The Lowry Letter®

Week of 9/9/2021

Our hiatus last week was partly due to our visit to Seattle, WA, where we formally welcomed August Michael to the Lowry family and enjoyed time with his parents, Chris & Erin. It was a real blessing to be able to spend the time with them and the littlest Lowry.

We enjoyed Marvel’s latest movie, Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings. There are the normal number of references to other Marvel movies, but some very casual fans enjoyed it as much as the hard-core fans did.

Recent storms have reminded us how helpful it can be to have heavy-duty surge protection installed for devices, including your air conditioner. Several years ago, after a long power outage during a tropical storm, the return of power caused a surge that fried our unit. A small cost for some HVAC insurance.

EconTalk can be a pretty wonky podcast, but the variety of topics and excellent guests make it worth listening to. This interview, about a new book called Mine!, looks at how complicated ownership can be. We really enjoyed the discussion.

Malcolm Gladwell explains why using dogs for disease diagnoses is an idea worthy of more discussion.

The largest Sovereign Wealth Fund in the world belongs to Norway, with $1.3 trillion in assets, beating China by over $100 billion. Not bad for a country with the population the size of Wisconsin.

Q: Should I include social security in my retirement planning?

A: A short explanation of social security’s situation is available at the Independent Market Observer. The bottom line is that the social security trust fund is expected to be depleted earlier than projected:

“The trust fund is designed to cover the shortfall that exists between taxes currently collected that are forwarded to social security claimants and the balance of benefits owed to claimants. In that sense, the “bankruptcy” of the social security trust fund does not mean that benefits would be completely extinguished by 2034. It does mean that claimants would need to rely on currently taxed amounts on a continuous basis to fund benefits.”

Some action will be required to meet the shortfall, which might include reducing benefits, increase the full retirement age for Social Security, or increasing the amount of income taxed for social security. For people close to claiming age, little or no change is expected. For younger workers, this continues to be something worth watching. We pay close attention to proposals that might affect you and will share those if and when they emerge.