Capital WealthSocial Security Has a Date. So Does the Eclipse, the Wedding and the Trip After the Diagnosis.
- Congress is finally talking about Social Security’s 22% automatic cut in 2032. Nobody has filed a bill; the working assumption is 78 cents on the dollar after that year.
- A 92-year-old retired teacher lost $694,000 to a niece she had disinherited; a court voided the new will. A power of attorney, a successor trustee who is not the caregiver and a trusted contact would have stopped it.
- About 7.4 million Americans over 65 live with Alzheimer’s dementia and more of them are asking to keep traveling; the doctors say go early, go familiar, go direct.
- The average wedding costs $34,200 and 31% of couples borrow or ask family; brides with 3,000 followers now get $600 a post from sponsors.
- Muskoka rentals for next summer are up 110% on three television shows; the eclipse chasers are booking Aug. 2, 2027 at $7,300 for the Nile and $27,000 for Gibraltar.
Congress Says It Is “Not Sleepwalking” Toward 2032. It Is Walking Very Slowly.
The retirement trust fund runs dry in six years and benefits get cut 22% automatically. Senators are floating boards, commissions and lifting the payroll cap. None of it is a bill yet, and the two leading Republican sponsors are retiring. The most predictable problem in American finance now has senators talking about it, which is progress, and no bill, which is the point.
Nothing in the book changes on a bill that does not exist. In every retirement plan we run, the Social Security line is haircut 22% from 2032 until Congress gives us a reason to put it back. Action: A patch is the base case, a cut is the stress case, and a plan that survives the stress case survives the patch for free. That is why we model the smaller number.
The trip is the medicine. Even — especially — after the diagnosis.
International travelers over 50 report the least depression, one night away builds resilience for months, and families with Alzheimer’s are refusing to stop going.
Our TakeTravel is a fixed cost front-loaded into the healthy years, not a leftover. A dated line in the plan, funded from income and bills.
She lost her job to the AI cuts and walked 500 miles across Spain to find the next one.
Five hundred miles, 26 days, a 16-pound pack, four singing nuns and no revelation — “when life steals your momentum, maybe the answer is to just keep walking.”
Our TakeShe could walk because the runway existed. Past fifty the emergency fund is a job-search fund: a year in bills, sized before the letter.
Team USA’s gold-medal goalie has a side hustle: she rates Caesar salads. Milan got a 5.4.
Three straight Olympic shutouts, 65,000 followers on PainByRomaine, a 9.5 for a wrap in Minnesota and a deli in Chappaqua that put one on the menu in her honor.
Our TakeThe best second act starts while the first one is still paying, and the best side gig is one whose failure costs you lunch.
“Back in the ’70s in our 70s.” The readers have opinions about seniors and weed.
An ER doctor, a 98-year-old, a bridge player of 72 whose friends take gummies for sleep, and a man with a pizza in the oven. The funniest page in the paper, and a small survey of the people we plan for.
Our TakeTell the doctor, tell the insurer, read the community rules, then share the cookies.
Ten new ways to Europe for summer 2027, a $50 Amtrak lounge and the Night Owl fare.
United’s ten new destinations include the first U.S. nonstop to Ljubljana; American adds Vienna and Porto from Philadelphia; Alaska flies Seattle to Athens and Paris. Plus a Red Cap to the platform for $50.
Our TakeBook the 2027 seats on points this month; hold the cash for the hotel.
Rope swings off a cliff, highlines across a canyon, tandem BASE jumps: the guides take clients from 10 to 69.
Moab, Queenstown, the Dolomites and Chamonix now sell managed danger to people with no experience. A neuroscientist says the fear bonds families. The 69-year-old on the highline is the client.
Our TakeSpend the go-go years on purpose, and read the insurance exclusions first.
The eclipse chasers are already booking August 2, 2027. The Nile cruise is $7,300 and the Gibraltar ship is $27,000.
An 84-year-old rocket scientist on her fifth, a 77-year-old astronomer on his 21st, a Utah firefighter engaged at totality, and the eclipse of the century with six minutes over Egypt.
Our TakeWrite it into the plan as a dated withdrawal and fund it a year ahead.
Genoa was the world’s banker in 1620. Now it is the one big Italian city without a crowd.
Funiculars that tunnel through buildings, Van Dyck portraits with no line, palaces plain outside and Baroque within, focaccia dipped in cappuccino, and no high-speed rail link, which is the point.
Our TakeBook the quieter Italy, and remember no financial capital keeps the title forever.
The Aztec capital is still under Mexico City. You can reach it by barge, sweat lodge and hotel lobby.
A farmed terrace at Xochimilco that has fed the city since the Aztecs, an 8-ton moon goddess found by electricians in 1978, a temple under a hotel foyer, and ant-larvae pasta in Roma Norte.
Our TakeThe close, deep, dollar-friendly winter trip; take it before the summer one.
The bottle tan grew up: mists, drops and undertones, and nobody should be able to tell.
Better DHA, lighter formulas, violet undertones for darker skin and green for the fair. Exfoliate 24 hours ahead, no moisturizer that day, stomach last, hand cream on the palms. Six products from $35 to $59.
Our TakeThe tan you did not earn in the sun is the one the dermatologist approves of.
Behold the hairless he-men of summer: buff, burly, smooth as a Ken doll, and worth tens of billions to someone.
The modern leading man can deadlift a Buick and has misplaced every hair below the collarbone. Two reality stars shave their legs. Analysts see men’s grooming growing by tens of billions, and Gillette’s owner is in our dividend sleeve.
Our TakeHold P&G; the joke has a market size.
A retired teacher, 92, had $694,000 taken by the niece she had disinherited.
The bank flagged it, the state found it, a court voided the new will — and the care now costs $8,000 a month against a $3,177 teacher’s pension.
Our Take“If you’ve got your squad, it’s a lot harder.” Power of attorney, a successor trustee who is not the caregiver, a trusted contact at every bank, and someone reading the mail.
Two fortunes, two family wars, one missing piece of paper.
Overdeck offers $723 million with no prenup; Ford’s children say their 82-year-old father can’t vote his $600 million stake and he refused the test.
Our TakeThe math scales down; the fights do not. A prenup or postnup and an incapacity plan with an agreed trigger, signed on a calm afternoon.
El Niño is coming for the Panama Canal, the copper mine and your grocery bill.
Canal auctions tripled to $2.5 million, Peru suspended the anchovy catch, India’s monsoon is 13% short and Europe’s summer will add one to two points to food inflation.
Our TakeWeather is the inflation nobody can hike against. The inflation-linked sleeve stays a permanent line, not a trade.
Dementia doesn’t have to be the end of travel. The doctors say go early, go familiar, go direct.
Some 7.4 million Americans over 65 live with Alzheimer’s dementia, and more of them are asking to keep traveling. A neurologist’s rules, a 310-guest cruise company, and the families who got it right and wrong.
Our TakeFund the go-go years now, and sign the three documents before the passports.
Brides make bank: the $34,200 wedding now comes with sponsors, and 31% of couples are still borrowing.
Spending up 8.5% on tariffs and flowers. A bride with 3,000 followers gets $600 a post; one with 1.8 million got a private jet. Zola pays up to $150,000. The wedding, one bride says, is still insanely expensive.
Our TakeSet the parents’ number a year out, fund it from cash, and treat the sponsorship checks as taxable income.
Canada’s “Hamptons” is on three TV shows at once. Next-summer bookings are up 110% and the Ritz starts at $6.5 million.
Muskoka, with more than a thousand lakes two hours from Toronto, is the setting for “Sterling Point,” “Heated Rivalry” and “Summer House Canada.” The old cottages are going down for megamansions.
Our TakeRent before you buy; the time to buy the lake was before the lake got a show.