Swamp Things

2017 2nd Quar ter

The Retirement Planner Financial Planning and Investing for Retirement

2001 Midwest Road Suite 107 Oak Brook, IL 60523 Telephone 630-495-9700 Web site www.rpiinc.com

Written by

Norman P. Chiodras MS, CFP, RFC, President

Exclusively for RPI Clients

W ell that didn’t take long. Pres-

ident Trump discovered that it

is hard to get things done in Wash-

ington. Who knew? The first prom-

ised repeal and replacement of

Obamacare was dead on arrival,

mainly due to his own party’s inept-

ness. These are the folks led by Paul

Ryan who had seven years to come

up with an alternative plan but never

did. The best they could do was to

keep everything the same but stop

the mandate forcing people to buy

insurance and eliminate the penalty

for not having insurance…which, by

the way, were pretty much the only

revenue streams holding up the

whole wobbly mess.

With the second attempt, Trump did

not leave it up to the hapless Repub-

licans and worked the phones him-

self. The replacement bill passed the

House along party lines but will un-

likely pass the Senate, where bills

usually go to die.

In the meantime, the stock market

just continues setting one record after

another. It has been on a tear since

Trump got elected seemingly due to his

platform of economic growth, less gov-

ernment and regulations and lower taxes.

But the apparent ineptness of his own

party and the strong opposition from the

Democrats for anything Trump does have

many of his supporters concerned about

the success of his agenda. Should inves-

tors be concerned too? What if he can’t

fulfill his promises, will the market erase

the gains since the election?

While the Trump administration has been

successful in already removing many reg-

ulations and consolidating or eliminating

some 150 government departments that

were redundant or unnecessary, there are

potential setbacks that could upset inves-

tors. Upon passing the recent budget to

keep the government open, Dave Brat (R-

VA) summed it up this way on Fox Busi-

ness News, “The Congress deal funds

sanctuary cities, Obamacare, EPA,

Planned Parenthood; doesn’t fund the

wall. Where’s the Trump agenda? He just

won the presidency!” Rush Limbaugh’s

question to Vice President Pence was, “If

this is what happens, why vote Republi-

can?”

Inside This Issue

Swamp Things 1

• when stocks become a safe

haven

• what could go wrong?

• conclusion

When Governments

Go United Airlines 6

• protect our care

• health freedom

• conclusion

Potpourri 12

Page 2

Yet the stock market

just shrugs it off.

Which begs the

question. Is there

some other dynamic

at play here that is

levitating stocks?

2017 2nd Quarter

I myself was puzzled by his pick of

former Goldman Sachs executives

Steven Mnuchin for Treasury Secre-

tary and Gary Cohn as his top eco-

nomic advisor. For decades, Gold-

man Sachs has been infiltrating gov-

ernments around the world for their

own benefit, aptly earning the moni-

ker Government Sachs. They are the

very definition of the swamp.

Trump’s decision to enlist his daugh-

ter Ivanka, her husband Jared Kush-

ner and Dina Powell as close aides

left many supporters scratching their

heads as well. Influential radio host

Mark Levin warned on Twitter,

“Jared Kushner, Gary Cohn, Dina

Powell: the three big-government lib-

erals tightening their hold on the

White House.” The promotion of peo-

ple who represent the antithesis of

Trump’s platform has not only led to

infighting within his administration,

but has left voters wondering if they

will be left behind once again. Is

Trump draining the swamp or refill-

ing it?

Yet the stock market just shrugs it

off. Which begs the question. Is there

some other dynamic at play here that

is levitating stocks? Perhaps a look at

European markets might give us a

clue.

When Stocks Become a Safe Haven

The German DAX just hit an all-time

high in May. The French CAC-40

shown below has broken through a

downtrend line on the monthly level.

Are all these markets in the US and

Europe soaring because economies

are so solid? Hardly. First quarter

GDP for the US grew at an anemic

annual rate of 0.7%.

“France is suffering from tremendous

high unemployment, little to zero po-

tential job growth, cursed by stagfla-

tion, and security worries that are the

greatest among the European states,”

notes well-known international econ-

omist Martin Armstrong of Arm-

strong Economics. “The unilateral act

of Merkel accepting refugees suppos-

edly from Syria that ended up being a

wholesale invitation for anyone from

all Islamic countries has devastated

France who was never asked by Mer-

kel in advance to accept these refu-

gees.” And it was announced recently

that the ECB (European Central

Bank) is working on a new bailout

plan for France’s banks.

Even worse news for France was re-

SWAMP THINGS

Page 3

How can stock

markets head

north while

economies head

south?

SWAMP THINGS

cent election of Emmanuel Macron

as their next President. Did France

forget that Macron served briefly

under the disastrous socialist gov-

ernment of Hollande? Macron was

a member of the Socialist party that

substantially hiked taxes on high-

income earners. The result is 25%

unemployment amongst the youth.

However, the elites in Brussels

must be wiping their brow. Emman-

uel Macron’s victory promises no

change for Europe and it has been

the blessing Brussels so badly

wanted to further advance the feder-

alization of Europe. “Macron will

surrender far more French sover-

eignty to Brussels than anyone sus-

pects based upon reliable sources,”

concludes Armstrong.

How can stock markets head north

while economies head south?

Armstrong says history shows that

when people lose faith in govern-

ment they buy private assets such as

stocks and gold. When you think

your government could default on

their bonds and your currency could

plunge, you hedge against it.

As we have reported before, even

central banks are getting in on the

act. They are in the dire position of

holding mainly their own countries’

bonds which in the Eurozone are at

an especially high risk of default.

Armstrong, who advises institutions

worldwide, notes that “the Swiss are

buying US equities as a hedge against

the Euro and political unrest… Their

total equity holdings have now

reached $80.4 billion, up $17 billion

from the $63.4 billion at the end of

2016.”

Remember, once loss of confidence

takes place it snowballs in that direc-

tion and eventually turns into panic. It

is unimportant whether what was wor-

ried about ever comes to fruition.

Facts don’t matter, confidence does.

And when economic growth is slow,

corporations use their money for buy-

ing their own stock rather than ex-

panding their business. “In November

2016, Goldman Sachs’ chief equity

strategist David Kostin estimated that,

in 2017, S&P 500 companies will

spend $780 billion on buybacks — a

new record,” an article in Forbes not-

ed.

According to CNBC, US corporations

are hoarding $2.5 trillion of cash over-

seas. If they bring back that money

into the US, it will be taxed at 35%. So

the Trump administration wants to en-

tice them with a one-time offer – a

10% tax. If part of this money finds its

way back to the US, once again it will

likely be spent on stock buy backs

which could add further fuel to the ral-

ly.

Page 4

They could care

less if Trump found

the cure for cancer.

They only care

about themselves

and will do

everything within

their power to stop

Trump’s success.

2017 2nd Quarter

SWAMP THINGS

These are likely reasons why the stock

market could continue to decouple

from underlying economies. But dete-

riorating economic conditions will

continue to fool many investors and

cause them to miss out. Money will

always seek geopolitical and currency

safety.

What Could Go Wrong?

So let me get this straight. The worse

the economies get, the deeper govern-

ment swamps get and the worse the

situation in Eurozone becomes, the

better for US stocks? Yeah, that about

sums up where we are today.

However, it is not quite that simple.

As we have been alluding to in past

issues, the swamp people (establishment

Republicans, Democrats, Intelligence

and media) in Washington do not want

to see Trump succeed at anything as it

would then embolden his entire agen-

da -- an agenda that leaves them with

less power and could even end their

careers. They could care less if Trump

found the cure for cancer. They only

care about themselves and will do

everything within their power to

stop Trump’s success.

Trump does not appear to have the

ability to self-edit and continues to

give the swamp additional fodder

with his own self-inflicted wounds.

These are huge and very welcome

distractions for those hoping he

fails.

It would be naïve to assume that

this won’t upset our markets at

some point down the road. The dan-

ger is that all of the distractions

postpone the promised tax cuts

which our stock markets have al-

ready built in. This will likely be

the catalyst for the 5-10% correc-

tion we have been expecting. Yet it

is remarkable that the stock market

has held up so well in light of re-

cent political turmoil.

We believe the march to Dow

30,000 will begin in earnest as soon

S&P 500 Price to Sales Ratio

Page 5

SWAMP THINGS

Confidence is a frag-

ile thing and the loss

of it can lead quickly

to panic…panic buy-

ing just as it can pan-

ic selling.

as the Dow can penetrate 23,000. But

this may not be until 2018.

Conclusion

Hardly a week goes by that I don’t

receive a phone call or email about a

“guru” predicting a dollar or stock

market crash. Yet, not only does it

not occur, the opposite takes place.

It is “experts” on the Internet who

will keep many people out of the

markets and awaiting the big crash.

That said, the markets are not without

some concerns. Nothing moves in a

straight line. Healthy markets always

have pullbacks. The sharper the

downturn, the sharper the rebound.

Charts like the one on page four do

give us some pause in the near term

and have us expecting a pullback in

prices. The chart shows the S&P 500

price to sales ratio which measures

the sales of the 500 corporations

listed in the index against the price of

the S&P index. Currently the S&P

500 is priced at a higher level when

compared to sales than it was at the

top in 2007.

As for gold, we have been saying that

in 2017 it could still plunge down to

the $1000 level one more time and

then begin a sling-shot move up to

$2000 and beyond over the next few

years.

Just like these pendulum balls, the

more you move to one side the more

energy available to go to the other

side. The sharper the plunge in gold

prices the more energy it will build

and the higher the prices should go on

the upside.

It is the loss of confidence in govern-

ment that will act as the catalyst be-

hind the eventual higher stock and

gold prices. It doesn’t have to be a

major country’s government bond

default that sends everything in mo-

tion. Take a look at this YouTube

video of a tiny domino eventually

toppling a 100 pound one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=y97rBdSYbkg

This is a great example of how a

small event can set off a contagion.

This is exactly how it works within

the global economy. Confidence is a

fragile thing and the loss of it can

lead quickly to panic…panic buying

just as it can panic selling. ■ NPC

Page 6

No longer taught at

our major

Universities or

believed by our

political leaders,

free market

economics and the

incentive system

work, whether

applied by the

government or a

private business.

They work because

human nature never

changes.

2017 2nd Quarter

WHEN GOVERNMENT GOES UNITED AIRLINES

They work because human nature nev-

er changes. Should we be surprised

that people respond well to financial

motivation?

Often we see instances where incen-

tives should have been applied better.

United Airlines, for example, could

have applied some simple free market

principles before it dragged the doctor

off the plane. At the gate they offered

passengers $800 to give up their seat.

There were some takers but they need-

ed to make room for one more of their

employees. Instead of increasing the

incentive to $1500 or more until they

found another taker, they decided to

randomly pick a Chinese doctor and

drag him off the plane. The video went

viral, causing millions of Chinese to

cut up their United frequent flyer

cards. Later, the bloodied and embar-

rassed doctor settled out of court with

United.

Unbeknownst to most travelers, denied

passengers number around 40,000 per

year these days according to airline

industry figures. It was back in the

1970s, though, when the Department

of Transportation (DOT) starting regu-

lating involuntary boarding denials.

Ill-fatedly, it was the DOT which es-

tablished regulations that set maxi-

mum required compensation for invol-

untary denied boarding -- in most cas-

es at four times the passenger’s fare

paid up to a maximum of $1350.

A major highway bridge burned

down in Atlanta in early April, caus-

ing an enormous disruption. “The

economic cost may run into hundreds

of millions when counting all the

wasted hours of people waiting in

traffic and loss of business to thou-

sands of firms,” writes Richard Rahn

for To The Point News. “Wisely, the

government offered highway contrac-

tors big bonuses for completing the

rebuilding in a matter of weeks, ra-

ther than months or years…

“Back in 1994,” continues Rahn,

“there was a big earthquake in Los

Angeles, which collapsed several

highway overpasses, including two

sections of the Santa Monica Freeway

(the world’s busiest at the time). The

highway contractors were offered big

bonuses for each day they could

shorten the construction time for the

rebuilding — and the incentive did

work — but could probably have

worked even better if the bonuses had

been much larger.”

Businesses use money to attract cus-

tomers through rebates and lower

prices and attract good employees

through higher pay. No longer taught

at our major Universities or believed

by our political leaders, free market

economics and the incentive system

work, whether applied by the govern-

ment or a private business.

Page 7

In a show of

solidarity against

Trump’s promise to

repeal Obamacare,

Democratic

representatives wore

Protect Our Care

buttons to his

inauguration. Did

anyone notice the

irony? None of these

people have

Obamacare.

WHEN GOVERNMENT GOES UNITED AIRLINES

As so often happens under bureau-

cratic direction, local employees are

not given the authority to make com-

mon sense decisions. During his testi-

mony before Congress on May 2,

United’s CEO admitted as much. In

hindsight, I am sure United execu-

tives are wishing they could have of-

fered people at the gate as much as it

would have taken to get one more

person to give up their seat. Whatever

it was, it would have been cheaper

than the tens of millions they could

lose going forward.

One of the major reasons the Soviet

Union collapsed was due to the coerc-

ing of people to perform tasks and

then not allowing them to be reward-

ed for them. Soon, people lost the in-

centive to work and they ended up

with a shortage of goods and long

bread lines even though Russia pos-

sessed one of the most natural re-

source-rich lands in the world. Vene-

zuela is presently experiencing this

same two-by-four to the head lesson.

There are hundreds of examples

throughout history…which remain

mysteriously unknown to our law-

makers.

Protect Our Care

Voters who elected Trump were ex-

pecting him to keep his promise of

repealing and replacing Obamacare.

But will the replacement be any bet-

ter?

In a show of solidarity against

Trump’s promise to repeal Obamac-

are, Democratic representatives wore

Protect Our Care buttons to his inau-

guration. Did anyone notice the iro-

ny? None of these people have

Obamacare. Congress stuck us with it

and voted in a much better plan for

themselves.

A major reason Obamacare is col-

lapsing is because it relies too much

on coercion and not enough on incen-

tives and free markets. When then

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said

they had to pass the bill to find out

what is in it, one doctor quipped that

that was how they referred to a stool

sample. Well, it didn’t take long for

young people to find what was “in it.”

It was soon clear that the government

intended to exploit the young and

healthy to fund health care costs for

Page 8

But they forgot one

simple item: human

nature. There was

no financial

incentive for the

healthy to join

Obamacare. In fact,

there was a

disincentive.

2017 2nd Quarter

WHEN GOVERNMENT GOES UNITED AIRLINES

most of them to pull out of the

Obamacare exchanges altogether and

skyrocketing their rates, driving more

people away in a vicious downward

cycle.

Health Freedom

In an excellent article by Dr. Jack

Wheeler in his To The Point News

publication, he emphasizes what is

needed is “not phony-crony corporat-

ist medicine where Big government

colludes with Big Medicine, Big In-

surance, and Big Pharma to restrict

competition.”

In other words our health system

stands little chance of getting fixed

until we have term limits for those in

Congress. Yes, the same Congress

who pretend to be concerned about

our plight, enact laws that favor their

big donors and carry a completely

different health plan for themselves.

Dr. Wheeler outlines ten simple items

which could save our health care sys-

tem and greatly lower costs. I will

briefly quote a few of them.

Give Health Care Providers a Tax

Credit for Charity Work

One of the major sources of the

“health care crisis” necessitating

Obamacare, its advocates say, is the

tens of millions of uninsured Ameri-

cans who cannot afford medical care.

the sick and older generations. The

insurance companies, who lobbied

and bought off politicians with cam-

paign donations, were hoping to reap

the benefits from the $billions in pre-

miums from the young. Essentially, it

was designed to be one of the greatest

transfers of wealth from the younger

generation into the pockets of the in-

surance companies.

Except the youth would have none of

it. They joined only when they got

sick and were all too happy to pay the

much smaller fine in the interim. In

fact, according to the IRS, in 2015 at

least 7.5 million tax-payers chose to

pay the penalty. Some put the current

figure as high as 19 million tax-

payers. The insurers deluded them-

selves by being so in bed with politi-

cians. They were sure they would

make a fortune when the healthy

youth were forced to pay exorbitant

premiums with high deductibles. But

they forgot one simple item: human

nature. There was no financial incen-

tive for the healthy to join Obamac-

are. In fact, there was a disincentive.

And so, what those burdened with

common sense could have predicted,

it was mostly the unhealthy who

signed up.

No one feels any remorse for what

happened next. The insurance compa-

nies starting hemorrhaging red ink –

by the hundreds of millions – forcing

Page 9

Such legislation

would result in

physicians,

hospitals, and other

health care

providers fighting

among themselves

to provide free (to

charity patients),

tax deductible (to

them) health care.

WHEN GOVERNMENT GOES UNITED AIRLINES

Restore the 100% Deductibility of

Health Care Expenses

Throughout most of this century, in-

dividuals were not taxed on the mon-

ey they spent on health care. When

Congress eliminated the tax deducti-

bility of most medical expenses, it

made medical care and health insur-

ance prohibitively expensive for indi-

viduals to pay for on their own.

The solution is 100% deductibility for

medical expenses. One Congressman

consulted for this report estimates

that “this one simple reform will ena-

ble as many as 15 million Americans

who cannot now afford it to gain ac-

cess to healthcare and health insur-

ance.”

Reduce Malpractice Insurance

Costs

Malpractice insurance costs are a ma-

jor source of higher health care ex-

penses. The insurance premiums have

skyrocketed due to multi-million dol-

lar awards made for “pain and suffer-

ing,” which are orders of magnitude

beyond the plaintiff’s medical ex-

penses.

Health Freedom legislation would

eliminate “pain and suffering” mal-

practice settlements; limit malpractice

settlements to all costs of the patient’s

malpractice-related medical bills; and

They are regarded by the medical in-

dustry as “non-payers” to be “turfed”

to the county hospital and receive

minimal treatment.

The quality of their medical care

would be very different if they were

looked upon not as a liability, but as a

tax credit.

Health Freedom legislation would

allow health care providers — physi-

cians, nurses, medical technicians,

pharmacies, and hospitals — to de-

duct from their personal or corporate

income taxes an appreciable amount

of the income they would have de-

rived if their charity patients paid the

normal fees.

Such legislation would result in phy-

sicians, hospitals, and other health

care providers fighting among them-

selves to provide free (to charity pa-

tients), tax deductible (to them) health

care.

Such an incentive to provide free care

would dramatically reduce Medicaid

and Medicare costs — more than

compensating for loss of income tax

revenues. The ultimate savings to the

taxpayers would be astronomical.

Page 10 2017 2nd Quarter

WHEN GOVERNMENT GOES UNITED AIRLINES

press approval. No matter how truthful

and supported by scientific evidence

the health claims are, the FDA will at-

tempt to fine or imprison the manufac-

turer for making an “unapproved health

claim…”

Thus to this day it has managed to pre-

vent widespread dissemination through

nutritional advertising of how 400 i.u.

of E and 2,000 mgs. of C per day via

supplements can reduce one’s chances

of heart disease or cancer by over 40%

— which would save hundreds of thou-

sands of lives and save billions of dol-

lars in health care costs each year. This

is just one example with two nutrients.

The savings in lives and money applied

to all nutrients is far greater.

Eliminate State Mandates and Regu-

latory Barriers on Health Insurance

One primary reason for the high cost of

health insurance today is the monumen-

tal number of required benefits health

insurance policies must provide im-

posed by state regulators. Today there

are over one thousand mandates on

everything from hairpieces to marriage

counseling. As a result, insurers are

legally prohibited from supplying low-

cost basic health insurance.

Health Freedom Legislation would al-

low insurers to offer low-cost, basic

health insurance policies with no state

mandated benefits whatever. Such leg-

islation, according to a number of stud-

limit payment to patient attorneys to

normal fees, prohibiting attorney

commissions of a substantial percent-

age of the total settlement.

Allow Truthful Health Claims for

Nutritional Supplements

The evidence that such nutrients as

Vitamin C, Vitamin E, and selenium

can radically reduce the incidence of

heart disease and cancer — the two

diseases which cause more deaths and

are responsible for more health care

spending than anything else — is

simply overwhelming.

Yet the FDA has — let it be stated

candidly — a perverse bias against

nutritional supplements. The “knife-

and-fork” mythology prevails: that

“you can get all the nutrients you

need from a well-balanced diet.”

Getting three grams of Vitamin C dai-

ly (the optimal amount for reducing

risk of heart disease and cancer) from

oranges would require eating sixty

oranges a day — and be far more ex-

pensive than taking one or two cap-

sules. (Not to mention the diabetes

risk from so much sugar in the orang-

es.)

The FDA enforces this bias by threat-

ening a nutrient manufacturer who

supplies information about the health

value of his products with prosecu-

tion if he does so without FDA’s ex-

No matter how truth-

ful and supported by

scientific evidence are

the health claims, the

FDA will attempt to

fine or imprison the

manufacturer for

making an

“unapproved health

claim…”

Page 11

WHEN GOVERNMENT GOES UNITED AIRLINES

ies, would reduce health insurance

policy cost by twenty percent or

more. Needless to say, Obamacare

nationalizes the problem and makes it

far worse — requiring, e.g., that all

policies must include abortion cover-

age.

[End of Dr. Wheeler’s Quote]

Conclusion

No one should go bankrupt just be-

cause they get sick. There are plenty

of charitable health organizations and

government safety nets that will see

to that. Obamacare was sold under

the false ruse that there were 40 mil-

lion uninsured in America. But three-

fourths of those were young people

who didn’t want to buy insurance.

Evidence of this is that, according to

the Department of Health and Human

Services, only 12.7 million were en-

rolled in the plan in 2016. But just

like the “energy crisis” and the

“poverty crisis,” the government

needed a cause to expand itself.

Anyone who has ever dealt with hos-

pitals, doctors and especially Medi-

care knows the system is not patient-

oriented. It is based on accountants

and bureaucratic rules which are far

removed from the patient. It is one

size-fits-all like the DOT rules which

didn’t allow local United Airline em-

ployees to use common sense. And

the costs are crushing our economy.

“Forget Taxes, Warren Buffett Says.

The Real Problem Is Health Care,” is

the title of a recent New York Times

article. “About 50 years ago, he said,

‘health care was 5 percent of G.D.P.,

and now it’s about 17 percent…’ ”

“Mr. Buffett said our global competi-

tiveness had fallen largely because our

businesses were paying far more for

health care—a tax by another name —

than those in other countries.”

Congress, when left to itself, will never

opt for free market solutions because

they are outside their control and cut

off their gravy train. It is up to us to

demand it. ■ NPC

Anyone who has

ever dealt with

hospitals, doctors

and especially

Medicare knows the

system is not patient

-oriented. It is based

on accountants and

bureaucratic rules

which are far

removed from the

patient.

Page 12

MAGICAL Music from the

Movies

Legendary film music for chorus and

orchestra, from the 1920’s to today,

including melodies by:

• Williams for Amistad, Empire of

the Sun, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and

Home Alone

• Shore for Hobbit: An Unexpected

Journey

• Rodgers for Victory At Sea

• Elmer Bernstein for

The Magnificent Seven and Leonard Bernstein for West

Side Story

• Schwartz for Prince of Egypt

6.25.2017, 4:30 pm

at Wentz Hall, 171 E.

Chicago Avenue, Naperville

$24 general admission (senior/youth discount)

630.887.7464

westsubsymphony.org

2017 2nd Quarter

POTPOURRI

Church Bulletin Bloopers

• Don’t let worry kill you – let the

church help.

• Thursday night potluck supper.

Prayer and medication to follow.

• Remember in prayer the many who

are sick of our church and commu-

nity.

• For those of you who have chil-

dren and don’t know it, we have a

nursery downstairs.

• Tuesday at 4:00 pm there will be

an ice cream social. All ladies giv-

ing milk will please come early.

• Thursday at 5:00 pm there will be

a meeting of the Little Mothers

Club. All wishing to become little

mothers, please see the minister in

his study.

• This being Easter Sunday, we will

ask Mrs. Lewis to come forward

and lay an egg on the altar.

• The ladies of the church have cast

off clothing of every kind and they

may be seen in the church base-

ment Friday.

• A bean supper will be held on

Tuesday evening in the church

hall. Music will follow.

• At the evening service tonight, the

sermon topic will be “What Is

Hell?” Come early and listen to

our choir practice.

— pastors.com

WELCOME SHALA DENDLER

We are pleased that Shala joined Re-

tirement Planners in February as our

receptionist and a member of our Cli-

ent Services team. Time away from

work is spent teaching yoga, reading,

playing the piano and spending time

with her daughters.

Mexico's Sewage Warfare

After decades of being a good neigh-

bor and spending more than half a

billion dollars to build Tijuana's sew-

age treatment plants, Mexico has re-

paid the favor by intentionally un-

leashing 143 million gallons of stench

-filled sewage onto San Diego's

beaches over 17 days in February.

It's the biggest spill in two decades,

the San Diego Union Tribune report-

ed. San Diego officials say it was

done without warning, was deliber-

ately done, and still has garnered no

response from Mexican officials who

won't even take U.S. phone calls.

— americanthinker.com

Page 13

It is a paradoxical

truth that tax rates

are too high today

and tax revenues are

too low, and the

soundest way to raise

the revenues in the

long run is to cut the

tax rates.

– John F. Kennedy

POTPOURRI

Where Did the Money Go? - 78%

of former NFL players file for per-

sonal bankruptcy or suffer financial

stress within just 2 years of retiring

from the pro game (source: Sports

Illustrated).

— Foreside Funds Services

New Administration Needs to

Overhaul Economic Report-

ing • How Can Headline Real GDP

Be Up 12.1% from Its Pre-Recession

High, While Industrial Production Is

Down 1.1% (-1.1%), and Manufac-

turing Is Down 5.7% (-5.7%)? • How

Can GDP Be in Its 22nd Quarter of

Expansion, When Industrial Produc-

tion is in Its 36th Quarter of Non-

Expansion, Rivaling Its Great De-

pression Run of 37 Quarters?

— John Williams, Shadow Government

Statistics

Whether you’re for Trump or

against Trump, the White House is

under attack from elements inside the

Intelligence community which are

trying to elevate tensions between

Russia and the US. At the bottom of

that is money and an agenda to cash-

in on conflict. There’s a game going

on inside the Intelligence community

where there are those who want to

separate the US from Russia in a way

that would re-ignite the cold

war...Wake up America!

— former Democratic Congressman,

Dennis Kucinich

Obama’s Hidden Iran Deal Give-

Away

By dropping charges against major

arms targets, the administration infur-

iated Justice Department officials —

and undermined its own counterpro-

liferation task forces. When federal

prosecutors and agents learned the

true extent of the releases, many were

shocked and angry. Some had spent

years, if not decades, working to pen-

etrate the global proliferation net-

works that allowed Iranian arms trad-

ers both to obtain crucial materials for

Tehran’s illicit nuclear and ballistic

missile programs and, in some cases,

to provide dangerous materials to oth-

er countries…

— politico.com

Chicago, Detroit, Baltimore Lead

Nation in Population Loss; Mari-

copa County Has Biggest Gain

Between July 1, 2015 and July 1,

2016, Cook County [Chicago] lost a

net of 21,324 people to hit 5,203,499,

according to the Census Bureau.

Even while it was experiencing the

largest net population loss of any

county in the country, Cook County

was seeing an influx of migrants from

foreign countries and more births

than deaths…

— cnsnews.com

Page 14

A major food company has

recalled two types of frozen hash

browns because the potatoes may

contain pieces of golf balls. Doctors

say if you’ve already ingested

pieces of golf balls, the best thing is to just let them play

through.

— James Corden

2017 2nd Quarter

POTPOURRI

way, Sweden, Czechia, and France…

— lifezette.com

O’Driscoll: … some Fed officials

must be worried that they have created

asset bubbles… Here, they are be-

tween a rock and a hard place. The

history of asset bubbles is that, once

inflated, they are not easily deflated

gradually. They tend to burst, as evi-

denced in the last financial crisis…

A very large amount of global debts

are denominated in dollars. Countries,

especially emerging markets, firms,

and individuals have borrowed cheap-

ly in dollars. To repay that dollar debt,

governments, businesses and individu-

als must earn income or collect taxes

in local currencies. As the dollar

strengthens, the real burden of those

debts rises in terms of local currencies.

Borrowers will need to devote more of

their income to servicing the dollar

debts…

The Fed's fundamental problem is that

the dollar is global money and the Fed

is running a global monetary policy…

That stubborn fiction is what helps

produce global financial crises…

— cnbc.com

Violent Threats Against the Presi-

dent are Ok Now?

The media has largely glossed over

these serious threats with a shrug. A

Mendoza Criticizes Illinois'

'lawless' Fiscal Climate

Hospitals and doctors treating pa-

tients on the state payroll are now

owed a collective $4.3 billion, Demo-

cratic Comptroller Susana Mendoza

highlights in a new report that reflects

a "lawless fiscal climate."

The annual state report for the fiscal

year ended June 30 "paints a worsen-

ing outlook" for Illinois' financial fu-

ture, the comptroller's office said in a

statement…

In the 375-page report, Mendoza un-

derscored the budget crisis. Illinois'

net deficit grew about 5 percent from

June 2015 to June 2016, totaling

$126.7 billion last year. The bulk of

the liability is in a $116 billion pen-

sion shortfall.

— Crain’s Chicago Business

The Shadowy Extremist Group

Behind the Anti-Trump Riots

Antifa, which stands for “anti-fascist

action,” is a network of loosely affili-

ated far-left anarchist and communist

groups that orchestrate violent pro-

tests and attacks on populists, con-

servatives, and anyone else its mem-

bers deem to be “fascists” or

“Nazis.”…

It now has active cells across the

world, including in Germany, the

U.S., Canada, the Netherlands, Nor-

Page 15

Golf is a walk spoiled – Mark Twain

POTPOURRI

War is like crack for presidents. It

confers instant gravitas, catapulting

them to respectability, bypassing all

station stops. They get to make

macho pronouncements on a topic

where every utterance is seen as au-

gust…

We have never succeeded at turning a

Third World dictatorship into a para-

dise. The history of these things is

that removing a Middle Eastern

strongman always makes things

worse -- for example, in Iran, Iraq,

Libya and Egypt.

We leap in, thinking we're helping the

poor devils under the thumb of a dic-

tator -- and then the new tribe takes

over and oppresses everyone else,

usually much more brutally, while

hating us even more than the old tribe

did…

Was America strengthened by the

Iraq War? The apparently never-

ending Afghanistan War? Vietnam?

This is how great powers die, which

is exactly what the left wants…

— anncoulter.com

Jerry Brown: California Taxpay-

ers are 'Freeloaders'

California Governor Jerry Brown re-

ferred to taxpayers as “freeloaders”

last week for objecting to his new gas

tax and car fee hikes…

— breitbart.com

simple Google search on Snoop Dog-

g’s assassination video, for example,

yields virtually no mainstream edito-

rials expressing disgust. It’s almost

as if there’s an overarching belief

among the media that Trump brought

this upon himself…

Political tensions are reaching a boil-

ing point and the mainstream media,

pundits, and “analysts” do nothing

but fan the flames…

— thehill.com

Then-Secretary of State John Ker-

ry, appearing on NBC’s “Meet the

Press” on July 20, 2014, asserted,

“With respect to Syria, we struck a

deal where we got 100% of the

chemical weapons out.”…

— nbcnews.com

Hillary Clinton Approved Deliv-

ering Libya’s Sarin Gas to Syrian

Rebels: Seymour Hersh

May 01, 2016 Hersh also said that a

secret agreement in 2012 was

reached between the Obama Admin-

istration and the leaders of Turkey,

Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, to set up a

sarin gas attack and blame it on As-

sad so that the US could invade and

overthrow Assad…

— globalresearch.ca

Page 16

2017 2nd Quarter

Please visit our website at

www.rpiinc.com

Copyright 2001

The Retirement Planner is a quar-terly newsletter published by Re-tirement Planners, Inc., 2001 Mid-west Road, Suite 107, Oak Brook, IL 60523 Phone 630.495.9700. Subscription rate $115 (U.S.) per year.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The infor-mation set forth herein was ob-tained from sources which we believe reliable, but we do not guarantee accuracy. Neither the information nor any opinion ex-pressed constitutes a solicitation by RPI of the purchase or sale of any securities or commodities.

DISCLOSURE POLICY: Re-member, past performance may not be indicative of future results. Different types of investments involve varying degrees of risk, and there can be no assurance that the future performance of any specific investment, investment strategy, or product made refer-ence to directly or indirectly in this newsletter, will be profitable, equal any corresponding indicated his-torical performance level(s), or be suitable for your portfolio. Moreo-ver you should not assume that any discussion or information con-tained in this newsletter serves as the receipt of, or as a substitute for, personalized investment advice from Retirement Planners, Inc.

pean political division into multiple com-

peting states were substantial: they in-

cluded almost incessant warfare, protec-

tionism, and other coordination failures.

Many scholars now believe, however,

that in the long run the benefits of com-

peting states might have been larger than

the costs. In particular, the existence of

multiple competing states encouraged

scientific and technological innovation…

In the closing chapter of The History of

the Decline and Fall of the Roman Em-

pire (1789), Edward Gibbon wrote:

‘Europe is now divided into 12 powerful,

though unequal, kingdoms.’…

— aeon.co

No Progress Made

After adjusting numerical data from the

past for the impact of inflation, the medi-

an household income today ($56,516) is

lower than the median household income

($57,909) from 1999 (source: Federal

Reserve Bank of St. Louis).

— Foreside Funds Services

2001 Midwest Road, Suite 107

Oak Brook, IL 60523

Phone 630-495-9700

Fax 630-495-9720

Toll Free 877-RETIREES

738-4737

www.rpiinc.com

The

Retirement Planner

Recycle This Newsletter by

sharing it with your family &

friends

POTPOURRI

Former Asst. FBI Director:

‘Professional Team of Subver-

sives’ Out to Get Trump

Kallstrom says Left has plans laid

'for every hour of every day' to

thwart president, create 'outrage'.

— lifezette.com

How [Old] Europe Became So

Rich

In a time of great powers and em-

pires, just one region of the world

experienced extraordinary econom-

ic growth. How?

Europe’s political fragmentation

spurred productive competition. It

meant that European rulers found

themselves competing for the best

and most productive intellectuals

and artisans. The economic histori-

an Eric L Jones called this ‘the

States system’. The costs of Euro-