money right now, it's based
on current interest rates and the projectionof the interest accumulation over the lifetime or
lifespan of that individual. So theremay be less money available right now if
you're taking a lump sum because interestrates are higher and those interest calculations are

(01:22:56):
greater. If you're the person thatreally doesn't have an immediate need on the
money, maybe need a little bit, and most of the reverse mortgage proceeds
are just going to be on aline of credit, that's a great situation
because that grows every year based oncurrent interst rates. So unlike you know,
if you and I get a lineof credit at a local bank,

(01:23:18):
you know they give us one hundredthousand, it's not going to be one
hundred and ten next year or onehundred twenty the following year. You and
I have to pay that one hundredand no more. We make payments every
month on a reverse mortgage, thatone hundred thousand dollars line will go up
each year based on current interst rates. So it's an ideal situation for a

(01:23:38):
couple of reasons. One, thehigher interest rates will get them a bigger
line of credit for the years tocome in Two, we're all sitting on
a tremendous amount of equity right now, that you know, if you tap
into it on a traditional mortgage,you have to make payments. If you
tap into it on a reverse mortgage, no payments are required. It's not
different if you got the money buriedin the backyard. I mean, what

(01:23:59):
good is it, right? Imean, it's great. It's great to
know that your house is paid for. But your house is paid for with
a reverse mortgage. The only thingis you're responsible for are the same things
that you're responsible for right now.It's basically upkeep and taxes, taxes,
insurance. It's still your house.You can sell at any time. Really,
the only difference between a reverse mortgageand a forward mortgage is payments.

(01:24:24):
One you have to make payments.One you can or don't have to make
payments. You can still make paymentsif you so choose. So that's really
the only difference between a reverse anda forward. You know, you and
I have to make payments on ourmortgages. On a reverse you can pick
and choose whether or not you wantto make payments. So still your house,
the d doesn't change, Ownership doesn'tchange. Has there been an acceleration

(01:24:49):
of interest in this type of option? Have you seen more and more people
looking at the reverse mortgage than inthe past, simply because longevity. People
have under saved. People lived thehell a lot longer than they thought,
and now there's seventy five to eightyand the pot of gold that they had

(01:25:09):
is nowhere near what they need forthe remaining years that they're going to be
here on earth. Yeah, Isee it mainly that people want to use
this term many times over the year'sage in place. You know, they
want to stay in their house,and obviously if they can eliminate payments on
the house, that helps them withretirement, you know, if they're not

(01:25:29):
well suited, you know, asfixes a lot of holes in a retirement
plan if there are some. Soyeah, I think for the handful of
people that have come in the lastsixty days from your program is just you
know, one guy wants to eliminatea mortgage. One guy wants to maybe
buy a house in Florida, nothave a payment down there or here,
multiple reasons, you know. Somesome have a decent assets and just want

(01:25:54):
to get rid of the payment sothey can just enjoy life even more and
improve cash flow. So different differentreasons. But yes, I've seen an
uptick and I think it's probably becausea the education, people are understanding them
better. A lot of those mythsand misconceptions are starting to disappear. The
safeguards that are in place are aretremendous right now, where you can vet

(01:26:17):
dollars to donuts that they're probably notgoing to be upside down on the mortgage
when that life event happens, whenthey pass or sell or what have you.
So I think they're feeling more comfortablewith them as a financial tool than
a year's past. So, youknow, I think the closing costs.
You know, New York State,our biggest closing cost is New York State

(01:26:39):
mortgage tax. We're one of thefew states that have that. On a
reverse mortgage, you don't have topay that, so the closing costs are
left on a on a reverse sopeople are finding them more user friendly.
And then in the past, wow, wow, I didn't realize that that
the mortgage tax was not part ofthat deal. That's a big number on

(01:27:00):
the Capitol region except for Saratoga County. You better stop saying that because somebody
down there is going to listen toit and they say, oh boy,
we shrewed up on that you don'regoing to have to throw that in there.
Yeah, well it's faha product FederalHousing Administration loan amounts now and these
are you know, go up toalmost five hundred thousand dollars, So those

(01:27:21):
are two really good tools as well. And yeah, you get you get
to take the money for it differentways. You can take as a line
of credit, you could take alump sum, you can get monthly payments
or distributions. You can get acombination of all the above. So it's
very flexible. And you know,I think you had asked me about the
houses in a trust or what haveyou. We just have to review the

(01:27:42):
trust make sure that we can doit. If your house is in a
trust, I know a lot ofhouses going trust later in years, So
it's not a it's definite. No, we just need to take a look
at it and see if you makesure we don't violate the trust. Yeah.
I always say listen if you don't, if you don't have children,
if your children are doing fantastic,and you know what, they don't need

(01:28:03):
the money, and you're looking todo some special things in your life.
For healthcare, you know, I'mlooking at healthcare right now because Julie's retiring
in June from the school, andmy eyes are blown out of my head
as far as what it's going tocost for Wow, yeah, it's it's
astronomical. It's astronomical what what mightcost for health to replace what I have

(01:28:23):
through the school district. Because shegets it, I don't get it.
And then you know, I'm anold guy with a young daughter, so
I have to ensure my daughter.Right, So I'm looking at about nineteen
hundred dollars a month for health insurancefor Julie and I wow, Wow,
that's what And that's no, it'sjust a regular policy with dental uh part

(01:28:48):
of it, dental envision. Yeah. But I also have a son that
turned twenty six this year that's livingin five twenty six that needs health care.
And that's now I got to addanother thousand on top to the nineteen
hundred in order for him to haveadequate healthcare in the state of Florida.

(01:29:10):
It's just it's goofy. Multiply thatout to you come off right twenty nine
dollars. People say, hey,day, Dave, when are you retiring?
Dave? When you're when am Iretiring? I think I'm going to
go across the border and say thatI'm an immigrant, and then I'll come
across the border and guess what Iget housing, I get three meals a

(01:29:31):
day, and I get health care. That's insane, that's literally insane.
More pay answer than I was.Whatever. Yeah, okay, I know
you got to go sh same thingI found. Don't get me into it
because I'll tell you what. There'llbe sparks coming off your radio. Your

(01:29:54):
head's going to get bigger. Ihope that I can't fit it in the
truck. It won't fit in thetruck. Now, I gotta leave the
sun roof al But Frankie Dyer callsme, Fred Flinstone. That's about a
birdie rubble. Yeah. The blood, the blood will start spurting out of
your ears the more you think aboutit. So I'll be pulling with that

(01:30:15):
pickup truck. He says, whatthe hell are you? What are you?
Fred Fleinstone? Oh God? Allright, Drew. How do people
get a hold of you if theywant to have a chat. Yeah,
best way is to go to drewsteamdot com. That's my website. My
cell phones right on the website.You can call me to text me seven
days a week. I'm actually inthe office today almost all day. So

(01:30:36):
if you have any questions, concernedor scenarios, just go to drewsteam dot
com or give me a buzz.All right, thanks, brother, have
a great day. I will saythis, and I mean this from by
my heart. One of the hardestworkers I've ever met in my life.
Right there, Jew is one ofmy best best friends, been a good

(01:30:59):
friend for decades, probably close tothirty years. Started the investment banking business,
got into the mortgage industry. I'vedone a lot of my mortgages with
him, and I've referred to alot of people to him. But as
I said, one of the hardestworkers I've ever met in my life.
He's always working morning, noon,and night Saturdays. You know the old
saying, It's amazing how lucky I'vebecome by working hard. Couldn't be truer.

(01:31:20):
There's a perfect example. A guysaid great success, but nobody gave
it to him. He busted histale. So I'm going to be right
back. I got to finish uphere. I think it's been a great
show today, a lot of greatinformation about the I rays being protected.
New York State Partnership changes that aregoing on. Drew some ideas and concepts.

(01:31:42):
If you have any questions, youwant to mention anything, I'll come
back. It's open lines for likethe last segment, even if you want
to just babble and tell tell mehow great the New York Knicks are and
the Rangers this year? The goodZach, you like either one of them,
Knicks or Rangers. Come on,I'm a Knicks fan. I'm wearing
it. Nick has I know aboutthe Rangers. I'm not a big hockey

(01:32:03):
fan, but I will watch theRangers. Yeah, okay, all right,
we'll be right back. Zach's here. If you have any questions.
One eight hundred talk to BGY onetwo five fifty nine forty nine retirement ready.
At twelve to one, we're goingto be talking about different options for
long term care planning. Why it'sso critical today. Don't miss it.

(01:32:24):
Go to the iHeart app and lookup both of those shows. We've had
an unbelievable response. Thank you forthat. God, bless again. Say
a couple of prayers for Kelly.It's much appreciated. We'll be right back.
Will you run out of money inretirement with your investments? Provide income
for possibly decades. How do younavigate the two greatest risk in retirement sequence

(01:32:44):
of returns in longevity At the RetirementPlanning Group, our Bucket of Money approach
addresses these concerns and we offer acomplimentary consultation to discuss this with you.
Call our office today for a freecomplimentary consultation to develop your own personal retirement
income distribution plan at five eight fiveEID zero one nine one nine. That's
five eight five EAD zero one nineone nine the greatest risk in retirement most

(01:33:08):
of us have no plan for We'reinsurance to cover the expense. A long
term care event can impoverish a spouse, drain your life savings, and cost
stress and anxiety on your family.What is your plan and how will you
pay for a long term care event? Call the Retirement Planning Group today discuss
options you should consider to protect yourestate and have choices and independence. Take

(01:33:28):
action. Call today five one eightfive eight zero one nine nine or RPG
retire on the web. Retirement securityDavid Kopak here at Wguy's Retirement Planning Specialists
join us Saturdays from seven am tonine am and now twelve noon to one
pm for our new show Retirement Ready. We want to help you face the
challenges of being retirement ready. Withour team, you can spend less time

(01:33:51):
worrying and more time enjoying the retirementyou have earned. Again Saturday seven am
to nine am and now twelve noonuntil one pm for Retirement Ready. I

(01:34:18):
guess I should know by the wayyou bought your car sideways at wood last,
this young canned person believes in makeit out once love and leaving bad.
Guess I must be done. Weare back. It is Saturday,

(01:34:45):
April twentieth. Already hard to believe. What's that mean? I heard other
guy's talking about that. Is todaylike weed day or smoke a joint day
or some nonsense? Is it?Yeah, it's four twenty, So what
does that mean? I'm stupid becauseI'm not a smoker. So I have
no idea what the hell that means? What it means light them up means

(01:35:06):
light them up for twenty Is thatwhat it means? It? So,
if I'm hanging out with all mygoombas, you know, saying hey,
let's light them up for twenty,right, that's what I say. Yeah,
exactly, You're hip. I'm hip. I'm hip. I'm not hip.
I don't know. I don't getit. But different strokes for different

(01:35:30):
folks. As long as they're nothurting anybody, stepping on anybody's toes,
or causing any kind of trouble,I don't care what they do in their
own space. That's the world thatI live in. Uh. I want
to give you a little story hereto finish up today's show, and one

(01:35:51):
of something that is causing me alittle bit of concern, and I talk
briefly about it because I'm going throughit myself, and I always like to
bring either my own personal experience orwhat's going on with clients and the balance
that they're trying to face pre andpost healthcare. The cost of health care

(01:36:16):
right now in the United States.Now, some of you that work for
the state, municipality, teachers,whatever it may be, you go out
into your retirement years, you gothealth care. You should say a prayer
every night and say thank you God, thank you, my Buddha, whatever,
and say thank you that I havehealth care for the rest of my
life because I have sticker shock rightnow. Sticker shock. Oh, what

(01:36:42):
it's going to cost my wife andI for health care in our family and
to say it's astronomical, it's kindof an understatement. And then to try
to find the plans that are goingto be both not only give you the
best coverage to kind of make upyour current have it's difficult and it's hard
to get the answers. So I'mgoing to try to get some people on

(01:37:06):
over the next month that have expertisein this arena. You know, I've
got some great friends that are ingroup plans, major major corporations. They
do the insurance for them. Butthe thing is, it's I'm going to
educate our listeners and what you needto do for healthcare pre or post retirement.
Let's go to first, James Morning, James, Hey, good morning.

(01:37:31):
I got a question for you.If this is something I've never heard
spoken about in any of the morningweekend financial shows, whether it be a
you know, savings program like yourswith retirement or some guys on here talking
about stocks, I'm not sure ifyou've been in the I'm not sure if

(01:37:56):
you've been in the business long enough, or maybe when you went to school,
you went to school for work fortytwo years. I've been doing this
forty two four to two, soso not quite long enough that. So
my question is this, we're livingin some very very very very uncertain times

(01:38:16):
right now, and we don't knowwhat's going to happen from one week to
the next. And that's the truth. If you did, you wouldn't even
have to have a radio show.So my question to you is this whole
thing goes right up. What happensto all these accounts, What happens to

(01:38:40):
these financial investments, what happens tothese insurance plans, what happens to all
of this stuff? What happened inWorld War Two with all of the money,
What happened to our accounts? Doesanybody know what's going to happen if
something happens, which we all areall feeling real uncertain this with the with

(01:39:00):
the election coming up. Well,if you turn it, if you turn
on the radio into the financial channels, or listen to Bloomberg or CNBC or
any of them, you'll hear acommercial every ten to fifteen minutes about buying
gold. You know, go buygold. You know the world's coming to
an end. I'm in the campthat you know what I've seen in forty
two years, I've seen a lotof horrific things. I've seen nine to

(01:39:24):
eleven. I've seen flash crashes,I've seen the financial meltdown. You know,
you got to pick your poison.You got to pick the investment that
you feel comfortable with. I'm anoptimist, not a pessimist. I know
that, you know, as darkas things become, the pendulum always swings
too far to the left and alwaysswings too far to the right and ultimately
come back to center. But I'man optimist. Diversify and you're going to

(01:39:45):
be in good shape. My goodfriend, Paul and Connecticut, what are
you going to talk to me aboutthat? Yeah, if you open the
door for me to make observations,now, I'll make a few number one
year a point is really accelerating,certainly in Connecticut and Florida because Lincoln National

(01:40:06):
had a five and a half fiveyear MIGAM and they're a rated. So
I'm pointing that out to people.Secondly, the discussion on CPI and pce
which you didn't even necessarily get intoPCEE. You have to understand that I
spent hours per day looking at decksof data and studying this stuff. This

(01:40:30):
is my inclination. So this twopercent goal will not be achieved anytime soon.
And I've been rolling five three,five to eight treasuries. We're using
Vanguard, and I listened to Bloombergfor two hours a day. So predicting
the future is Howard Lurks say.My process, he just defines as the

(01:40:53):
approach you should focus on rather thanthe prediction. Is my think. My
process is good. It's people wantedin October. In November rates to go
down. It was job owing onthe media, largely by asset managers because
the asset managers want I'm talking equities. Now, the real academic view if

(01:41:17):
they don't deviate from two and employmentgoals, which is it's immoral if they
do. But who knows it's notgoing to happen this year at all.
Okay, the last thing you broughtup healthcare. Now, I'm a guy
who did company wide Marriott Corporation integrationand healthcare plans many years ago with Tower's

(01:41:42):
parent, and I've also bought myown insurance. My key find in all
of this, Dave, is thebiggest mistake that's occurred in healthcare is when
Medicare advantage plans were created and mostpeople don't want to afford the mental higher
cost over sixty five, of coursefor Medicare supplemental, which was the original

(01:42:06):
Medicare, or they call it metagap. And I'm telling people that the risk
management of your future on healthcare isto go with a supplemental plan in New
York in Connecticut for the only twostates where you can jump indiscriminately between the
two, and that it's something you'dhave to really dig to. So all

(01:42:26):
these brokers out there push Medicare advantagebecause they make a legacy. It's basically
annuity. They put you in,they get five and a quarter, then
they get five point fifteen, andthey're minting money. And I'm telling people
to look at healthcare over sixty fiveif you can, and really study the

(01:42:47):
implications for risk purposes of paying nowor paying big later. That's my weekly
diatrus. Well, you know,I always I always appreciate your phone call.
And God bless and I'll look intothat, my good man. Okay,
take care of yourself. Man,Okay, God bless, God bless

(01:43:08):
Paul. Smart guy, very smartman. He doesn't call in a lot,
but when he calls in, Istop shutting. The pie hole stops
my mouth and I opened my earsand I listened to Paul because he's a
very smart man. I know alittle bit about his background, but it's
obvious that he's got a lot ofa lot of experience in the investment banking

(01:43:32):
business. So little housekeeping. Igot about a minute left for first and
foremost, for all of you thatmade the night you came to the presentation
Preserve and Protect at the Desmond whichis now the Crown Plaza. Thank you
for coming. I thought that theydid a fantastic job, not only as

(01:43:57):
far as the accommodations, the parking, the food, and of course,
of course of course our presentations.We knocked it out of the park without
a doubt, so you know thatyou got a lot of good information.
Secondly, we're going to try todo more topic specific presentations like we did

(01:44:20):
this past week, not only inperson, but also I'm trying to do
this on our website. But there'sa lot of things that we have to
do through compliance. So I'm goingto try to get a lot of video
on our website so you can gothere listen to it. I get up
early in the morning. You wantto get up early in the morning,
it's going to be there, sohopefully I can get that done. I'll

(01:44:42):
be back from twelve to one totalk about long term care options. Be
safe, enjoy your weekend and pleasesay a prayer for Kelly. God bless
you all, and I'll see younext week for another retirement planning show.
Thank you for listening to the RetirementPlanning Show. Did buy Dave Kopek w
G wise Retirement planning Specialist. Ifyou would like to talk with Dame or

(01:45:05):
someone at the Retirement Planning Group,call five one eight five eight zero nine
one nine. That's five one eightfive eight zero one nine one nine during
business hours, or visit RPG retiredot com. The Retirement Planning Group has
five convenient offices located in Albany,Waltsa, glens Walls, Syracuse, and

(01:45:27):
Oneiana. Tune in again next weekfor retirement planning strategies with Dave Kopek right
here on WGY's Retirement Planning Show.The information or services discussed on this show
is for informational purposes only and isnot intended to be personal financial advice.
The investments and services offered by usmay not be suitable for all investors.
If you have any doubts as tothe merits of an investment, you should

(01:45:49):
seek advice from an independent financial advisor.