In Search of the Perfect Investment

Great news: Lots of new jobs — 252,000, instead of the 240,000 our brilliant economists expected. Unemployment rate is 5.6%, which according to my thinking is pretty well full employment. Let’s face it, it’s increasingly impossible to get anything done. Every one of my service people — from plumbers to electricians, from carpenters to networking folks — is telling me they’re overwhelmed and can’t get to my work for weeks. One electrician is six weeks late starting and is still making excuses. And yet I make a point of paying them instantly.

Banking fantasy. My brother in law lives in Melbourne, Australia. He tells me he hasn’t seen a check in years. Everything in Australia is done by sending money between banks. It works seamlessly, fast and painlessly.

America is meant to be more technologically savvy. It’s not. Banking is a total mess. And it’s a primary reason I don’t own any bank shares (except for my start-up bank, and it’s been an unmitigated investment disaster).

Let me explain some horrific events of the last few days:  My goal: Fund two real estate syndications: One for $200,000 and one for $250,000. Easy! Send them two wires.

The “normal” way to send wires in the United States is to write your instructions on a sheet of paper and fax it to your bank, and beg them to send it quickly. Several hours later the wire goes through. That’s how I’ve done it in the past but it’s slow and painful. I figured I’d be “smart” and use JPMorgan’s online wiring system, which I mostly love. Problems:

1. A limit of $100,000 a day — no matter how much you have in your account. There’s no reason for this limit and they can’t adjust it based on how much money have. Which is insane.

2. JPMorgan’s online system fails to account for the quirkiness of banks like UBS which insist on you wiring to into their one main account — and then having them distribute your money to the correct internal customer account. I thought (naively) all wiring was done with two bits of simple information — your bank’s ABA number and your account number. Simple. Not so with UBS which has an ABA number, their main account number and then your account number. If  you don’t include all three numbers in your wire, UBS rejects your wires. I don’t know exactly what “reject” means since I’m out of pocket $250,000 this morning. And no one seems to be able to find my $250,000. Thank you UBS.

3. JPMorgan never sends you an acknowledgement that your wire was actually wired. Even Amtrak sends you a reservation number. But no bank sends you the Fed Wire number of your wire — unless you beg — and you can only start begging several hours later. Without a Fed wire number, no one can trace your wire.

4. JPMorgan’s customer accounts get regularly hacked. I’ve suggested a two factor password authentication system but they’re delaying. They’ll probably be hacked again. Meantime, I have a two factor authentication system on this column. Putting it in stopped all hacking attempts. The hackers went someplace easier — like a nice juicy bank or dumb, lazy, cheap retailer, like Target.

Actually the whole wiring system in the U.S. is anachronistic. Every wire (whether “automated” on-line or not) involves several people manually touching the wire, checking it, approving it, talking to their supervisors, etc. I eventually sent money with Fidelity. (Hopefully it’s gone through this morning, though I haven’t heard). Their people  actually did research on the firm I was sending money  to– to check if it was a good investment for me — as if it was any of their business what I do with my money!  I had to actually explain to them what an LLC was and why the LLC I was sending money to was not searchable on the Internet — it was newly-formed.

Fidelity has its charms. With many banks, you can scan your wiring instructions and attach them to an email. Not so with Fidelity. The nice Fidelity man said, “We’re not set up for email. Please fax your instructions.” That was a good idea — until I actually tried. Their fax machine phone lines were busy! Getting through wasted another 30 minutes. Have you noticed that most fax machines don’t tell you if your fax actually went through?

So, it’s back to my old system. The best wiring people are Todd Kingsley and Seth Wernick at Deutsche Bank in Washington, D.C.  They take email attachments. They tell you when your wire went through and they follow up nicely. A joy.

One good point of JPMorgan’s system is they keep a list of your wire recipients — so if you want to send them money again, it’s easy. So long as it’s not UBS.

Sending wires to my suppliers should please them. They get the money fast. They don’t have to mess with the stupid paperwork of checks. Sadly, not so. Many banks charge $15 (or more) fees for incoming wires — no matter how small the wire.  That irks individuals who are not rich. While the banks will remove the fees, it involves begging and aggravation with the manager, if you can find her and she’s not out being trained on how to be nice to customer. (I don’t make this up.) And then there’s the new “monthly account maintenance fee” — now up to $95.

The sad thing for banks is they can’t make a decent living on today’s miserable interest rates, so they back to levying creative new fees and gambling with derivatives and other instruments of financial mass destruction.

Be Thankful for large mercies: The two brothers who massacred those people in Paris were on our “no fly” list.

Skip Your Annual Physical. From yesterday’s New York Times:

Skip Your Annual Physical by Ezekiel J. Emanuel, oncologist and a vice provost at the University of Pennsylvania.

WE all make resolutions and promises to live healthier and better lives, to make the world a better place. Not having my annual physical is one small way I can help reduce health care costs – and save myself time, worry and a worthless exam.

Around 45 million Americans are likely to have a routine physical this year – just as they have for many years running. A poke here, a listen there, a few tubes of blood, maybe an X-ray, a few reassuring words about diet, exercise and not smoking from the doctor, all just to be sure everything is in good working order. Most think of it as the human equivalent of a 15,000-mile checkup and fluid change, which can uncover hidden problems and ensure longer engine life.

There is only one problem: From a health perspective, the annual physical exam is basically worthless.

In 2012, the Cochrane Collaboration, an international group of medical researchers who systematically review the world’s biomedical research, analyzed 14 randomized controlled trials with over 182,000 people followed for a median of nine years that sought to evaluate the benefits of routine, general health checkups – that is, visits to the physician for general health and not prompted by any particular symptom or complaint.

The unequivocal conclusion: the appointments are unlikely to be beneficial. Regardless of which screenings and tests were administered, studies of annual health exams dating from 1963 to 1999 show that the annual physicals did not reduce mortality overall or for specific causes of death from cancer or heart disease. And the checkups consume billions, although no one is sure exactly how many billions because of the challenge of measuring the additional screenings and follow-up tests.

This lack of evidence is the main reason the United States Preventive Services Task Force – an independent group of experts making evidence-based recommendations about the use of preventive services – does not have a recommendation on routine annual health checkups. The Canadian guidelines have recommended against these exams since 1979.

How can this be? There have been stories and studies in the past few years questioning the value of the physical, but neither patients nor doctors seem to want to hear the message. Part of the reason is psychological; the exam provides an opportunity to talk and reaffirm the physician-patient relationship even if there is no specific complaint. There is also habit. It’s hard to change something that’s been recommended by physicians and medical organizations for more than 100 years. And then there is skepticism about the research. Almost everyone thinks they know someone whose annual exam detected a minor symptom that led to the early diagnosis and treatment of cancer, or some similar lifesaving story.

One explanation for the ineffectiveness of the annual exam in reducing the death rate is that it does little to avert death or disability from acute problems. Unintentional injuries and suicides are, respectively, the fourth and 10th leading causes of death among Americans. And it does little for chronic conditions without significantly useful interventions such as Alzheimer’s, the fifth leading cause of death among older people.

Further, researchers have long noted that screening healthy people who have no complaints is a pretty ineffective way to improve people’s health. If you screen thousands of people, maybe you’ll find tens whose exams suggest they might have a disease. And then upon further tests, you’ll find it is really only a few individuals who truly have something. And of those individuals, maybe one or two actually gain a health benefit from an early diagnosis.

The others may have discovered a disease, but one that either would never have become clinically evident and dangerous, or one that is already too advanced to treat effectively. For instance, early detection of most thyroid cancers leads to surgery, but in many cases those cancers would not have caused serious problems, much less death. Conversely, for individuals whose annual exams lead to the diagnosis of esophageal or pancreatic cancer, the early diagnosis might extend the time they know they have cancer but is unlikely to extend their lives.

Some are actually hurt by physicals, because healthy patients who undergo an exam sometimes end up with complications and pain from further screening or confirmatory tests.

My New Year’s resolution does not mean I won’t get my annual flu shot or a colonoscopy every 10 years – or eat a balanced diet and get regular exercise. These are proven to reduce morbidity and mortality. Those who preach the gospel of the routine physical have to produce the data to show why these physician visits are beneficial. If they cannot, join me and make a new resolution: My medical routine won’t include an annual exam. That will free up countless hours of doctors’ time for patients who really do have a medical problem, helping to ensure there is no doctor shortage as more Americans get health insurance.

You don’t want this job. The video made by a drone of worker on the top of a 1500 foot TV tower is remarkable. Click here.

Henny Youngman’s famous one-liners. I need these this morning.

– Airlines

+ Getting on a plane, I told the ticket lady, “Send one of my bags to New York, send one to Los Angeles, and send one to Miami.”

She said, “We can’t do that!”

I told her, “You did it last week!”

+ I was just in London – there is a 6 hour time difference. I’m still confused. When I go to dinner, I feel sexy. When I go to bed, I feel hungry.

+ The food on the plane was fit for a king. “Here, King!”

– Doctors 

+ A doctor gave a man six months to live. The man couldn’t pay his bill, so he gave him another six months.

+ The Doctor called Mrs. Cohen saying, “Mrs. Cohen, your check came back.”

Mrs. Cohen answered, “So did my arthritis!”

+ The Doctor says, “You’ll live to be 60!” “I AM 60!” “See, what did I tell you?”

+ The patient says, “Doctor, it hurts when I do this.”

“Then don’t do that!”

+ A doctor has a stethoscope up to a man’s chest. The man asks, “Doc, how do I stand?”

The doctor replies,  “That’s what puzzles me!”

+ Doctor says to a man, “You’re pregnant!” The man says, “How does a man get pregnant?”

The doctor says, “The usual way – a little wine, a little dinner….”

+ A man goes to a psychiatrist. “Nobody listens to me!”

The doctor says, “Next!”

+ A man goes to a psychiatrist. The doctor says, “You’re crazy” The man says, “I want a second opinion!”

“Okay, you’re ugly too!”

Drunk 

+ A drunk was in front of a judge. The judge say,s “You’ve been brought here for drinking.”

The drunk says, “Okay, let’s get started.”

+ Another drunk goes up to a parking meter, puts in a quarter, the dial goes to 60.

The drunk says, “Huh. I lost 100 pounds!”

Hollywood

+ I’m making a Jewish porno film. 10% Sex, 90% guilt.

Harry Newton who recognizes the BIG problem with retirement or semi-retirement (or whatever limbo I’m living in) is that you lose control. You can’t organize things you want. You can’t treat people the way you think is fair. The agony of retirement ranges from obvious things — like investing in a promising start-up only to find that the president doesn’t send you regular (in fact, any) reports and there’s nothing you can do about it. And then there’s the whole bank wiring thing, which basically wasted all of yesterday and caused me to be late to last night’s dinner. I wonder if the Fidelity wire went through this morning? They haven’t told me. I’ll have to call them, punch in my social security number, my account’s password and my wife’s mother’s second cousin…. Such joy.

Nike’s getting hit today because of its sales overseas. I’m not concerned. Nike has more opportunities than it can handle. Actually I hope it drops more. I’ll pick up more. HAIN is also getting hit because of the same reasons. But it also faces more opportunities than Carter had liver pills.

It’s 21 in Spencertown, mid-New York State. I came here early to our country house to meet with some contractors. I pray they show.