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Why The World Is Crazy. Sanity Starts With You!

How Estate Planning Can Save America

(Nothing Controversial Here!)

Is There A Problem?

Seventy-nine years ago, in August 1944, as the German army retreated from Paris, France, Adolf Hitler ordered the troops to burn the “City of Lights” to the ground.

Paris was rescued by the American and Allied armies, and the French people. Paris did not burn. Evil was defeated.

Summer 2023. Paris appears to be on fire. By French citizens. Does it remind you of Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota? Who is going to rescue Paris now? Who is going to rescue Minnesota?

Cocaine at the White House? That baggie contained prescription nasal medicine! Well, no, it was powder cocaine, the bad stuff. It was in a public area, left by a tourist! Well, no, it was in a guarded area. Inside. No, it was outside. Near the Situation Room? Near the Vice President’s parking space? Was a self-proclaimed cocaine addict videoed using cocaine while watching fireworks from the White House balcony? You can’t prove that! Anyone could have innocently ducked behind his stepmother, held his hands to his nose, huffed, and then wiped. Only bad people would believe their lying eyes. Garden party at the White House to express pride in our behavior? Let’s take our shirts off. Because that’s what good proud folks do. Murders in Chicago, New York, Philadelphia. Lots of murders. Mass shootings on the 4th of July becoming a thing?

How weird is it that when you talk to someone in Paris, they say the riots are no big deal? Only in certain neighborhoods, you know. Fashion Week in Paris goes on! It’s not that bad? How strange when Chicago residents say the same thing. And I guess you’d hear the same from New Yorkers. What kind of place are we living in, what kind of times, that regular people dismiss violence and destruction, so long as it’s not in my backyard?

Backbone Of America

You are the backbone of America. This nation was not built by kings, queens, government programs social activists, or loudmouth political operatives with axes to grind. Regular folks, everyday people, people like you stood on the shoulders of your spiritual and family ancestors and did your part in building and creating, preserving and defending. Why work so hard if not to provide a stepstool to the next generation? You want them to stand on your shoulders as you once stood on others’. Common sense.

Historically, middle-class American families receive as much through family gifts and inheritances as they save from their paychecks. Think about that. Your lifesavings equaled by the amount you received from your parents and grandparents. That is reality for most Americans. According to the Federal Reserve, which knows about these things.

You worked and worked some more. You scrimped and saved. You and those who came before you furnished the foundation on which you stand. You are building the stage for your children to create the future. That is how Civilizations grow. One layer on the other. Create. Build. Save. Preserve. Repeat. For over 200 years that is how it was in the United States.

Eve Of Destruction?

A few decades ago, a destructive trend began gathering momentum. Not the creative, vigorous tumult that increases prosperity and leads to new opportunity for all. A movement of the cynical, narrow-minded, selfish, greedy, acquisitive, privileged, fearful, nervous, narcissistic, and fragile. People who suffer from “imposter syndrome” because they are, in fact, imposters. They cannot bear you, the middle class. Your achievements and success are their shame.

How can silence be violence? Imagine that you had no inner strength. That you had no core values or beliefs. What if you knew and felt, deep down, that you were a fraud? How could you maintain your identity? What if your self-worth was based on what other people said? Without a core, you must rely what others say. For their approval, you engage in extreme, bizarre behaviors. Your craving for others’ approval becomes so overwhelming that you demand loud, public praise from strangers. No disagreement whatsoever can be tolerated, or your ego will shatter. Would you then pass laws to make it a felony offense with 5 years prison time predicated on not using your preferred pronouns? The Michigan House of Representatives just did. HB4474.

That’s why middle-class America is being cut out of the national conversation. Our prosperity and political life were once grounded in the values of hard-working, middle-class families. Who still believes that?

Evidence?

Don’t believe me! Ask yourself. Think about some of the big, important national issues driving insanely expensive, idiotic policies. Which of these initiatives appeal to you? Any?

Did you applaud powerful new forms of cannabis that have turned your downtown into Zombieland?

Are you happy that your President thinks of America as no more “exceptional” than any other country?

Does your patriotic pride mean kowtowing to foreign dictators?

Was it your idea to allow betting on college sports while the game was in progress?

Were you the one who made basic biology controversial?

When did you last see a big screen movie that did not insult and assault you nonstop?

Whose agenda is this? Why do politicians and giant corporations grovel before the social justice weaklings and their pernicious ideology?

Why? Two Answers:

#1 Political Power: Elections
Does anyone still believe that you can vote the bastards out? Anyone? ‘Nuff said.

#2 Money Power: Whoever Has The Gold Makes The Rules

Whoever has the Gold makes the Rules!

Who has the gold? Not the middle-class, not anymore. Why not? You are working longer. Investments continue to increase. Trillions of dollars are saved in middle-class IRAs and 401(k) retirement plans. What happens to all this middle- class wealth? Try paying monthly charges at any long-term care facility. Multiple that number by the millions of Baby Boomers. There’s your answer.

Money spent on long-term care is money not spent shoring up American values. Is watching mom and dad go broke an incentive to save? Why bother paying off the family home or cottage when they’ll be seized anyway? Wealthy people need not worry about long-term care. Wealthy people fight to position their families in power. Oceans of cash carefully set aside to cushion their future generations. To insulate them from reality. To replace natural virtues with bizarre vices. Sad, but true. National values have been subverted to the values of trust fund babies. Lots of college degrees. Lots of narcissistic arrogance. Very little education. Very little humility. Very little resilience.

Descendants of the great men and women who built automobile companies, movie studios, manufacturing industries, hospitality empires, restaurant chains, and a myriad of other enterprises, now control that wealth. Trust fund babies, and a few foreign currency speculators, dominate our national life. What would the Founders think of their progeny?

Money talks, BS walks. Simple as that.

Answers

Middle-class Americans transfer their family’s financial security (and that means their political clout) to these spoiled, needy vampires by failing to recognize the need for long-term care planning. Perpetuating real, traditional American values of generosity, thrift, self-sacrifice, community spirit, and family doesn’t take a lot of dollars. But these few dollars must be in the right hands and recognized as more than mere money, as an inheritance of values.

For more than 30 years I have helped thousands of families recognize that long-term care does not have to mean nursing home poverty. As a working, productive, taxpaying American, you have already paid for your long-term care, just has you paid for your Social Security and Medicare. Through years of taxes. You earned your social security pension, you earned your hospitalization health care, you earned your long-term care. You paid for each of these. But when you need long-term care, the government wants your lifesavings. And they will get your lifesavings. If you let them.

Should you throw the money away?

Should you pay for others without a care for your own?

Should you ensure your own care and your family’s future by planning?

Whether your family suffers from nursing home poverty is not up to chance. Whether you provide the next generation with broad shoulders to stand upon is a choice. Your choice.

Is now a bad time to call 616.361.8400?

Or drop me an email: david@davidcarrierlaw.com?

How could it hurt?