All posts by howiemaui

President Trump, Why Do You Want Us Seniors to Live In Your Poor House?

I never thought reaching the age of seventy, would have  me thinking of spending my final years in President Trump’s poor house. Our new president just reached his seventh decade of breathing, and has done quite well for himself, a billionaire and certainly who will never have to worry about of not ever having enough money to pay his bills. However for us millions of seniors our future is now looking so bleak. Sure I should of discipline myself for my twilight years, I will admit that I thought I deserved better in my closing years, a big house, great car, health care I know I could afford, and enough money that both my wife could travel the world, and have multiple residents to call our home. I tried, to do it, and have to admit I failed, I wish I had the $25,000.00 plus I spent on lotto tickets, tens of thousands of dollars I spent on camera gear, and to make my point simpler, I wish I could of just stopped the world for just one day, and realize, that I had to believe in myself, and if I thought of a particular stock to invest in, “Just Do It, mind ya I did invest, I do have a profit, but not enough to give a yearly salary to live the life style I always wanted to have.

However, I have the moment now to reach out hopefully to my howiemaui.com readers, whether you are old like me, or just fresh out of college, the world is always changing, and the sooner you realize it the better the chance you will be able to get your journey the way you want it.

Yes, I see that not only President Trump and his fellow Congress, are depleting my savings, and the wealth of other seniors, by imposing the “Required Minimum Distribution” Taxes on our investments, but now giving our financial advisors a licensed to take what ever what we earned through our lives, by making us pay a mandatory yearly brokerage fee if  we need financial advice. Sure I can have a no cost investment account, but after thirty years with a financial advisor, I don’t think I have both the knowledge, or discipline to manage my investments.

I am pleading to my fellow Americans and elected officials, that there should be new laws, that will help the Seniors that want to spend their final years with dignity, and knowing that their United States of America, have not let them down.

Lets Put Our Medical Doctors On The Government Payroll.

With all the problems we are having with getting affordable health care in this country, I think I might have a partial solution for most Americans to have access to their family physician without needing some kind of health care plan. I couldn’t help asking my family doctor, what does the average family physician makes in salary in this country? I was startled that for someone who has to go to school and be certified after some twelve years was only $150,000.00 a year, mind ya this is probably after paying their malpractice insurance, rent, staff, and supplies, but it does not consider what their education has cost them, yet alone the lost of income while going to school. It seems like a lot of effort for so little pay.

This got me to start thinking, why doesn’t our government put many of these doctors on the payroll, let’s say some 250,000 doctors and pay them $250,000.00 a year tax free, and pay for their malpractice insurance, and you are probably thinking  how in God’s name are we going to pay for this. Well, I think the American people will gladly will. So here is my math, everyone in the United States should be able to have access too their family doctor whether they have insurance or not, and having a yearly physical would certainly prevent so many of us from getting sicker later on, we all need to know if we have high pressure and other problems that could escalate to many other medical problems that would incur, and yet alone the additional costs to treat these future problems. So how are we going to pay for this, well with the government’s help, All Americans will be able to make an appointment with their doctor, and only pay $100.00, the doctor get’s $50.00 tax free and the government gets the other fifty dollars.

So let’s do the math, our new governmental doctors will work a two hundred day year, and with this new plan, the physician can add more staff and be able to see some 100 patients a day, and with our new fifty-fifty dollar medical plan, the government receives $1,000,000.00 and our governmental family physicians stand to make their well deserving one million dollars(tax free, and for so many who will not be able to afford health care, at least they can have access to a doctor for just one hundred dollars, no waiting all day to see a doctor, and have he peace of mind that they are at least on the right track to achieving good health.

This not a cure all idea to tackle our health care debacle, but at least it’s a start in the right direction, for your information, my family physician, and a retired surgeon friend of mine whats to know where they can sign up.

I passed by idea today to Republican party of Illinois today, and I hope it can reach President Trump, but if it doesn’t I need you my fellow howiemaui.com readers to pass it on to your elected officials and family doctors. If making American Great again means taking care of business, why not let our health care professionals  do what they are trained for, making us Americans HEALTHY.

I Have A New Broker, Meet My Uncle Sam.

If you think that I didn’t have enough problems with find affordable health care just in case my wife eventually need to retire, it seems that our government wants us seniors to deplete all of their assets so we can end up with out any thing to leave our families, places of worship, favorite charities, or just our friends. I say this because the other day I received a phone call from my stock broker that I will no longer going to be able to sell stocks with him unless I sign up for their new fee structure for my portfolio. Even though I never reached the supposed amount of one million dollars for my retirement, my new cost to stick with the broker who I have had for some twenty five years will go up in price from $100.00 a year to $300.00 a month, yikes-a $2900.00 increase, close to $250.00 a month, and add this to my Required Minimum Distribution starting this year, means that my new stock broker, US government(Uncle Sam) is requiring me and millions of my fellow seniors Americans to start liquidating our hard earn savings. Of course my stock broker did offer me an alternative that I can open up a no cost account that has no fees, and very low commissions, but no financial advice. even though I am not a millionaire, I credited my broker from keeping me from panicking so many times, and just ride it out.

With so much concern with the new substitute for Obama Care, so very little is being said about what Uncle Sam is doing for us seniors. My new banking regulations of having a fixed percentage fe for all investment accounts will mean massive job cuts in the financial industry and not to also mention that many of us don’t know beans about investments.

Thanks President Donald Trump, can you at least put Jim Cramer and Tony Robins on your financial advisory board so at least we will have someone to help us on how to invest!

 

Are We Ready To Buy Our Health Care On Ebay?

The big question President has to account to the American people, exactly what his new health care plan actually going to cost, and what guide lines it is going to offer? Right now there are millions of American families struggling to pay their rising health care premiums and deductibles. I must say that Obama Care at first tried to give the majority of us some kind of affordable health care, for the first time we were forced to buy some kind of health care, before you either have the luxury of getting supplemented health care from your employer, or getting Medicaid from their states. For the first time, our country was making an effort to get people to get healthy, visit a doctor before it’s too late to get medical help, or going to a hospital for a life saving operation. One thing for sure, Americans were starting to realize that preventive medicine meant many more healthy years to come, unfortunately for so many their coverage will probably end.

In the next month or two the United States Senate will vote on President Trump’s new alternative tobacco Care, but seeing what could be installed for us could mean that there will be be tens of millions of people not getting all the medicare care they might need. The Trump health care plan will cover many of the basics of Obama Care like pre-existing conditions, but it will require, an additional premium, pregnancies will be consider a luxury, and it will require an additional premium, this series of needs will like going to your favorite restaurant, and ordering everything, and I mean everything ale-carte, from the type of silver ware utensils, the size of your napkin, what kind of water you might want, the menu items will also vary in size and weight, to save costs, you will have the option of washing your plates and spoons and forks, left overs will be an additional service charge, and No More Free Toilets.

So lets take a make a believe of day one of the new Trump Care, it will be able to purchase because the choices will b in the thousands, you start by going on Ebay, put in your medical information, age, smoker, non smoker, your family history, and here is the fun part, what do you want your health care plan to cover, it will start from the bottom of your feet to the top of your head, there will probably be some six hundred questions  on what you would like to have covered, here are some of the things that are a definite must for coverage, sneezing, running noses, head aches, and of course hemorrhoids. There will also be a question on what restriction your coverage to high blood pressure? High and low blood pressure might require an extra premium. But you better plan at least eight hours to put in your new Trump Care bid o Ebay, remember there are some fifty different states with some one hundred insurance companies offering policies. Maybe we will get lucky, and score a great deal on our health care plan, the only problem will be if it will be able to deliver the coverage it saids it is.

I can hardly wait, maybe I will but multiple plans, and put them on my own Ebay site, hell people were screaming  for a single payer health care plan, well now you have it, it’s called PayPal, and I mean Pay buddy through the nose.

 

 

 

Why Was President Trump Talking To the Russian Ambassador?

With all the allegations that are made about President Trump involvements with the Russians, why did he put himself in harm’s way with last week’s meeting with Sergey Kislyak? Hasn’t anyone taught Donald Trump how to act as a president, Arn’t there any tapes of President Obama out there to point out what is the professional protocol when dealing with foreign dignitaries? This is not the right time for both Donald Trump and the United States to show the rest of the world how gullible we are, especially to the Russians. To tell the Russian ambassador that we are collaboration with another country where we plan our next means of attack against ISIS, has put so many of our allis at risk. We do not know what is Russia’s relation with ISIS, it could be an indication that someone out there is double bladed. With the past firing of president Trump’s Attorney General and FBI director it obvious that both President Trump and the United States are heading for a spiral down ward. I will go one more step to the stupidity of what we did, why in God’s name did we allow a Russian photographer in the White House to photograph such a meeting, at least we could of banned his cameras and substitute our cameras for him to use, who knows what his cameras were used as besides just taking photographs? Maybe I have been watching too many James Bond movies, but it is better to be safe than sorry!

If there was a reason to send President Trump back to school where he could learn how to be the President of The United States, now is the time to start. With North Korea launching a missile with a range of four hundred miles, and bothChina and Russia want to execute their strength, it’s only going just one incident to trigger World War111, and we are done, a wall that that even Humpty Dumpty Trump will never be able to put back together again!

Why doest Donald Trump just admit it, the job of being the President of the United States wasn’t what he thought it to be, and it would also be a grand gesture, to get both Barack Obama and Joe Biden back running our great country ASAP!

Happy Mothers Day, Your Third Year.

It’s hard to believe that it is been three years since we have had our daily morning telephone conversations. Teresita has been working so hard, and I wish I produced some added income in the five years that I was fired on New Years Eve, 2011, Calumet Photographic finally closed their doors almost when you passed away anyway, I thought I could score on so many of my projects, I tried to help my friend Bob, to promote his photographers portfolio web site, and maybe even help him sell it, I couldn’t, I tried to help one of of photo retail customer promote his thirty-five camera, that uses a six foot film negative, the final prints were going to be some two stories high, I couldn’t, I spent a whole week, making phone calls so one of my former co-workers God son, advance on American Idol, I couldn’t, at least he finished ninth, I even tried to promote a blind girl with her singing career, I couldn’t, I tried to help someone with both his baseball career and sing country western chances, I couldn’t, I made contact with a man who is like my older brother, who had the unlucky decision, of giving up his ten-percent ownership of the original Apple Computer Company(Ronald G. Wayne), we are trying to promote our Apple Computer Museum concept, we even own two great domain names, apple founders.com and apple.org, I accumulated Steve Job’s junior and señior high school year books, and four of Steve Wozniak’s high school year books, and other interesting items, no one seems to be interested, I am trying to help to  promote one of my Harper High school buddies promote his Pet Wellness Centers, it’s been hard, one of my old Standard Photo’s photographer friends, Richard Hertzberg, was Sudsy on the TV show, My Three Sons, he passed away some six years ago, I made contact with Stanley Livingston who was one of the main actor’s on My Three Sons, he played Chip, and his brother Barry played Ernie, I am trying to promote both his movie and tv pilots, it’s shame that we are not seeing a revision of the old TV shows now, perhaps a modern tv show, “My Four Daughters”, I really think he is going to bring both motion pictures & tv to a new levewww.firstteamproductions.com. wish me luck, I been going to many of the McDonalds shareholder meetings, and I am the one who pointed out that we need an all day breakfast, at last one of my ideas was an international success, but no paycheck, but at Ieast I tried and my stock in McDonalds have gone up, I even made a connection with someone who has the wold’s largest McDonald’s collection, I hopefully will be at this month’s McDonalds share holders meeting and planning to express some more of my ideas. I don’ know if you have been reading www.howiemaui.com blog, but we have a new president of the United States, Donald Trump, and I am keeping my fingers crossed that he will be to offer many Americans, especially Teresita(my wife) affordable health care, I know that this is not the the day, since it being Mother’s Day, to keep hashing why you let someone sell you a $200,000.00 lifetime annuity(it ended at death), didn’t you think that when you died, that perhaps it could of helped Teresita and I with our future retirement, did you forget that I was born with Cerebral Palsy, because of you parting and someone slapped you on the back at a party, and you had to give birth to me some six weeks before I would of been born normal, and why did you leave some $10,000.00 to one of your nurse friends, $10,000, didn’t you know that both her and her husband make probably a quarter of a million dollars a year? I should stop now, and be glad that we had close to sixty five years together, sorry I am being so bitter, it’s just I wish I could of done better financially, at seventy years old, it’s been so frustrated being hard of hearing and being in so much pain over the years from many of my hip surgeries, but I am grateful to have such a lifetime partner as Teresita, and thankful that you brought home my first 35mm film camera that was responsible for discovering my love of photography, but like you I find it very hard to stop wanting to make a difference in this world.

You had a very nice memorial, but their were some letdowns, no one from your beloved Saks Fifth Avenue was there, I called one of your closest Saks buddy and she didn’t think it was a big deal, many of your close friends, a family I will not name did not show up, members of Teresita’s family was there, and I gave one of my Howie speeches, afterwards we went to your apartment at the Breakers, and let the guests take home many of your possessions, Judge Ann Burke and her son were there, as well as Doctor Klein, I don’t want to mention everyone, but I hope you and Mort(step father) were watching.

My health is so, so, taking many pills, but it’s Teresita’s health I am worried about, she wants to live in the Philippines, and I hope we can have the best of the United States and the Philippines. Well anyway, I just want to see how are you doing, and I hope you are able to have human or spiritual contact with so many of our past relatives and friends. Hopefully next year I will be writing about on both Teresita’s and myself’s retirement, keeping my fingers crossed, a home in Florida and in the Philippines, it’s getting late, I love you, and forgive me for rambling on what it is suppose to be your day.

Love

Howie

 

What Do You Have To Hide President Trump?

President Trump, why did you want to be president in the first place? You say that you want to make America greater again?  I think you better define the word greater again, there are other words that have made us a great country, integrity, caring, loving, understanding protecting, listening, advancing, invigorating, justifiable, advancing, and most of all, we are defining, what do I mean defining, we as a country, know what are role as member of the world with our other welcoming nations. It’s not a competition as you make us believe it to be. Sure we are powerful, and if we wanted to be the most forceful country on the planet, we probably could do it. Lets not just be The United States of America, but The Universal State of The World. There are no longer any more individual countries, we own them all, and English is now the Universal spoken language, and the USD dollar is the universal currency now backed by all the gold we took from the rest of the world, especially from China, and Russia. Thank God this will never happen, but in the back of your mind President Trump I think you would like it to happen. If we did not have the atomic bomb, and Germany did, we would all be speaking German with a Japanese accent.

President Trump, you can’t keep firing those people under you, just because they are doing their jobs, they and we want and demand the truth. What were the confidential emails that were on the former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton’s email server?, what was Russia’s involvements in the 2016 presidential election, and you and your cabinet connection’s with both Russia and China? People like Michael Flynn have a lot of answers we need to hear? In plain and simple English, if you have nothing to hide, then rise up to the occasion, and let your first appointed people, then Attorney General and former director of The FBI do their job! The TRUTH can only make you and the United States of America stronger.

Many of us are trying to figure you out as our President and not as our DICTATOR?

 

 

President Trump, Our New Hoover Vacuum Cleaner.

If we could only bring back former F.B.I. director J. Edgar Hoover, and ask him to defend  our recent fired Director, James Comey.  Hoover, the bureau’s first director was somewhat like we see in President Trump, he investigated on anyone who he saw as an eventual threat to the United States. I am not going into on what tactics he used or what information he sort after, the bottom line was he was one tough “Bastard” who so many politicians and Presidents were scared of. He just knew too much about them, and very few people including our past presidents were going to challenge him. He went first after 1000’s of Germans living in the United States after World War I, Mobster like John Dillinger, Dr. Martin Luther King, the Black Panthers, unlike President Trump he led efforts with the British to eavesdrop on the Soviets, the point I want to make, James Comey should not have to be the F.B.I. Vacuum Cleaner, he needs to resurface as the bureau’s modern day J. Edgar Hoover, and Congress and the people of the United States need to know what were his actual findings of the Russian’s tampering with the past presidential elections,  the findings of the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s classified emails, and all the other illegal involvements that President Trump was involved in.

We cannot allow to have our president of the United States to act like a dictator, and keep firing members of his administration because they might become a threat to him. This is not the America I thought I lived in. Unless we all step up to the plate and redefine what the founding fathers imprinted what our rights and freedoms  are defined in the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, we will find our selves looking at a president, who quite resembles a modern day Adolph Hitler.

It’s not too late, if we start acting as the true Americans that we are, we can have the affordable health care that we need, honest and caring politicians, and most of all the true understanding that hatred does not belong in our government.

 

 

 

Do You Really Think We Are Going To Have A Real Health Care Plan?

The clock is ticking, and even though President Trump’s revised health care plan passed in the house of representative, and ready to be taken to the senate for it’s passage vote, is going to be the God send that will make America Great Again, yet alone healthy? I doubt it, there is no way in hell will President Trump be able to get anything close to Obama Care. First of all, it’s the cost, with all of President Trump’s proposed corporate tax cuts, and the increase in his military budget, the numbers are not there. We spend some ten thousand dollars per person on health care in the United States, while many other countries spend less than half on their inhabitants, they are employing  a considerable more taxes to pay for it.

President Trump has stated many of times that his health care plan will be cheaper in it’s monthly premiums and it will have lower deductibles. Great idea, but I think that for his plan to work, it will eliminate coverage that is not health coverage, things like pregnancies, will have a cap, two child births to a family, cancer coverage will require an additional umbrella coverage, Americans will be punished with higher rates if they don’t keep themselves healthy, there will be mandatory medical screenings for all Americans to determine what their actual health care costs will be, annual blood tests, will be another medical criteria, there will no longer be any more PPO, we will be required to go to the doctors the government has selected for us, there will be a point system to determine our future health costs, the more times you go to a doctor or have to go to the hospital could mean that your future costs could escalate some forty per-cent. I can go on, but I think the luxury we had with Obama Care will be gone.

Sure we might get health care with both lower premiums and deductibles, but things we took for granted like mammograms, birth control, going to our doctors when we wanted to, will be something of the past.

Those who said life is a game will finally have their say, it’s President Trump’s game, “The Game of Life”, and every day Americans are going to focus on staying healthy, or else, they will not be able to afford affordable health care. Sure as soon as the senate passes the new Affordable Health Care plan, we will be shocked, but there is nothing we will be able to do about it, weep and grim, I didn’t vote for Donald Trump, but those who did, don’t give me any of your crocodile tears.

 

 

I Am All Gere Up(Richard) For Pretty Woman2 With Julia Roberts.

I loved Richard Gere’s new movie, “The Diner” tonight. As usual Richard Gere played his usual astonishing role as a congressman wanting to run for governor. I don’t want to spoil the ending of his movie, you won’t be disappointed, but like me you will start reminiscing about his classic film “Pretty Woman” with Julia Roberts, and start hearing Ray Orbison sing it’s theme song. It was some twenty-seven years(1990) ago that it was shown. Mr. Gere is now sixty seven years old, and his counter part Julia Roberts is one year from reaching the magic fifty. Just think what this revival might have to offer. Perhaps we can have our much older Richard finding himself in a hospital, and long and behold his beautiful “Pretty Woman” is now his Pretty Nurse. Just being entered in the hospital for the start of his Cancer treatments, his assigned nurse, Ms Roberts, widowed(husband died of cancer), for some fifteen years, and has two beautiful children, ages eighteen, and twenty-three, cannot believe she has been re-united with Edward Lewis, then a very wealthy business man. Going from a Hollywood hooker, a nurse would make a good movie, now more than ever, we might find out how the original “Pretty Woman” ended, and now see who rescues who in my make believe version of “Pretty Woman2”.