My Sick Mind

Robber: “Your money or your life.” [pause] Robber: “Well?” [pause] Jack Benny:  “I’m thinking it over!” That’s an old joke about being frugal. Sometimes, we are faced with that exact question, in other terms, and we have to come up with a logical answer.  Chances are, the pause will be longer than it was in the joke. The real joke is that, at some point, your money is your life. The problem with it is that you don’t always know when it will come to fruition.  My advice to young people would be, “assume that the time is tomorrow.” Generally , we go through life thinking that we will live forever and that we can continue to live the way we always have.  It’s difficult to see into the future and imagine a time when we will have to get by from week to week with nothing but what we have saved and what little the federal government will be giving us. I remember (back to my marriage again) sitting in our living room, making out checks for our bills,...

I've been following the stock market and investing for decades.  As they say, I've seen them come and go.  Rarely have I seen an IPO that has angered and incited opinion like the one of Beyond Meat (BYND) that took place last month. I don't know if it's the product, the idea that it's a "millennial" thing, or that the value of the stock has skyrocketed since its IPO, but something has set-off the ire of the investing community. I'm reading comments about how horrible the product is for our health, how it will be a flash in the pan (pun), and how it isn't any better than eating meat.  At least two of those things are fallacy. I've been eating these burgers for about a year.   Not every day, of course.  They're kind of expensive ($6 for two in the freezer section) so I generally buy a package every two weeks or so.  I enjoy the taste, and I feel good about eating something that isn't either clogging my arteries or my int...