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Source BuzzFeed.

The renowned climber was known for scaling the world’s 14 highest peaks in just over six months in 2019.

Source: BBC.

The 2013 Daft Punk track was uncannily evocative of the late nineteen-seventies, when I was young and dancing was my creed.

From The New Yorker 

The actor on meeting Stephen Sondheim, staging “Godspell” for the Pope, and the thrill, in the new Anthony Bourdain bio-pic, of playing someone “good.”

From The New Yorker 

From The Hill

Sen. Dan Sullivan (R) is running for reelection in Alaska — and he faces a primary challenge from Dan Sullivan. Early voting kicks off in the state Monday after an Alaska judge ruled in June that a candidate with the same name and party affiliation as the incumbent Republican — whose full name is Dan S. Sullivan — can stay on the…

From The Hill

The end of a subsidy program that helped keep costs down for Medicare drug coverage could leave millions of seniors with higher monthly costs, a move that undermines the Trump administration’s message of cutting drug costs. President Trump often touts his push for access to cheaper drugs through the TrumpRx platform and making “most-favored-nation” deals…

On the morning of March 13, Mohammad Nazeer Paktiawal was preparing to take his children to school when federal immigration officers arrived at his home in Richardson, Texas.

Paktiawal was not unknown to the U.S. government. He fought alongside U.S. Special Forces in some of Afghanistan’s most dangerous terrain. After the Taliban returned to power, the United States evacuated him and his family in 2021 through a legal process established for Afghans endangered by their association with our country. He applied for asylum. His case was pending, and he was following the rules the U.S. imposed on him to keep him safe and provide him with legal status for his work on our country’s behalf.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested him anyway.

Less than 24 hours later, the 41-year-old father of six was dead.

Paktiawal’s death certificate says an unidentified substance caused an allergic drug reaction, triggering anaphylaxis and worsening his asthma. His relatives say ICE officers would not take the inhaler his wife tried to give them. The government cited two arrests in 2025, for theft and food stamp fraud, as why ICE moved to detain Paktiawal, but he had not been convicted of either allegation. His family is seeking the full autopsy and a complete explanation of what happened between the moment he was taken from his children and the moment he died.

In 2015, I served in Afghanistan as a Navy intelligence officer supporting Afghan and coalition forces. I remember the incoming fire, the constant concern about insider threats — and living with the knowledge that every movement outside a secured compound depended on people who understood the language, terrain, tribal dynamics and dangers better than we ever could.

Our Afghan partners were essential to the American mission.

They interpreted conversations in which a misunderstood word could get someone killed. They warned us about threats we could not see. They entered villages ahead of us, stood beside American service members under fire and placed their families at risk.

We owe them our lives, and we told them that the United States does not abandon its friends.

Today, that promise has been broken — not only in Kabul but in American homes, immigration offices and detention facilities across this country.

A former Afghan interpreter named Zia was detained last July outside a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS, office in East Hartford, Connecticut, immediately after attending a biometrics appointment connected to his pending green card application. Zia had entered the United States legally under humanitarian parole and had a pending immigration case. His records included letters and certificates from U.S. Army units documenting his service. Sayed Naser, another Afghan who said he had aided American forces, was taken into custody last year after attending a routine asylum hearing in San Diego.

Also in Connecticut, immigration officers arrested an 18-year-old high school senior named Rihan in April while attempting to locate his father, a former interpreter for U.S. forces in Afghanistan. According to court filings, officers told Rihan that his humanitarian parole had expired, but the government later corrected its records to reflect that his parole was valid through October 2026. Despite that correction, Rihan was shackled, transferred to a detention facility in Massachusetts and held for more than two weeks before a federal judge ordered his release. His family’s asylum case remains pending.

These are not isolated administrative errors. They form part of a policy that increasingly treats lawful presence, humanitarian parole, pending asylum applications and faithful compliance with government appointments as inconveniences rather than facts to be weighed. An estimated 1.8 million immigrants have had their lawful status revoked during this administration.

Years after my tour in Afghanistan, I served as ICE’s chief of staff. I believe in immigration enforcement.

The administration has ended Temporary Protected Status for thousands of Afghans, exposing people living and working here to the possibility of removal to a country controlled by the Taliban. United Nations officials have urged governments to halt involuntary returns to Afghanistan, where former officials and security personnel continue to face killings, disappearances, torture and arbitrary detentions.

None of this means that an Afghan’s wartime service should provide immunity from American law.

Years after my tour in Afghanistan, I served as ICE’s chief of staff. I believe in immigration enforcement. Individuals without legal immigration status who pose genuine threats to national security or public safety should be investigated, arrested and, when the law requires, removed. Allegations of criminal conduct should be examined fairly and individually.

But an arrest is not a conviction. An asylum application is not an attempt to evade the law. Showing up for a hearing or an immigration appointment is not evidence of dangerousness. And civil immigration detention should never be used as punishment for people who have followed government instructions.

Effective law enforcement requires good judgment. It distinguishes a national security threat from a paperwork problem, a violent offender from a high school student, a fugitive from a father reporting for a scheduled appointment. When those distinctions disappear, enforcement becomes indiscriminate — and makes our country less safe.

It encourages immigrants to avoid courts, check-ins and law enforcement officers. It destroys trust that investigators need to identify trafficking, terrorism, smuggling and other violent crime. It consumes detention space, officer time and taxpayer dollars that should be directed toward actual threats.

This approach bears the unmistakable imprint of Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser, who drives the administration’s immigration agenda.

Miller’s hostility toward Afghan resettlement has been public for years. During the collapse of Kabul in 2021, as American veterans were desperately trying to evacuate their former interpreters and partners, Miller said on Fox News that resettling Afghans was intended “to change America.”

That is the worldview behind these policies. Afghan allies are not evaluated as individuals or even principally as security cases. They are treated as instruments of demographic and cultural change — as members of a suspect population whose presence is the offense.

That worldview is profoundly at odds with the military values in whose name America sent me and millions of others to war.

The Navy taught me honor, courage and commitment. Navy doctrine calls on us to treat every person with human dignity and to show respect without regard to race or religion. The Army defines respect as treating people as they should be treated, and honor as doing what is right, legally and morally.

Those principles are not sentimental decorations for recruiting posters or retirement ceremonies. They are commitments. They matter most when keeping them is politically difficult.

After World War II, the United States ultimately admitted roughly 400,000 displaced people and ethnic German refugees under the Displaced Persons Act. After the fall of Saigon in 1975, approximately 131,000 Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees entered the U.S. refugee system within months. By the end of 1979, roughly 300,000 refugees from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia had been admitted to the United States.

Those decisions were controversial. Refugees from postwar Europe and Southeast Asia encountered suspicion and prejudice, with opponents warning that admitting large numbers of newcomers would strain the economy, threaten American jobs and fundamentally change the country.

They did change America. They became American.

They built businesses, raised families, joined the military and enriched their communities. Our country was strengthened by welcoming people who understood, perhaps better than most, the value of freedom and the cost of losing it.

Our Afghan partners were essential to the American mission. We told them that the United States does not abandon its friends. Today, that promise has been broken — not only in Kabul but in homes, immigration offices and detention facilities across this country.

Afghanistan is our generation’s test of this principle. But this time the abandonment is occurring slowly — one detention, one revoked protection and one broken family at a time.

The administration should immediately review the detention of Afghan parolees and asylum applicants and release those who present no individualized threat. It should restore enforcement discretion, establish a reliable process for verifying wartime service with the Defense Department and military veterans, and provide Congress with a full accounting of Afghans detained or removed despite pending protection claims. Congress should create a durable path to legal status for Afghan partners and their families.

The government must also release the complete findings surrounding Mohammad Nazeer Paktiawal’s death. His wife and children deserve the full truth.

But this is about more than one family.

Somewhere, someday, an American service member will again ask a local interpreter, intelligence officer or soldier to step outside the wire with us. That person will have to decide whether the United States can be trusted — not only during the battle but after it.

People know what happened after Vietnam and after Kabul. More and more people may even know what happened to Mohammad Nazeer Paktiawal.

These stories tear at my heart because they suggest that our country has learned too little from the wars it asks others to fight beside us. My story is like that of millions of Americans whose families have served across generations. I was raised by a grandfather who earned a Purple Heart in Europe during World War II and lived with the legacy of that war for the rest of his years; I grew up inspired by relatives who served with valor, part of a family that has sacrificed in nearly every war this nation has fought.

Those experiences instilled values shared by veterans and military families across the political spectrum: honor, duty, loyalty, sacrifice and the obligation to stand by those who stood with us.

I still carry anger over how we left Afghanistan and the promises our country failed to keep in that departure. To see that abandonment compounded by the arrest and mistreatment of Afghans who trusted our word and served alongside Americans is heartbreaking. This is a failure not only of immigration policy but also of national memory, military honor and the basic obligation to stand by those who stood by us.

America’s promises are part of our national power. Once broken, they cannot be restored by a speech or a flag-draped ceremony.

I believe in enforcing our immigration laws. But enforcement without judgment is not strength. Power exercised without honor is not security.

Miller may call his vision “America First.” But arresting those who put America first when our troops needed them most is not patriotism. It is betrayal.

The post Stephen Miller’s immigration policy for Afghans isn’t ‘America First.’ It’s a betrayal. appeared first on MS NOW.

From MS Now.

When you surf over to WhiteHouse.gov, you’re greeted with video of inspiring shots of the president and text claiming that “Under President Donald Trump’s second administration, the United States has surged into a new era of prosperity, marked by record-setting economic growth and trillions in new private-sector investments fueled by tax reforms, deregulation, and a renewed focus on American innovation.” Scroll down the page, and a box appears, prompting you to sign up for a newsletter with the words “WELCOME TO THE GOLDEN AGE!” in all caps. 

There is one room in Washington where a “golden age” exists: the Oval Office, into which Trump has crammed gilded junk onto every wall and into every corner. But for those who don’t share the president’s gaudy aesthetic, the golden age is nowhere in evidence. 

Trump’s answer to that disgruntlement is to just tell people they’ve never had it so good.

On Thursday, the Commerce Department released the latest GDP figures, showing that the American economy grew at a 1.5% rate in the second quarter of 2026. That’s not a catastrophe; our economy is both enormous and resilient, and can absorb a remarkable amount of poor decision-making from Washington. But it’s not great either — and it’s a hundred miles from a golden age. 

Wage growth is barely keeping up with inflation, which is sitting at 3.5%, well above the Fed’s 2% target. That’s why its rate-setting committee opted to keep interest rates where they are, so too bad if you’re hoping to buy a home anytime soon. The share of GDP going to workers is lower than at any point since the government began measuring it in 1947. Consumer confidence, depending on the survey, is either near all-time lows or merely low.

It’s not a recession, at least for now. But Trump has delivered the Meh Economy. 

Given the alternatives, that might not seem so bad. Trump’s economic stewardship has combined bad ideas familiar from previous Republican administrations (e.g., tax cuts for the wealthy) with some ill-considered policies of his own. There’s his erratic tariffs, which have cost consumers billions and slowed economic growth. He has waged war on green energy, one of the fastest growing sectors of the world economy.

The Republicans’ Big Beautiful Bill is causing millions to lose health coverage and food assistance, while food banks struggle to meet demand. His crackdown on immigration, on top of its moral failings, has been an economic disaster in multiple ways including worker shortages in key industries, lower income from tourism and fewer international students coming to boost the U.S. economy. To top it off, his absurd war in Iran created a global energy crisis and sent gas prices spiraling upward.

What distinguishes this White House from its predecessors is how ludicrous its claims about the present and the future are.

This is the president who got elected because people were mad about inflation, and said on the campaign trail, “When I win, I will immediately bring prices down, starting on Day One.” In the story he told, inflation would disappear (it hasn’t), tariffs would bring a manufacturing boom (they haven’t), and everyone would thank him for creating such boundless prosperity. 

They certainly aren’t doing that. In a new CNN poll, 65% of respondents said Trump’s policies have made the economy worse, while only 22% said they’ve made the economy better. In Nate Silver’s polling average, Trump’s net approval on the economy is -27.7%.

Trump’s answer to that disgruntlement is to just tell people they’ve never had it so good. “We had the best economy in the history of our country in my first term,” he said recently. “We’re blowing it away now, despite our little diversion to the lovely country of Iran … the economy is booming.”

His aides, rather than lie quite so obviously about current conditions, will say that good times are right around the corner. “I think 2026 is going to be a blockbuster year,” said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent last November. “You’re going to see the greatest growth the United States of America has ever seen,” said Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in December. When the year began, Lutnick said that growth in the first quarter would be 5%, and exceed 6% by year’s end. First quarter growth was actually 2.1% — not bad, but nothing like a blockbuster.  “We really could be looking at numbers north of four, north of five, north of even six” percent growth, National Economic Council Chair Kevin Hassett said in May.

This is not the first administration that has struggled to convince voters their economic policies are working (remember the Obama administration’s “Recovery Summer” of 2010?). What distinguishes this White House from its predecessors is how ludicrous its claims about the present and the future are. In a career as a real estate developer, TV personality and purveyor of small-time grifts, the president learned that there is power in lying about the facts and promising the moon. But an administration can only get away with that for so long. And since people experience the economy in their own lives, the picture the White House paints has to have at least some relationship to reality. 

If it doesn’t, Americans may decide that not only can’t they trust what the administration says, but that the president has no idea what he’s doing. There are a lot of ways to measure the economy, and some of them (like the stock market) even look pretty good, even as many others look mediocre or worse. But a “golden age”? To believe that, you’d have to be the kind of sucker Donald Trump has always depended on.

The post Trump’s promise of an economic ‘golden age’ collides with reality appeared first on MS NOW.

From MS Now.

The other day I got a DM from my youngest daughter. It was a video of a strange-looking raccoon, a lady’s voice narrating, “What am I seeing?” Then the text caption: “a small little deformed and bedraggled beloved raccoon.” I watched, a little confused about why my daughter sent it my way. And then, as the dwarfed raccoon scurried across the screen, the next frame was captioned “Meet ‘Jimothy,’ Seattle’s Local Legend.”

By now I’ve learned of the absolute adoration the nation has for this strange creature. But on first viewing, I noticed my insides getting irritated. In fact sometimes I can’t help but feel a little cheated by this “Jimothy” phenomenon.

Part of me feels angry — Jimothy belongs to us — while another part believes it’s a sign and a reminder of our love.

My partner passed away 18 months ago. He’s a nickname guy. Had one for all the people he loved. Mine was Juanita Bonita, later simply Juanita. His name is James, Jim, Jimmy. My adult kids, as a way to endear him, coined Jimothy. They banter now over who came up with it; regardless, Jim grew to love it. Around them, he’d call himself the name. He’d sign cards, texts, laugh at how silly it sounded.

Images of the short-spined raccoon spreading across the internet invoke a strange mix of emotions for me. Part of me feels angry — Jimothy belongs to us — while another part believes it’s a sign and a reminder of our love.

Jim was a believer of signs. We live in Northwest Montana. Nature surrounds us. Jim loved the wild Turkeys. “There’s Greta,” he’d say, looking out our kitchen window. “Greta Gobbler — get it?” He’d laugh and hurry outside, making sure she had enough black-seed in the feeder. He named the turkeys Hazel and Greta. I fell in love with the smaller birds. “Did you know robins mate for life?” I’d tell him, referring to the robins that frequented our property. “The male robin keeps watch over the nest while the female takes a break.” Jimothy, being the protector of creatures and me, also liked this information.

@nbcnews

A raccoon with a rare spinal condition in Seattle has gone viral after being named “Jimothy” by a woman who spotted him.

♬ original sound – nbcnews – nbcnews

Along with Greta Gobbler, we made up stories about the Stellar’s Jay. How they seemed to take on attributes of people we’ve encountered — endearing or not. We imagined the Stellars as quality control attorneys swooping into every birdfeeder, scarfing up all the good seeds, ensuring things were up to snuff. They soon became Jay Stellar Esquire. One spring we encountered a skunk that had made a home on our porch. The removal was something onlyLucy and Ethel could concoct.

After our Jimothy passed, all the known creatures were gentle reminders to me of our shared life. A male Robin perches outside my bedroom window. I have never found his female — another sign from beyond, I think. I’m the female being watched. “Hi Jim!” I say, routinely.

We had a lot of plans that went awry due to the unbeknownst cancer growing rapidly in his liver.

We had a lot of plans that went awry due to the unbeknownst cancer growing rapidly in his liver. I think about the trips that were canceled, the concert tickets that left empty-seats, bike rides that never happened and countless missed dinner plans. He tried to hide his pain.  I would notice him holding his stomach and wincing. He’d play it off as minor, but I could see his gut ached by his greying color. We needed to lay low. I’d remind him we had an entire lifetime to adventure together.

He’d spent the year battling prostate cancer. His PSA was zero — he’d beaten it! We were sure this gut ache was residual from radiation. I became hyper-vigilant over his dairy intake, convinced it was the Greek yogurt. I gave him shots of charcoal that turned his lips black, along with probiotics. While he focused on regaining his health, I handled the lion’s share of our daily life. His guilt around this was not easy on him.

Through his pain, Jimothy never complained. Friends and neighbors had no idea; they shared after he passed, he seemed like the same ole him. He’d muscle through and tell me not to worry. He was resilient and strong, and hated disappointing others.

When we’d first met, Jim used to comment about my long torso and straight posture. We joked that if he kept slouching, soon he’d be a hunchback knuckle dragger. A memory I only recently recalled as I watched raccoon Jimothy scurry across my Google Search. Another sign — a reminder. He’d be proud that the Mariners now have a mascot bearing his pseudonym, even though he was a Red Sox fan. Who doesn’t love baseball, and Jimothy?

On December 8, 2024, I rushed him to the hospital. He was struggling to breathe; his heart was failing.  We live in a rural area. Driving him to the local hospital was quicker than calling an ambulance.

Jimothy was always everyone’s favorite. We were certain my own mother liked him better than me. “How’d we get Jim?” She’d often ask. After Jim was admitted into the ICU, the hospitalist shared with me that the ambulance transport from the regional hospital had called and said, “We’re bringing in your new favorite patient. Protect him!” Jimothy being Jimothy even in his darkest moments.

Jimothy joked with hospital staff while they all fell in love with him, fighting to give him every possible chance for recovery. I watched them wipe tears away as they’d walk out, knowing something we weren’t ready to face.  A specialist showed us an ultrasound of his liver. “There’s more tumor than liver.”

@abc7ny

Jimothy is living his best life! New video shows the beloved short-spined raccoon wandering through a Seattle backyard, snacking on grass and stopping for a drink during one of his regular visits.

♬ original sound – ABC7NY – ABC7NY

For three days we believed our love was strong enough to beat whatever this was. He was full of so much life; we still had so much ahead of us.    

We held one another. He told me I saved his life, and that whatever happened, he gave me his whole heart. I couldn’t imagine that saving him brought us here. I asked him what he wanted to do in terms of diagnosis. “We’re gonna fight like hell,” he said on Tuesday. But by Wednesday he was incoherent. Hope was just a word.

On Thursday morning he passed. His best friend and I were by his side. The staff gathered as we played his favorite Jethro Tull song, Elegy.

The line of nurses and doctors came in paying their respects. His impact palpable. Jimothy was larger than life. For Jimothy, everyone else in the room was the star. He tipped service people more than what is logical, listened harder, and made others feel seen. He was the best person in every room

Maybe Jimothy is a universal idea. Jimothy is hope personified. A reminder to live presently. I used to say to ours, “I wish we’d met sooner.” He’d readily answer, “I’m just glad that we did!”

The raccoon is living with a deformed spine and birth defect. Ours received a diagnosis of a poorly differentiated endocrine cancer, unsurvivable at his stage. Both hell-bent on living life fully in the moment.

Yesterday I opened my social media and saw an ad for Seattle–Tacoma International Airport reading Nonstop to Jimothy. I’d take that flight. 

The post How a lovable, scruffy raccoon dredged up a world of grief — and love appeared first on MS NOW.

From MS Now.

I was not surprised to see Republican senators try to take down Dr. Anthony Fauci last week. But I am disappointed. 

When the first cases of Covid-19 were discovered in a hospital in Wuhan, China, I had already studied the U.S. public health response to seven epidemics and pandemics. The political theater and shoot-the-messenger tactics deployed in Wednesday’s hearing are nothing new. But the current focus on public health officials’ errors during a time of crisis and ever-shifting information isn’t about improving readiness for the next pandemic. It’s about assigning blame in a black-and-white binary, and that’s a mistake. 

Skepticism is essential in the process of separating fact from fiction. We have more confidence in results that have survived such pressure testing. 

Imagine if, when the next novel infectious disease threatens our health, we celebrate learning instead of punishing it? If we anticipate learning and are ready for it, that could go a long way toward improving our experiences in the next pandemic. But for this to happen, we need to come to terms with the messy reality of learning in the sciences. One can hope that scientists, as they gather data during a pandemic driven by a novel infectious disease, will be able to reduce uncertainties in a linear and predictable fashion. But that is not the norm. 

I am a social scientist. When I discover something new and present my findings to my colleagues, the most likely result is that they will tell me all the ways they think I might be wrong. Skepticism is essential in the process of separating fact from fiction. We have more confidence in results that have survived such pressure testing. 

Experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during the pandemic received just this type of skepticism from other experts. And yet, much of the political commentary surrounding these normal and essential criticisms cited the evidence of controversy as proof the CDC was flailing. 

This approach treats science as though the discovery of new facts happens like a treasure hunt. As if everyone is looking for a treasure and, when someone finds it, everyone can immediately agree on what has been found and who found it.

But science does not work this way. Take the discovery of HIV. Dr. Luc Montaignier found the virus under an electron microscope in February 1983. His claim was debated for more than a year and finally settled, affirmatively, by Dr. Robert Gallo and colleagues in 1984. This example shows something that is true across the sciences. New discoveries that eventually become accepted as scientific facts can be treated with skepticism for months or years. Not part of this example, but equally true in the sciences, is that things accepted as facts can lose that standing based on new discoveries. 

Climate scientists would almost certainly never argue their experience in the public eye has been a picnic. But they have had one big advantage over those trying to guide the response to a pandemic driven by a novel infectious disease. Climate scientists had decades — as opposed to only weeks or days — to conduct research before they were asked to explain to the public what they knew. Consider: Climate scientists did not always expect warming to result from burning fossil fuels. Until the 1950s, the prevailing wisdom was that the oceans would absorb excess carbon dioxide so there would be minimal, if any, warming. Roger Revelle and Hans Seuss, who together discovered the error, both received awards for their research.

Monday-morning quarterbacking is easy. Try advising countries on how to manage a growing pandemic while the ground is moving beneath your feet. 

When a novel infectious disease emerges, most early cases go undetected. There are no tests with which to make a positive diagnosis. Some of the suspected cases turn out to have other causes. People who are infected are overlooked. Data collected at the outset is patchy and error-prone. As the public health community pivots to emergency response footing, data collection becomes more systematic. Even so, new data can rapidly overturn early assumptions. The case definition for Covid-19 was updated almost weekly during the first 10 weeks of the pandemic. 

Monday-morning quarterbacking is easy. Try advising countries on how to manage a growing pandemic while the ground is moving beneath your feet. 

As the U.S. performance during the Covid-19 pandemic is reviewed, even those who are not engaging in political grandstanding tend to reduce the effort to tallying the times experts were right vs. the times they were wrong. Even if the reversals are few in number, they are barely tolerated. Usually examinations are given to people after they have had time to learn and master the material. What is the right metric to use for public health experts who are trying to inform us when the answers are still being discovered? 

One of the most important public goods we can have during a pandemic is the willingness of public health experts to admit when they were wrong and share what they are learning. Things will go markedly worse if, during the next pandemic, our public health experts are less forthcoming.

The post Fauci’s diaries show he changed his mind often. That’s what scientists are supposed to do. appeared first on MS NOW.

From MS Now.

Over the next 20 years the United States will see a massive transfer of wealth as boomers leave trillions of dollars to their children as they pass away. A contingent of those children are asking, “What if we got that money, now?” Millennials and Gen Z want to be able to take advantage of the money they stand to inherit before their parents pass away. While a majority of parents actually do help their kids, many with the means are surprisingly reluctant. 

Bill Perkins argues that these parents should let it all go. Perkins is an entrepreneur and the author of the book Die with Zero. He argues that the money would be better spent while your children are young adults rather than in their 60s when they may already be set up financially. Perkins joined Today, Explained co-host Noel King to explain the philosophy behind his book and why the best time to give is now. 

Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.

What you’re essentially saying is before you pass on from this earth and leave your kids a big inheritance, maybe instead give that inheritance away sooner.

If you’re going to leave money to your kids, you should be thinking about what’s the right amount. That’s probably the first thing that people think about. But one of the things that people don’t think about is when is the right time? And I argue ferociously that it is not when you die. It is actually well before you die. So that gift makes the maximum impact on their lives.

So you would be agreeing with the millennials who are feeling some kind of way about their parents sitting on the inheritance for now and waiting until they pass on. You think that the youths have a point?

Oh yeah. I’m their best friend. I am definitely their best friend. When you leave an inheritance to someone, you’re trying to have maximum impact on their lives so that they may be able to enjoy it. And that time is not at 86 or 60. The time that they can convert that capital into meaningful experiences at the greatest rate without that much decay is between 28 and 33. 

Why is that? What’s happening between 28 and 33?

The sharpest and the biggest calculator you will ever be is at 28. And you reach physical maturity at 33 and then it plateaus and declines. And so what that means is that your mental acuity is declining and your physical abilities are declining at various rates, which means that your ability to convert that money into experiences that you enjoy or can do decline as you age. Most of your life is still ahead of you. At 60, most of your life is behind you.

Are you literally advocating “die with nothing”? Or are you saying, “Hey boomer, maybe have a responsible cushion and give your kids the rest.” What are the mechanics of this?

I am arguing to get as close to zero as possible. Knowing that there are uncertainties in life, that’s going to be probably an impossible goal — especially the biggest uncertainty, when you’re going to die. The uncertainty around what things will you be doing later in life besides hanging out and maintaining yourself. But this is an iterative formula, and if you are not on autopilot and you deeply think about it, you can be more efficient with the allocation of your resources and how you split those things up.

There’s a mathematical reality to some of this. If you’re a boomer and you’re sitting on money, you invest it. Having that money compound over 15 or 20 years, you could be giving your kid, when they are 60 or 65, just an enormous sum of money versus a much smaller sum based on how investment works when they are 33. What do you think about the argument that it’s better math to wait?

I would say that they’re not truly understanding the purpose of the money. Would you give your kid who’s 30 a rattle or a binky? So the understanding of the purpose of the money is for them to have a fulfilling life, not to have a bunch of zeros. And so what matters is how do they convert those zeros into a fulfilling life? And so because you decay — that’s the unfortunate part of having a human body — and then you eventually die, the ability of you to convert that money into the adventurous life or fulfillment that you choose declines with age. And you could just have a thought experiment. How much would you pay of your net worth to be 30 again? 

Jesus. One hundred percent, and I’m not 65.

Exactly. And so you can easily see that I’m not going to make enough capital to make up for the difference in age, right? Because that money helps make the life.

We know that this is a very hard conversation to have. It’s hard for parents to talk about not being here. It’s hard for kids to approach this without seeming greedy. How do you suggest families broach this conversation?

The one thing I don’t tell people is whether you should be leaving an inheritance or not. That’s up to you. There are some people who are just like, “All my money is for me. The kids, I gave them an education or gave them whatever they need, a shot in life, and they have to go make their own way.” That’s one. But those who intend to leave a gift, once they’ve thought deeply about it, I think they will come to the logical conclusion that it’s not a bequest. It’s an inheritance and that there’s a better time. And so in my mind, it’s a gift of love. It’s a gift of opportunity. It’s like, “Here you go. I’ve been fortunate in my life to be able to pass on the gift of choice. And here’s this capital and here’s some wisdom that comes with that.” But again, that’s me, not you.

Source: Vox.

England’s netballers are outclassed 68-50 by Australia in their quest to win bronze at the Commonwealth Games.

Source: BBC.