Over the past year or so, we have become very concerned about where our food comes from. After reading, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Food, Inc., several other books and watching the documentaries Food, Inc. and King Corn it has become apparent to me that our country’s food supply is dangerous and we are all in deep doo doo as they say. So, after getting up a good head of steam worrying about these things, I decided it was time to act and what better way to do that than by taking care of our family’s food needs in a more healthy and sustainable way and then using our example to impact others. So, we started out with buying grass fed beef from Hunter Cattle in Brooklet, Georgia. We then started buying local organic produce from a farm here in Savannah. Next we planted our own garden this year. This one will be a multi year experiment to see how much of our own food we can grow. Our first crops are tomatoes, carrots, basil, peppers, and swiss chard. Not sure how all of those will grow here in Savannah, but I thought we’d start there and add and subtract as experience teaches us.
The next phase of our food transformation is the addition of backyard chickens. Our friends down the street have had their own chickens for a year or so now and after seeing how well the experiment went for them, the wife and I talked it over and decided what the hay. So last weekend, with help from a friend, I built a chicken ark using the Catawba Converticoop plans (pictures to follow) and we now have six baby chicks living in our back yard. We are going to baby sit these three week old chicks for about a month and then swap them out for layers. The kids are fascinated by the whole thing, having spent hours now sitting outside watching the baby chicks free range around our yard. I can’t wait until we have some fresh eggs to eat. We will have moved one step further down the road to controlling our own destiny. For me, this whole thing is ultimately aimed towards the sort of self sufficiency that Americans enjoyed in the early part of the last century. I’m tired of being so dependent on what others who have no concern for mine or my family’s welfare decide to do.
Why is it that gas stations have started to use the payment systems at the gas pumps for relentless advertising?
The whole purpose of a pay at the pump service (to me anyway) is to make the gas station experience as efficient as possible. You get to pay for your gas more quickly and the gas station owner gets to cut down on labor costs to process your payments, etc.
I bought gas yesterday and paid at the pump. After I ran my card, the machine asked for my zip code. Because there are no audible tones when you press buttons on the keypad, it’s hard to tell if the machine is accepting your input without leaning down and trying to read the tiny screen. After that, it went through the authorization process and then asked me if I wanted a car wash. This required going back to the keypad which is by the way located too far away from the screen to actually look at it while typing and punching the no button. After waiting for 2 minutes, I was finally ready to pump gas. Now how much time did that save me?
I read this article from the Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/10/AR2009021003583.html about a small bank in North Carolina that found a creative way to use the $20.5 Million in TARP money that they received to stimulate their local real estate market. The bank was a well managed bank with solid assets and no bad loans on its books. This small town banker whom Timothy Geithner probably never heard of has thought of a creative use for federal money that creates a win win win situation and will definitely have a positive impact on the local economy. I think that the solution to the current economic mess is going to come from unexpected places and it will be ordinary people applying creative thinking and seeing opportunity instead of disaster that will eventually bring us back from recession. The days of the Wall Street tycoons is hopefully over.
This week, I would like to share with you why it is so important for women in particuar to participate in proper estate planning with a qualified estate planning professional. Some people still assume that, when it comes to financial and legal matters, women are not key players. This is entirely inaccurate. Women are more likely to be highly involved and greatly affected by estate planning than men.
In recent generations, as the number of women in the workplace has tripled, women have taken on a larger role in the financial arena. Meanwhile, the real median income of women has increased by sixty-three percent, while that of men has declined by six percent in the same period. This income shift changes the family dynamics and gives women a greater voice in financial matters.
According to a recent survey, women have an equal say in major financial decisions in seventy-five percent of households. In homes where one partner is solely responsible for financial decisions, women outnumber men in that role by a four to three margin.
In fact, women own a majority of all publicly traded stock in the United States. Women control seventy percent of all wealth in the United States and inherit about seventy-five percent of all estates. This is the reason estate planning is even more important to women than to men: they are more likely to benefit from good planning or pay the price for poor planning (or no planning).
A study by the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that the odds of needing long-term care at some period in life is roughly fifty percent. More than forty percent will spend more than six months in long-term care. Guess who are likely to be the caretakers? Women. Women are three times more likely to cope with their mate’s illness or injury. Guess who are likely to be the survivors? Women. Widows outnumber widowers by a wide margin. It is essential for women to ensure that, at a minimum, they and their spouse have done basic estate planning. This includes four documents: General Durable Power of Attorney, Health Care Durable Power of Attorney, Will, and Revocable Trust.
When a husband is missing or becomes incapacitated what happens to his assets? How does a wife refinance the house to pay bills if her husband is unable or unavailable to sign necessary documents? Without planning, a wife must go to court and have her husband declared incompetent. This is an arduous process that is emotionally draining for all involved. However, this can be avoided with proper planning. A General Durable Power of Attorney allows the “Principal” to designate an “Agent” who will make financial decisions for him when he is unable to do so. With this document, a wife can sign for her husband in the event of his incapacity.
Similar problems arise regarding health care issues when a person becomes incapacitated. Who decides the appropriate treatment and the efficacy of procedures if the patient cannot? Like the General Durable Power of Attorney, a Health Care Durable Power of Attorney designates an “Agent” to make health care decisions for the principal if he is unable to make them for himself. As women typically cope with their mate’s illness, it is they who usually serve as the agent. Without this document, she may face difficulty in getting health care providers to follow her instructions.
Like incapacity, at death a person cannot express his or her wishes regarding various decisions. Who should inherit the family business? Who should care for minor children? A Will provides these answers and has several functions. First, and most importantly, the only manner to designate a guardian for minor children in most states is in a Will. Without a Will, you have no input in the decision, and the court will decide. Unfortunately, no matter how caring the judge may be, he or she does not know and love your children as you do. Second, the Will distributes any assets held in your name. Without a Will, the state decides who receives the assets, in accordance with a set list for “intestate succession.” Unfortunately, this set list provides the same distribution to your wonderful sister with seven children as to your brother who has not spoken with you in eight years. The Will can provide that the assets “pourover” into a Revocable Living Trust, to be distributed by its terms.
Even with a Will, any assets owned by you at your death must go through “probate” in order to be distributed to those designated by you. The process of transferring title from the person who died to the person who is designated to receive the property is “probate.” Probate can be expensive, time consuming, and emotionally draining for those left behind. A Revocable Living Trust is set up now, during your lifetime, and holds legal title to your assets. Because the trust owns the assets and the trust did not die, the assets do not need to go through probate. You still can use the assets, even though legal title is in the Trust. If you become incapacitated, the person you have chosen as your successor “Trustee” will manage the assets for you, much like the Agent under your General Durable Power of Attorney. The Trust can be very flexible and directs how and when the assets will be used. For example, the Trust can keep the children from squandering the assets, ensuring the assets are available for college or graduate school. Since the woman is likely to be the survivor and, therefore, the successor Trustee, it is essential that she take an active part in the planning process.
In addition to preparing basic documents, periodically review the beneficiary designations on 401k, IRA, or other qualified plan assets. Frequently, beneficiary designations do not reflect changes in circumstances. Qualified plan assets comprise an ever-increasing portion of the typical person’s assets, therefore this is a critical review step. Your periodic review also should include life insurance beneficiary designations.
There are many considerations which come into play when attempting to achieve your goals: children with special needs, aging parents, creditor protection, income taxes, divorce protection, estate taxes, etc. A qualified estate planning attorney who specializes in that practice area can help you structure your plan to achieve the best result. It is essential for you to be involved in the process from the start. The woman, as survivor, is likely to reap the rewards of security and harmony from smart planning.
Mr. Michael H. Smith is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys and has been engaged in the practice of law for the last ten (10) years. For more information or to attend an upcoming seminar visit our website at www.smithbarid.com or call (912)352-3999.
This article details the origins of OpenSSH in the OpenBSD developer community and how many of the corporations profiting from their use of OpenSSH, one of the most important parts of any modern networking OS, refuse to support the organization and keep development moving forward.
This is the technique that I use for processing mail. I spend about five minutes every day and open my mail over the trash can. The trash items are tossed immediately and the remainder is put into my inbox and handled GTD style. I found this concept in some organizing book I read years ago, no recollection of the book title or author, but it works.
Wufoo is a new form builder that I found out about today. It has a really cool interface. I tried out the demo for a while and it’s looks pretty slick. Here’s the link Wufoo.
According to the Signals v. Noise blog this morning, Campfire has now added sound notification of new messages. Seems like a lot of people wanted this. I have the icon on my Campfire account, but the sound notifications do not yet work for me.
I signed up for a demo account on Campfire and thought we would test it out at the office. Here are my initial thougts. It works great for an actual meeting where both persons are logged in and can exchange messages back and forth and are focused on the meeting. I like the interface, it’s simple and clean, and I like the fact that it’s all self contained in the browser with no separate client. The one drawback that I see is if like me you keep multiple browser windows open in Firefox. Campfire does not send you any kind of notification when someone enters new info in the chat. In other words, I don’t get a popup or a noise or something to let me know that a room member has posted anything to the chat. My thought was that I would be able to leave Campfire open in a browser window all day and when I needed to let my assistant know something, I could type it into Campfire and she could then respond and we could pick up and drop our chat as needed throughout the day. Without a notification though, nobody knows you are chatting with them. I’m going to put it in a feature request and hopefully they will add it. With that change, I think it could be really useful.
