Retirement Home Kamloops

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Otis Federal Credit Union: As strong as its members
In April of 1954, Otis (Division) Federal Credit Union was formed to provide financial services to paper mill workers in Jay, Maine. It was started with 11 members and $55 dollars in assets. By the time of their first annual meeting in January of 1955, membership had grown to 261 members and $9,000 in assets. According to the recently rediscovered minutes of that first meeting, the treasurer was to be paid $250 over the course of the year for expenses and salary and the board of directors had the discretion to cut that amount if needed.

Chalk One Up For The Armchair Economists

Mike Arrington, over at TechCrunch, has written up a post about "The Inevitable March of Recorded Music Towards Free" which will sound mighty familiar if you're a Techdirt reader. It's pretty much the same thing I've been saying for almost a dozen years at this point, pointing out the economics and inevitable trends facing the music industry -- and also noting why that isn't necessarily a bad thing. While he's dealing with emotional responses in the comments (again, that'll sound familiar...), it's more interesting to watch an "industry analyst" trash Arrington as an "armchair economist" without backing it up... and then getting his own economics totally screwed up. In this case, we need to chalk one up for the "armchair economists." The analyst, David Card of Jupiter Research (the same analyst who incorrectly said that Radiohead's new offering would only work because the band was well known), dismisses Arrington's economics as "oversimplified analysis," but doesn't explain why it's actually wrong -- and that's because it's not.

Annuity checks include return of principal

I'm still getting e-mails, more than 300 so far, about a September column on immediate-income annuities that increase payments each year to compensate for inflation.

Immediate-income annuities are policies issued by insurance companies that, in exchange for a lump-sum premium, can guarantee an income for life. Many financial advisers recommend retirees consider using a portion of their savings to buy a lifetime annuity to cover basic expenses, such as food and housing.

Dozens of you had never heard of income annuities, and several said your insurance agent couldn't find any that increase payments to counteract inflation. If so, find another agent.

Healing through music and nature

She also has sung for her supper on the streets of New Orleans.

And now, Fae lives in a yurt and works on a farm on the San Juan Ridge, milking goats for a living.

It's in such contrasts that Fae's art and healing both are rooted.

Once trained by the dean of the Hartford Conservatory of Music, Fae now wakes up at dawn, makes her coffee on a wood stove, then spends her day feeding chickens, goats and rabbits. She milks four goats and feeds a newborn kid with its mother's milk in a bottle.

"I intend to live close to the earth for the rest of my life," Fae said. "It's the responsibility of our generation to protect the earth and seek ways to live in harmony with our Mother Earth."

In her modest home, Fae has altars to Lakshmi, Green Tara, Aphrodite and Isis - forms of the divine feminine from different cultures.