Your Survival Guy

Preparing your investments and family for when disaster strikes.

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How Trump Wins the Nomination

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Trump was good last night, not great, but good enough to win the debate. To win the Republican nomination he needs 1,237 delegates. Trump will have a total of around 85 with the Nevada allocation. The Golden Four states of California, New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey hold 389 delegates. Since 1980, the Republican front-runner has swept the Golden Four to win the nomination. Voting takes place later in the season for the Golden Four (CA-June 6/NY-April 19/PA-April 26/NJ-June 7). If history holds true, then Trump’s magic number to hit, prior to the Golden Four contests, is 848 delegates. … [Read more...]

Warren Miller: Your Search for Freedom Part II

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“You know I liked your piece on Warren Miller but he wasn’t the ground-breaking filmmaker on skiing,” said my client yesterday, from Jackson Hole, WY during our regular talk. “The first guy was John Jay. He lived in Williamstown, MA next door to my friend when I was a kid,” he said. “Years later, when I was president of my ski club John Jay put on a great show for us.” I wikipedia’d John Jay and according to Warren Miller, he “virtually invented the ski film in its modern form.” If you’ve ever skied Suicide Six in Woodstock, VT or have seen the skimobile at Mt. Cranmore in North Conway, NH … [Read more...]

How Retirement Affects Health

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You can’t afford to lose meaningful money in retirement. It is the one death blow that is almost impossible to recover from and in my observation it leads to: 1) An obsession with trying to “make” the money back which takes over one’s life or 2), shutting the world out and blaming the loss on someone else. Both scenarios lead to isolation and as it turns out are bad for one’s health. Dr. Andrew Weil, M.D. shares with readers the results of a study concluding that 10 to 25 percent of retirees don’t do well in retirement and are at a higher risk of dying within six years of retiring. According … [Read more...]

2016 Foreign Policy Report Cards

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The American Conservative asks: Which candidates are most likely to be guided by realism and restraint in foreign policy? See the grades below. Presidents have more latitude in foreign affairs than in domestic policy, and the trend over the past two administrations has been for presidents to be more hawkish than their campaign pledges led voters to expect. George W. Bush promised a “humble foreign policy.” Instead, he gave us the Iraq War. Barack Obama was elected in part to end Bush’s wars. But he too pursued regime change, with Pyrrhic success in Libya and abortively in Syria. These … [Read more...]

Guns: My Concealed Carry Update

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A lot of good things can happen to your personal security situation when you take some initiative. For example, what will it take for you to have a "choice" to carry a weapon legally? Having a choice may provide you and your family with a great deal of comfort. As I've told you recently in Protect Your Family, Every Way Possible, I have my resident concealed carry license now in two states, New Hampshire and Rhode Island. With the two, I can legally carry in 33 states. Take a look at the list I've provided for you below, courtesy of handgunlaw.us, run your finger to your state, and see … [Read more...]

Roger Babson Quoted in Book: 1929

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Here’s a reminder about the markets, emailed to me by a client from the Greatest Generation over the weekend. What she sent was not only relevant because I went to Babson College, named after Roger Babson. The quoted passage below shows that with open eyes, a heavy dose of skepticism and abundant caution, you can prepare your portfolio for hard times, or “reef your sails” as Babson says. “Fair weather cannot always continue. The economic cycle is in progress today, as it was in the past. The Federal Reserve System has put the banks in a strong position, but it has not changed human nature. … [Read more...]

Trump's Win-Win

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Donald Trump scored another win this weekend, this time in South Carolina. One of the key drivers of the win was his repudiation of globalism and interventionism. Americans are tired of losing their jobs, of wondering if their kids will get jobs, and of seeing their kids fighting futile wars for the elites in Washington. As Pat Buchanan correctly points out: In the GOP nomination race, the chickens of a quarter century of Bush Republicanism have come home to roost. Trump’s triumphs to date are due to his recognition of, and identification with, the Middle American revolt against Bush family … [Read more...]

GOP Candidates: Trumped on Trade

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If you look at the back of your iPhone it reads: “Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China.” And there in a nutshell you have a fortune cookie sized explanation of our service/design vs. China’s manufacturing/assembly economy. Which one is more perishable? How long will it take for a call center in India to turn another U.S. service into a commodity? For the U.S. to compete on a global scale she needs to be able to compete in a way that protects her self-interests. Donald Trump gets this as does Pat Buchanan where he explains: Yet, with the exception of Trump, none of the GOP … [Read more...]

Warren Miller: Your Search for Freedom

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If you’re a skier then you know the name Warren Miller—famous for his ground-breaking ski movies shot in some of the most beautiful mountains in the world. I had a chance to meet Mr. Miller, age 91, over the weekend on a ski trip to Montana. He was in the lodge, named after him, signing copies of his soon to be released book. In his book, Miller writes about the first job he had, when he was in fourth grade, stocking shelves at the local grocer. He was able to get a job when, during the Great Depression, the unemployment rate was 25%. But what struck me was not that he had a job, but how he … [Read more...]