As busy engineering professionals, sometimes we tend to forget about our own personal finances. Well, in today's episode, we're going to have on with us again for the third time, Bill Keane, CEO of Keane Wealth Advisors. And Bill's going to talk to us about how the upcoming presidential election might affect our finances and what we should do to prepare. Let's jump right in. All right, now I would like to welcome back to the podcast for the third time. Bill Keane, Bill is the founder and CEO of Keane Wealth Advisors. He's also the author of the book Keane on Retirement, Engineering the Second Half of Your Life. Bill, welcome back to the podcast. Thank you, Anthony. It is an honor to be on again here for the third time now, so really nice to be with you. Yeah, that doesn't happen often. And again, speaks to Bill's kind of knowledge around finance. It's a topic that the engineering career coach podcast, of course, is traditionally really focused on professional personal development for engineering professionals. But I think personally something that I think everyone tends to overlook, especially engineers that are busy in complex projects, is their own personal finance. And yet it's what we're all working towards in terms of earning salaries and wanting to save money and be smart about our money. So that's why we've invited Bill to talk again about kind of finance in related to where we are today in the world, which is very uncertain times. Bill, we had you on most recently with the, of course, with the coronavirus pandemic, and you gave some advice on maybe things you could look at doing or not doing during those times. And now still going through the pandemic to some degree, but also looking at a presidential election that's coming up, which also could cause some things to happen for us with the economy. And so we're going to dive into some some points today. But I know, Bill, you kind of want to get us started a little bit on the history on politics and the financial markets. And even before we go there, for those that maybe didn't hear the last two episodes, why don't you give us kind of a little overview of what you do and some of the resources that you do have available that we can tie into off of today's episode. I think that every one of us, to your point, shared that that goal of wanting to know that work becomes optional for us at some point in the future. And maybe we intend on never retiring. We have clients that love their work and they never retire. Some of the politicians that we have right now are getting up there in age, and they aren't retired yet. So who's to say you're supposed to retire at a certain age. But every one of us, I believe, wants to know that we could retire if we wanted to. And that doesn't happen by accident. We have to be very intentional about how we're investing our money, how we're planning for our future, how we're spending our money each day. Are we living within our means? Are we doing the things to take advantage of the tools and the resources that are out there and making the most of our resources? So at Keenwealth Advisors, I've really dedicated my firm in career to serving the retirement planning and investing needs of the engineering community. We have shared in prior episodes, we're located in Overland Park, Kansas, which is really the greater Kansas City area. And we have a strong engineering presence in the city. So about 25 years ago or so, it started becoming clear that if we understood how engineers think, how they process things, how they operate, and then could operate to their standards from the financial planning side, that it could be a really nice partnership. And I say partnership, we're the financial advisor or the wealth management advisors to mostly families that have an engineer or two in them. We deal with several families that the husband wife are both engineers, and really sit down and document in detail a financial planning process. And then the investments that fund that plan, almost exactly like you all would do an engineering project from the blueprint to the plans to the execution to the project management. We look at it, we think about it in that way. So to that effect, we will sit down and meet with folks and we'll help them, whether it's in person on a Zoom call, go through those checklists to get their ducks in the line. Or I've created a website called KeenOnRetirement.com. Many of your listeners have taken me up on this. I had a book come out, hit best seller on Amazon. It was KeenOnRetirement, engineering the second half of your life. And I've made that offer to your listeners, Anthony, that if someone wants a personalized copy, I'd be happy to mail one to them as my gift. Just send me an email. Be Keen at keenwealthadvisors.com and I'm still making that offer to your fine listeners. On that website is a podcast that's been out on iTunes for over four years and all the other channels. Got about 130 episodes out and also blogs as well on KeenOnRetirement.com. So a couple of resources there. I'm all about education. I really want folks to want to educate themselves. And that takes personal responsibility and it takes drive and desire in a busy life. Like you said, working hard, doing a great job, you know, for your clients, your specific clients and your firms that you work for, you let your own personal house maybe not get the attention it deserves. And so we've created those resources to help folks. That's great. And the reason that I've had Bill now back on the podcast three times is because I feel that finance can be a complicated topic, especially for those of us that are engineers and we don't really take finance courses or classes and don't have a background in finance. And when I did read Bill's book, he just does a really good job of breaking things down, kind of distilling them down to basics, essentially, so that kind of anyone can understand finance and start to think about finance and assets and how you need to help have your money kind of work for you. And so it's a great read. And really, that's why we continue to invite Bill back. So I highly recommend his content. And kind of getting into the first point here, we do have an election coming up, which means there's a potential for big change, of course, anytime you have an election. And change is something that will affect the economy.  Yeah, and I think you mentioned earlier about going back and listening to those your two prior podcasts that we were on. And I would tell folks, especially the one that we did in the midst of I think the height of the anxiety of the coronavirus. There was a lot of things folks were experiencing anxiety. We didn't know we were concerned for our health, we're concerned for our finances, we're concerned for our loved ones ourselves. Very confusing time. And some of the lessons learned, I don't want you all to miss the fact that you just have lived through a period of time where if you don't miss it, if you take some notes and you think through what happened, what you just lived through, there's a lot of wisdom there to make sure you capture. Don't miss it. Because we just went through one of the fastest market declines in history. And then one of the fastest market recoveries in history. Right now the economy is, I would contend slightly disconnected from the markets, although the markets are a very forward looking when I say markets, I mean the stock markets, the investment markets are very, very forward looking. So a lot of times what you think might make common sense doesn't make sense in how things play out. So make sure you capture your experience that you've had in 2020. I know a lot of us want to forget 2020. But I would say make sure we capture that wisdom. When it comes now to this election that has, I would say it's snuck up on us. Would you not say that it's snuck up on us, Anthony? I think it did because there's been so many things going on that you kind of look up and get past some of these other things and you see that there's an election in a very short period of time from now. Yes.  And it's the reason why is because it gets very emotional. And regardless of your political opinions and in all the work that we do, we are absolutely not trying to change someone's political views. But what we are trying to do is bring objective, factual information to the situation to make sure folks don't make knee-jerk emotional reactions that will throw their family off track. And that article I talk a lot about how folks dependent on who is expected to get elected or who gets elected may stop investing all together. They might sell all their investments. They might be in complete financial paralysis, not understanding or being fearful of the policies that they may or may not agree with. And an interesting bias that we've recognized, the company called Cornerstone Macro came out and they asked folks here about three months ago, slightly before the coronavirus, what were economic conditions? Were they good or were they bad? And 79% of Republicans said they were good and 33% of Democrats said that they were good only. So we're looking at the same numbers, but based on who's in power, we're going to have a different view of the very same numbers.  But let me give you a little bit of history on the financial markets because I think it's a great place to start. How have things actually done under certain types of parties pound? Now, I know all election years will feel different, but this maybe we could contend this is one of the most unique election years. We've got a pandemic. We've got a deep recession. We've got extremely heightened partisanship without question, a mail-in ballot controversy. We've got regardless probably the oldest presidential candidate, whoever gets elected now. There's a lot of things that we're all talking about that makes this feel very different. We're talking a lot now about a potential blue sweep. What happens? A blue wave. What happens if the Senate goes democratic? Well, let me just share with you over the course of since 1950, and this comes from LPL research, in a Republican Congress, the markets have made 13.4 percent on average. That same time frame of Democratic Congress, the markets have made 10.7 percent on average, but under a split Congress, they've made 17.2 percent. So the indication is that gridlock actually is better, at least in Congress, and that's now for the markets. Now, for GDP, which is really the output of our country, under Republican control, it's been 3 percent. Under Democratic control, the actual GDP has been slightly higher, 3.3, and under the split, it's been just under 3. So if we look at these things, we desperately want to try to find some correlations here to tell us what we should be doing with our investments, and I think that can get really tricky if you start making short-term decisions based on who's in power. Now, if we take it one step farther, if we go back to 1900 and look at the Dow, so I know I'm throwing a lot of numbers at you here, but this is kind of my last kind of example of how this works in the markets. What was better, a Republican president or a Democratic president? Now, if I were to ask you, Anthony, what you thought would be better for the stock market, not to put you on the spot here, but would you think that it would be Republican in the White House or Democrat in the White House? It's a good question. I mean, I think a lot of times in generalities, you'll sometimes hear that Republicans have been better, but I also remember, and I'm not, I don't really associate with either party, but I remember Clinton, for example, as president, I remember the economy doing well, so I wouldn't really have a straight answer for you. I'm up in the air and it sounds like your other numbers were up in the air as well. Yes, yes. And to your point, somebody might think generally that Republicans are considered more pro-business, less regulation, you know, that kind of general thought process. Well, if an investor had invested $10,000 in 1900, but only had it in the market, only had it in the Dow when the Republican was president, it would now be worth $99,000. Okay. On the other hand, if that same 10,000 was in the market with a Democratic president, it would be worth $430,000. Wow. So history tells us that Democratic presidents have had a better effect on the stock market. Now, I always say not so fast because what I've just this little thought experiment we've done here is indicating that I might be saying you should be all in or all out. And you know from our prior discussions, I never recommend people getting all in to the market, selling everything, waiting for something to happen that's going to tell them to get back in and go back in. So I don't want to leave that thought with anyone. Had you just invested your money and left it alone through all the presidential cycles, that 10,000 today would be worth $4.2 million. So imagine if you were someone that was, you just did not agree with or you were afraid of the counter parties thought processes and policies, it would have been a multiple seven figure mistake to be in and out of the market like that based on your political beliefs. It's just the fact. So I'm not trying to, I'm just being objective with it and just say, wow, that's just what history has told us. Sure. Well, I think that also speaks to, and I think you talked about this a little bit on the first episode that you did, you know, which is just thinking about longer term consistent investing, right? Not trying to push it in and out.  So it should be like, you know, a long term game. But I do have a question about something you said there that I think is something I'd like you to maybe talk a little bit more about because I think it can be confusing for people that don't have any background in finance, which is the relationship between markets and the economy. Yes. I think a lot of people would assume that that's the same thing, the market, the economy. Right. So when we look at the economy, we're looking at, I mentioned a term, the GDP, the gross, the product, what we're actually creating, all of us together, goods and services, what we're putting out in the United States of America. We look at GDP because we want that GDP gross domestic product to continue increasing. And in fact, we define a recession by two quarters of negative GDP. I mean, that's the definition, the kind of a textbook definition of what a recession is. Now, one of the problems with recessions are, if you think this through, if it's two negative quarters of GDP, we don't get GDP readings until many weeks or months after the end of the quarters. So in a good portion of the cases, you don't know that you were in a recession until you're coming out of the recession or it's over because you don't get the data to tell you that it was a recession until after the fact. But that's an economic, some economic numbers. Of course, unemployment, the employment is a big one as well. But we have people invested, you don't invest money in unemployment. You don't invest money in GDP. You invest money typically in shares of stocks through individual securities indexes, mutual funds, that type of thing. And when you're looking at your account balances, which is really what gets people's attention, they're just people are looking at your account balances and saying, it's down or it's up or hopefully long term, it's up nicely, but then we go through some violent downturns. And when I say that they're not necessarily always married, I think going back to our podcast we did on coronavirus, which was one of some of that wisdom that I want folks not to miss, we knew from a government mandated shutdown that we were in a deep recession during that time or a depression of these numbers, unemployment, gross domestic product. We knew that we were going to see these massive numbers, unprecedented numbers, but not so long after that podcast we did Anthony, where we were, I was recommending folks really be not to sell out of course, and to even rebalance into some of the stocks to buy some things while they were lower within the parameters of each person's risk tolerance, not to sell and panic, even though we knew we were in a recession or depression, because the market is forward looking. And sure enough, we've had a full, primarily most some securities are higher than they were going into the to the coronavirus meltdown in March. We hit bottom on March 23rd, some haven't quite made it back, but typically we're back to where we were all time highs in the NASDAQ, the tech stocks are well above all time highs. Unbelievable, really, if you think about it, but we're forward looking. So you might say, well, wait a second, we're still today in a period of time where the economy is uncertain. We still have, yes, we've added lots of jobs back from the huge loss we had for those few months, but we're still at much higher unemployment than we were going into coronavirus. We still have uncertainty. We still have businesses that are having a very difficult time. We're talking about closing places down again, certain states, yet the market is at or near all time highs. That piece of it doesn't make common sense to people, but we have to kind of divorce the two from each other and not make investment, knee-jerk investment decisions based on what we're seeing in just the economy because that market discounts all these things and it's looking way out ahead. Market right now, Mr. Market, as we call it, is looking out to 2021 and 22. It's not sitting back here in October of 2020. It's looking forward. I hope that helps. The market's like more of like a leading indicator, you could say. Absolutely. I would call the market a leading indicator. It's looking forward. It's very forward-looking. The things that we're thinking about, most people are thinking about that are happening today, the market's already thought about, it's long behind those things and it's looking to the future. That's great. Now, that is really helpful because I do think that those terms get kind of washed together a lot and obviously that they shouldn't be and you need to have some awareness around them. Let's talk a little bit about some of the potential tailwinds and headwinds for certain sectors depending on the outcome of this pending presidential election. Yes. We talk about common sense a lot and we think things through and we say, well, I say let's not get all in or all out, but we do want to be prudent. We want to be thoughtful. We want to be pre-committed to decisions that we will make depending on what outcomes happen here in November and depending on what tech tomorrow brings that none of us can foresee, but ideally there are some tailwinds for certain sectors. You would think that the energy sector would do better under President Trump or a Republican because less regulations, that would be something you might think about that could make sense. Well, guess what happened with energy when Trump came along? He reduced regulation. Prices of oil got to a point where they couldn't hardly give it away for one month there. The futures contracts on oil were negative because no one, you had to take delivery if you bought a futures contract. It was very confusing to folks. For folks that said, well, under Trump, let's put all our money into energy thinking that there was a tailwind there. Prices came down so much that energy, it's been great for the consumer of energy, but for an investor in energy, it's been one of the worst sectors since Trump's taken office. Very interesting to think about that. The same has happened for the financial sector as well because interest rates have been so low that banks have a hard time making money in low interest rate environments. And even though there's less regulation under a Republican president, the sector itself, those other additional things overcame the person in power. Now, there are some other sectors as well. For instance, healthcare. We think healthcare is probably going to be okay going forward. Actually, regardless of the election outcome with the Medicare for all, probably off the table. Energy could be hurt more by a potential blue wave, but here's what could happen going back to energy. Prices, now again, better for the investor or the consumer, prices of energy might get support and go higher from lower production and higher production costs. We saw a debate not long ago with the vice president and the vice president's presidential candidate talking about fracking and some confusion around what things might look like going forward. So you can be prudent and thoughtful about sectors, but sometimes common sense doesn't play out as well, which makes big bets on certain sectors or going outside all in all out. Once again, the message, it's just too dangerous to do that. That's good. And again, that speaks to, and again, this is me talking, not Bill, of course, just someone who is an engineer with not a ton of finance background is, this speaks to me more measured, diversified investing with a longer term view, which quite frankly, I mean, I think if you're a working engineering professional, odds are that's going to be your approach. Of course, that varies with age and other things and risk factors. But trying to guess at things, trying to think, oh, well, if this is the president, it just to me, it just sounds like it's not never a good approach. And some of the statistics, I think, Bill, that you've shared with us, again, would go against some just things that you would think if you just first glance. What do you think? And it just reinforces that. I want to make sure I let folks know too, remember now, the first two years that President Trump was in office, he had a Republican Congress and he couldn't get certain things through. So if we were to have a blue wave here in November for the folks that are worried about that, just remember, Trump first two years in office, Republican Congress, couldn't repeal the Affordable Care Act. It passed the House and not the Senate in May of 2017. But it was not a free for all, even in a Republican Congress and a Republican leadership. And I also, and I know probably people aren't thinking about this right now, Anthony, but there are policy issues that won't be altered much depending on who gets in the office, like Federal Reserve monetary policy, antitrust focuses on the big large tech companies. Those are things that all have bipartisan support. Yeah, there actually are things that are, do have bipartisan support. There really are. I know it doesn't feel like it when you turn the news on sometimes, but more fiscal stimulus. I think we were seeing some banter about this, but the stimulus that the government will put in play here and the additional stimulus I think is supported by both parties, although there's some, we've had banter about where that money should go. But I think the message is we turn the TV on and we see it's depressing sometimes. It is because you just, you see a lot of fighting and a lot of things that are just, and it's designed to create clicks and ads and to create insight anxiety because that sells. But I'd like to bring more of a measured kind of data driven factor to the discussion. Sure. And so, one of the things of course that can happen with this election in terms of change would be if Biden wins the election, of course, because then you're changing the party of the president. Talk a little bit about what might change if that happens just because I'm sure that that's something on people's minds. Yes, I think probably one of the biggest ones when especially when it comes to finance is the tax code. And he, in his position paper, which I've reviewed in detail, it's been out now for several months. He talks about a pretty massive rehaul of the tax code, but it's primarily focused on people that are making above the 400,000 level. And I know we saw the democratic debates that Mr. Pence, Vice President Pence, was indicating that he thought maybe that wasn't going to be the case, whether it was all of President Trump's tax cuts would be repealed. In the position paper, it's showing people that are just making over 400,000. We don't actually know what would happen until it happens. But what they're talking about now is taking the top individual income tax rate for people over 400,000 from 37% back up to the pre-tax cuts and jobs act rate of 39.6. So if you think about, you know, some of the high tax state taxes in people that are on the coast, let's say, and 40% call it income tax on income over 400, you know, you're getting up there over 50% for for total tax. And then you have additional taxes on top of that if I get the taxes and others, but that's something to be looking out for. There's also a thing called the P's limitation. It's P-E-A-S-E. And the P's limitation in it shortly is a limitation of itemized deductions. So that at a certain level of income, you most people get to deduct mortgage interest and charitable contributions, other things. If you make over 400,000, we believe Biden would start to phase those out. So again, it's that 400,000 level seems to be the theme. And some of your listeners I know and folks that subscribe to your work, Anthony, are business owners. And one of the things that's out there now is called the QBI, where you can deduct up to 20% of your business income, literally 20%. It was a kind of a big deal when it passed. Biden is imposing phasing that out for people once again, over that $400,000 level. So these are things to be, again, thinking about if you're not at those levels, I think you're probably going to be okay. There is another issue around the payroll tax. So a lot of people get confused. My son is a pilot, Anthony, and he goes to a college called Enrol in Missouri. I know you know it. It's a very fine engineering school, Missouri Science and Tech. He just graduated or he'll be graduating in five months. He'll be working at Garmin as a flight test engineer. He's married his love for aviation and his love for engineering. Isn't that great? Very proud of him. And he did an internship at Black and Beach and some other places as well as he figured out what he wanted to do. But we were walking through what his paychecks would be and I won't go into what they will be like to a detail, but could protect his anonymity. But we were walking through what his taxes would be. And of course, I've advised him to make sure he maxes his 401k at all costs, pre-tax, and potentially in a Roth, which we can talk about. But we were talking about the taxes, state, federal, and then the FICA tax. A lot of people are confused by FICA tax. There's taxes that come out of your paycheck that pay for Medicare and there's taxes that come out of your paycheck that pay for Social Security. And the Social Security tax part of the FICA tax now ends once you make over $137,700. That's the current wage cap. And what Biden has suggested is that he will keep it that way. But once somebody gets over $400,000 in income, he will bring the Social Security tax back on the income over $400,000. So there would be what we call a donut hole in that Social Security withholding tax from $137,700 or so to $400,000. And then it comes back in strong again for people at $400,000. The Medicare tax goes on from $1.00 all the way up to whatever you make. Okay. So not to get too technical on you there, but those are things that I believe we would see for sure come into play. Okay. No, that's great. And so kind of to start to wrap things up here, Bill, let's just take it back to, you know, most of our listeners, engineering professionals working hard, probably have a 401k they're contributing to, you know, maybe have a house for the mortgage and they are working, hopefully, you know, I know a lot of engineers were able to sustain jobs through everything just because a lot of in a lot of ways engineering is a critical profession, essential, deemed essential by a lot of states. So let's take it back to them and just thinking about going forward from here. What are any recommendations that you have in terms of taking actions or things to be very wary about here, you know, over the next three to six months? So really, this is going to be from the planning standpoint. It's not going to be from the investment standpoint. We want people to stay the course on their investment plans. Now, I want to make sure that each person is invested in their in there, whether it's 401ks or ESOP plans or their money that they've saved after taxes outside of those plans in a way that they feel comfortable. So they're not too much risk, but they're not too conservative either.   Once we get past the investments, because those are just the engines to the plan, but then the money is just an engine. The dollars are just an engine to your financial plan, what you're trying to achieve in your lifetime and the vision and the excitement you have for your future. Now we get down to what actions could we take? Well, some of it could be from a tax standpoint. So if you're one of the people that you think would be earning that level of income that we talked about over that 400,000 level. Congratulations, by the way, that's the case. But you could accelerate income into this year if you think you're going to be getting bonuses next year, you could pull it into this year. If you really thought and you wanted to be prudent about that, you thought taxes were going up next year, you could push back deductions into the next year from this year, if you're going to make a large charitable contribution, you could wait until next year to do that. You could also consider, and this what I would say applies to everyone, we want everyone each year to go through a Roth conversion calculation and look at the tax brackets that you're currently in, look at the income that you have, look at the investments and the resources and determine if it makes sense to convert money from an individual IRA account to a Roth IRA. The only difference is the individual IRA is taxed someday when you pull it out. Roth is never taxed ever again and we really like those accounts that are never taxed ever again because we believe that any accounts that are set up today will be grandfathered if they ever change the rules, you'll be able to enjoy that tax treatment and then you won't be affected by higher tax rates in the future. So I think that these could be really interesting things to consider. I always like to start out by saying or to end or start or it's all woven throughout my work. You got to control the controllable. There are many things that are beyond our control, but there are lots of things that we do have control over and sometimes figuring out that takes age and wisdom and time on the journey and making mistakes. We learn by making mistakes and a lot of the times the bigger mistakes we make the more we learn and we get to a point when we're to point in our journey where we don't want to make too big a mistakes anymore to have to learn. So we need to think through these things and control the controllable, be proactive, not reactive and have a financial plan in place where you've thought through where you want to be able to retire. What is that year? Even if it's 30 years from now, it's okay to start to visualize that and work toward it. It reverse engineer that journey. Figure out what you can spend, what you need to save and then enjoy the journey and you feel like you know time is your friend at that point. Some of you will have the opportunity to Roth 401ks. So you're working for a company that tells you you can put money into a 401k or you can put money into a Roth 401k. Depending on your tax bracket, the Roth 401k you pay tax on the contributions but you never pay tax ever again on that money and that could make a lot of sense right now with if we believe tax rates are going higher in the future.  Don't sell out. Don't sell out. Go please. Yeah, go ahead. I want to ask you a question on that point specifically and I understand that you know any kind of investing advice or you know things that you're talking about are totally dependent on the person right? Everyone has different individual needs and your age and etc. Your family situation, kids etc. But you know you hear the Roth IRA term a lot right? Yes. And from my understanding, which I think is correct, you take post-tax dollars, put them into an investment and then it grows and then you don't pay tax on it ever again. Is that accurate? That's exactly right. So if someone has a 401k that they're contributing to with an employer match of some sort, is there any reason or any instance that they would also want to consider the Roth IRA not a Roth 401k? Or is there a reason for that? Absolutely. One of the things I told my son recently, I think I shared, we used to say save 10% of your salary. Now we're saying if you could get by saving 15%, it would be a wonderful thing. And you can do that either into your 401k or you can go outside your 401k. I mean ideally you max your 401k and take advantage of all of the match that the company gives you. And when I say a lot of people think no, they're just going to put enough in to take advantage of the match. So if your company matches the first 8%, a lot of people just do 8%. And they get the match, which is great. But no, the limits of what you can put in, the 19-5 a year, you could put extra more in if you're over 50. We really would like to see people max those plans, not just up to the point that the employer matches, but all the way in as far as we can go. But then outside of that, to go ahead and set up a Roth IRA in addition to that with an advisor somewhere, that makes a ton of sense. And then you also have to have a nice reserve of money that's not encumbered for retirement that you don't have to wait till 59 and a half to touch. So there's that point where I always recommend six months in an emergency reserve account for folks. That's in a bank or somewhere very basically risk-free investments. But then folks can start to build some assets in investments that are not in retirement programs, but that are still invested in the equity markets, the ETF stocks, mutual funds, that kind of thing outside of the 401k. But that Roth IRA, it's a, I don't want to say no brainer without knowing each person's situation. But for my kids, I started Roths for them as immediately when I could, when they had earned income, they're able to make Roth contributions. If you have any earned income at all, you can make one. I started, that was my gift to them when they started making money at 15, 16, 17 years old. And that's proven to be a really nice way for them to start to build some wealth. And I recommend it to anybody. That's great. And the Roth IRA, just to be clear, is there an age limit on when you can take that money out? Yeah. So it's, because the money is going in after taxes, the government cannot encumber when you take that back out. So if you put in 5,000 into a Roth and you needed the money back next year, you can get your 5,000 back with no penalties at all. No tax, no penalty, because it was after tax money. They can't encumber it. Okay. But let's say you put your 5,000 in and it's worth 7,000. If you try to take out that two that you made, there would be taxes and penalties. Okay. So it's your principle, you can get back. The additional growth or income on that, you have to leave till you're 59 and a half or you have to have it open for five years as well. There's a five year limitation on Roths as well. But it doesn't apply to the principle coming back. Right. So it's like more liquid in a sense than a 401k in that way, because there's no penalties. It is. And when folks start those, I don't, like for my kids, I didn't tell my kids, hey guys, you can get this money out anytime you want. I just let them think that it's long term, right? But the reality is, yes. That's a good strategy for sure. Yeah. All right. Well, we covered a lot of really good stuff here. It's always great to have Bill on the podcast. He just talks about stuff that I think can be complex. And a lot of times, he kind of breaks it down to something that we can kind of grab onto. And that's something that's very helpful. And in the midst of everything that's going on, it was very helpful. So once again, Bill Keane, Bill is the author of Keane on Retirement, Engineering the Second Half of Your Life. Bill, thanks for coming on again. Thanks for sharing this great information with us and really trying to keep us grounded in terms of not making rash investment decisions based on politics, which I think can be very dangerous. And before I let you go, can you just share again kind of the link to your website so people can find those resources? Yes. So we have a firm website. It's keanwealthadvisors.com. That's the company website. But our blog and podcast that carries all the educational information can be found through that website. Or you can go directly to keanonretirement.com. Everything's right there for you. You can subscribe to the podcast or you can do it on iTunes as well or the blog and you get a note every week. And we share our thinking on things that we think is timely and relevant for folks on these topics. That's great. Well, Bill, thanks again for joining us. It's always a pleasure to have you. You're welcome, Anthony. It's a pleasure to be with you. Thank you. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Please leave your comments and your questions in the comments section below this video. Also, if you'd like to view the full show notes for this episode, visit engineeringmanagementinstitute.org or see the link in the video description. There you will find the key points discussed in today's episode as well as links to any of the resources, websites, or books mentioned during the episode. Until next time, I wish you the best in all of your engineering career endeavors.


If you really believe that I swing the other side, leave your girl with me. Just for 10 minutes. Maybe even less. Alright. You live within your means. Unajpati apresha ni ni. Kawezi, gari, kubwa, why, why go run around trying to get a V8 and you can't afford it. Just for lights maybe. Lights, ita gulisha. Welcome back. This is SP Mbaaz. My good name is Silver Kido and welcome to the story behind the tattoo with Silver Kido na lehini kona amazing. Fit interpreneur, father Abraham. As you always call him, palewo ni metendakizu mi. Frankie the jimet, how are you? Good, good man, you alright? Good to see you. Nice seeing you. This year? Complete for me that sentence. This year we're making money. Money moves? Money moves. What do you mean all moves are money moves? All moves have to be. Ki ingi api apale kili mani ni muni mani moves? Kila maale ni mani moves.  Kwa ni utahakwa na mili ni gabi kwa count? Yote. What's your target? All, everything. What's your what? There's no target. I don't know my worth. Ok Google, ebu Google apa wana ni my worth? This is the time at Google that I saw 80 million USD. I was like thank you. Thank you very much. 80 million? Currently. Even me I'm looking for it. Shala you'll get there. Just to ask you. This life so far things are lining? Yeah, life is moving. Life is shifting well. Can't complain. Which plans do you have for us this year? So again, I think just jimit is my number one passion. Of course we've just opened up the new space. We're located in Rungay. So people should come check us out. And then of course I've entered into the event space. So we're doing some experiential events. Events with an impact. It's called nowhere, nowhere experiences. That's also something that I'm passionate about. We have our first event should be happening March 16th. I'm sure I even told you offline that you're invited for one of those ones. We're trying to get, within different events, we're trying to get celebrities to come through with the cause, whatever cause that they have. For my cause it was just empowering the youth through fitness, through sports. If you see on my social media I've posted something to do with boxing. So I was hosted by the intermediate 2024 boxing championships. That was last weekend and it was such a great time there. Spent a lot of time with the boys there, the youth, and they were telling me about their struggles and what they go through. It's something that it's saddening and it shouldn't be that way. So whatever little that we can give, I think that can go a long way, especially for them. So that's something that I'm currently passionate about. So obviously Shere Lazma Ipigwe, but what are you doing it for? What's the end goal? What comes out of it? So this is something that we're definitely working on and stay tuned for more of that. Alright guys, we'll keep you posted on what is happening about Shere Lazma. But for now you can go to Frankie the Jamies, make sure you follow Tiktok for more updates because something is coming, something great is coming for the society, for you actually. What are you waiting for? Thank you. Welcome to the story behind the tattoo whereby we get a one-on-one session interview to discuss with celebrities, media personalities, very influential people like you about the inspiration behind the tattoos. I know one of them is Matatsuki Dogo. Is it tattoo na watua jim, zina patana wa api? So I guess tattoos, I mean everything I do is based on art, right? Fashion to me is art. This in itself is just drawing its art.  And tattoos is just a part of that. So something that I started when I was, I think the first tattoo I got I was 16 or 17. 16. Yeah, I was quite young when I got my first tattoo. I was even younger when I got my first piercing. But yeah, to me that's just how I express myself. This is how I express myself. Tell us about your first tattoo. First tattoo was the dumbest looking thing ever. It was an angel. And it was right here. It was an angel which you can see I've done the cover up. I've done the cover up of my son. That was the first tattoo that I ever did. And then after that I went straight into a sleeve. So I did the bottom half, all that. And then after that is when I did the inside part and then the top part. And it's still not done. There's still other things which I'm looking to reconnect. But they all have a meaning. Aside from the first tattoo that I had. An angel? Yeah, it's just an angel. Just literally an angel. What was went through your mind? I think I was just so excited to get a tattoo that I just got the simplest thing I could find. Where did you get the money first? I mean I had pocket money. So I was able to do it. You have a pocket money? Yeah, yeah, yeah. How much was this then? I can't remember. I can't really remember. It was a long time. 16 Nikitambu. I'm 34 now man. 16 Nikitambu. I can't remember it really to be honest. But I don't think it was because it was in the UK. I don't think it was more than 50 pounds. What was it? Sabu? I don't think it was more than 50 pounds. Maybe like 7 here, 6, 7k. Around that. That was your first? The second tattoo was a sleeve now. But then what made you fall in love with tattoos? Again, it's just like I said, it's a way to express myself. And also I can be able to showcase the things that mean something to me. So I find the thing that means something to me like my grandma. This is about my grandma. So how can I express that in terms of imagery, right? I have my son here. I have just jimit the first logo that we ever had. Timeless is for my grandma. And the crazy thing is, the reason why this is insane is because my grandma raised me, right? She passed away. Her name was Coco. She passed away. Literally 9 months after she passed, my daughter was born. My daughter's called Coco. So this proves that she's timeless. I can't believe it. She just reincarnated into my life. And I got this way before. I got this when I was like 19 or 20. I didn't even know I was going to ever have a daughter or anything of the sort. So it's just like, you know, sometimes you manifest things into reality. So that's what I do. Alphabeta, Alphabeta is somewhere here. Alphabeta, that was the YouTube channel. My first baby mama, Maureen. You had to mention that. I mean, literally the things that mean something to me, I put it on my body. So I still have a long way to go. There's other things which I have to add on to it. I have Batman up here because I'm a huge Batman fan. When did you fall in love with Batman movies? I don't know. Afrika's Batman? No, Afrika's Batman. The world's Batman. Have you ever seen me and Batman together? No. Exactly. All right. Let me talk you back a bit about the late grandma Kokos. What is it, something you always remember, you always value, you treasure? Something your late grandma shared with you? Memories that you always have it in mind forever of your life? My grandma was super wise. She gave me so much advice on everything. Gave me so much advice on even saving up. Gave me so much advice on women dating. Gave me so much advice on being a man.  To who I am right now. I think those are the things which I'll always remember. Advice that she gave me. Best advice? Best advice. I don't think anyone else has ever told me anything that has been so influential to my upbringing than her. She was there literally when I was born. Up until when I was 30. I mean she's been super instrumental. And then just for her to come back as my daughter. I really truly believe she's come back as my daughter. Because I look at my daughter and she has even the walk. Sometimes my daughter walks and I'm like, hey, that's Koko. She has the same walk and everything. So, yeah, it's amazing. What is it? Koko. She has the same walk and everything. So, yeah, it's amazing. Forever in our hearts Koko. You mentioned about your first tattoo.  Why did you have to go for that tattoo? I think again, it's the things that have made a shift in my life. That's one of them. That was a pivotal point in my life. Because I had just jimit. And then I opened a different side of me where it was like family content and stuff like that. Again, that was a major shift of my career, my lifestyle. Because we were now starting to do business and make money with that whole family content creation type of side of things. So, it was instrumental in my growth. And again, anything that's instrumental to my growth, I place it on me. So, yeah, that's the only reason why I put there. Your first point. So, there's an image, this image, it just sticks in my mind every single time when I see him. It's a photo that we took. Actually, Kevbo is the one who took that photo. It just sticks to my head all the time. So, I figured that would be the best thing to put on my sleeve. I'm still looking for that thing that pops when I look at my other kids as well. Then I can say, okay, this reminds me of this person. This reminds me of this person. Okay, I'm going to put that on this side and this side. So, I'm still building that imagery of what I want for my other children as well. Taking about the money you spend on your first point tattoo, how much was it? Oh, funny enough, that was free. So, the top half, not the whole top half, but most of it was free. A good friend of mine, he's called the Mad Kid. I don't know if you've seen him, he's amazing with tattoos. There was a time I did a safari kum advert. The billboard was up and he took a photo of that billboard and he posted. And this is how it became friends, he posted. This was, I think, 20, probably 2017. He posted online and he's like, yo, who is this guy with this wak tattoo? Because he was the tattoo of the angel, right? He's like, with this wak tattoo, link him with me, I'll do a tattoo for him for free. Then people were just tagging me, tagging me, tagging me, tagging me. You know, at that time he didn't really know who I was. People were just tagging me, tagging me. Then I reached out to him, I was just laughing. I was like, hey bro, this thing, it's wak, I know it's wak as well. We just joked about it. He's like, yo, come through, we chill, we talk. I was like, cool, no problem. I went to the studio, I saw his work. He's like, yo, we can do something even now real quick. I was like, cool. And with that we ended up doing the sleeve. We filled up the top half of it. We came up with different concepts and he helped me out work on it. So that one was free. Is that moment you felt embarrassed with your angel tattoo? At times I felt embarrassed with my angel tattoo. I didn't feel embarrassed, I wanted to cover it up. But I felt like it doesn't have, because at that time I had the sleeve down here. All of this had meaning. And then this one was just there like back. Was all this about. So it was just random. So I wasn't really embarrassed about it. It was just a point of, not like I need change, again it's just you need change to what. Yeah, yeah. I even tried to cover it before, but the guy was telling me the lines were too close together. Covering will be issues, blah, blah. But I think they were just too afraid to try it out. How many tattoos do you have so far in total? Just my whole arm. This whole arm. It can't really count them because it's a sleeve. They're all just connected. I can't really count it, but I always just say I have a full arm sleeve. You have like a favorite one from your arm? Like a favorite one? I don't think so. I think all of them just, they all just excite me in their own different way. I don't think I have a specific favorite one. When is the next tattoo? What do you have in mind you're planning to have? So I want to finish off, because I have the space at the back. I want to finish off that. I want to finish off this top part. And then I'm looking to do my leg, but I want to do half. So from knee all the way down to ankle. I want to do that. All on this side. All my tattoos on this side. Even if you notice, most of my piercings on this side. Why on the left side? I don't know. So it's just been a thing of mind where I do everything on my left. Can you only lefty? No, I'm not actually. But I just find it. I think this is like the evil side. Where I can just work on it. How do people see you? You as a father raising your kids, not being the right.   But if you think about it logically, what's a tattoo going to do to a child? If a child wants to be naughty, it's going to be naughty. If a child's going to grow up to be a thief, it's going to be a thief. Me having a tattoo or having piercings or whatnot, it's not really going to change who that person becomes, because it's the upbringing that matters. It's how you raise your children, that's what matters. I'm here to influence my children the right way. I believe I'm doing so as well. We're in 2024, it's very hard to find someone who's not tattooed or pierced. So I don't think that should be a deciding factor of how your children will grow up to be. For me it's just art, like I said. My friends will ask me, why don't you ask Frankie, this one question that given the chance you have your baby mama's name, your family face, your whole body, what is stopping you? Do you have tattoos? No, I don't have. Religion reasons, that's why I don't have. How can you be doing a show about tattoos that don't have tattoos? It's something that I love doing. No, but you see, your love that you don't get now, to one everything. Are they willing? I don't know. We've never had that conversation. Why don't you surprise them? Why? Maybe try to do some unapology, for the mistakes you've done before and before and before. Apologize. There's something I've seen online, people saying that even after 40 years, 30 years, they will just work up and say, there's one day you did this to me, I'm still wondering why did you have to do that to me. Can that be a way of maybe you expressing love, maybe showing some concern about them? I can buy flowers and chocolates. You're not willing? I don't have to do a whole tattoo to prove that I'm sorry for something. Just to show love for them? I don't think I'll be able to. There has to be a genuine specific reason. But they're family. They're mothers of you. I don't have my mom here. I don't have my mom. I don't have my dad. I don't have my brother. I've had my grandma. I've had my grandma and that doubles as my daughter. I have my first born son. Again, that's a monumental change shift in my life as a first born. Yeah, I don't even have my second, third on me. No pressure? No, no yet. It's not something that I have to get this and that. It'll come when it comes. When the time comes, it comes. Because when your kids hang out with you, they'll see this last country, then Bona Una Yangu? No, I always tell them. I'm like, yeah, that's your brother. What about me? I'm like, sure. It'll come. Don't worry. Sure. My kids are understanding. They don't force me to do anything that I don't have sina o nini wajoto vichangumu. Like they don't force issues with anything. Because I talk to them. I explain to them things. That's the number one thing which I've learnt. Kids, if you talk to them the way you talk to just a grown up, they'll listen. But if you just tell them, no, don't do that. Then they're like, okay. They become inquisitive. They become gichangumu. But if you just have conversations with them. At that moment you find yourself trying to convince your son or your daughter just to not to do this, not this time. Like what? Trying to advise them like no, no, no, no. On anything? What is the best question you've been asked by your son or your daughter? You find a surprise. How did you ask me? What's up? Oh no, I've been asked why do we fall in love with women? My son asked me that. My first born son asked me that. It's like why do we fall in love with women? I explained it to him. What is the answer? I even posted on my social media. I told him when you find someone that you truly love and you are vibing on the same frequency. Then you spend enough time with them. You realize that you're compatible and you end up falling in love.  Yeah, I like the way I loved mommy. And they're like, okay, cool. But if you don't text, wukiaza kumambiaza kunulizama soleo jinga, then what are you really like? Yeah, what's the whole point of that? Now he understands I've broken it down to him in a manner that he can actually understand it. Are they following your footsteps when you're walking out? I mean, I've taken them to my gym before, worked out before but it's not something that I'm pressing them to do but they play sports. Yeah, slowly by slowly they'll figure out what they want to do but I'll also implement it into their lifestyle. But you know the thing is they see me do things and they think it's cool so they want to do it. I think like being a grown up like always find ways of doing things which looks cool to your kids they'll want to do it but if you try force them to do things then it's kind of hard for you to get them to do those things. As you wind up, I've noticed something you know you told me earlier it's a way of expressing yourself. Let's talk about your nails. Where do you have this? I usually just like it depends on what type of outfit I'm going to wear at a special occasion but I think self care is all about just like really taking care of yourself holistically so I usually do my mani pedis skin care routine all that. Recently even if you look at my socials you see I'm working with Ghanye those are things that monumental to me self care goes a long way so this is part of it like literally just I remember there was a time I used to just a normal clear do the normal clear polish and then I was just searching online and I saw Asap Rocky he has his nails all done up I've seen Snoop Dogg has nails all done up Snoop Dogg had French tips this is interesting that looks quite cool we know these guys to be gangsters and all that but if someone can be that comfortable in their sexuality to have nails which look attractive because this is the number one tension grabber when I'm literally communicating with someone I'm talking to someone literally it's like whoa oh my god I love your nails like literally that's the conversation started nine times out of ten anytime I meet someone so having that in itself you know my line of work it needs me to be in different spaces and to stand out pretty much so this is how I stand out and that's what I'm saying it needs me to be higher from top to bottom it's art to me I'm literally a walking piece of art like I designed even working out in itself what is working now you're sculpting your body you're trying to create the perfect design of your physique so everything is just art to me can we find a self in a position whereby you have to explain to people again and again what color? no it's not my favorite color it's just one of the colors that I've shifted I change it all the time different things different but I don't explain anything to anyone because some people will question your sexuality that's okay and you know what I tell them leave your girlfriend with me and you'll have yourself questioning your manhood higher if you really believe that I swing the other side leave your girlfriend just for 10 minutes maybe even less alright what's nice hanging out with you bro I want to say this I'm a big fan I've seen which is a bit low-key but I'm going to mow at the right time I've seen you we've met several times you always spare time to talk to us when you feel like it's the right time to talk to us I just want to say keep on what you're doing we're here to make sure that if things are not going the right way we have to remind you we're behind you, we're watching and I want to wish you all the best to your family and friends and whatever nothing much to ask but just to you to tell your fans something amazing, something inspiring because they are the manzana I don't know how to say I don't know how to say body goals, financial goals I don't know we're surviving we're surviving there's a time you don't know what you're doing I'm living I'm living surviving I'm living everyone should be living just live within your budget what's your budget here classified you're living for your computer you're living for your money you live within your means you live within your means you live under pressure kawazi, gari, kubuwa why, why go run around trying to get a v18 you can't afford it like saita kuleisha you miss kia like saita kuleisha Superstarmanyam ambia likes eta kuleisha Thank you so much. Till next time guys, tell me in the comment who do you want to see in the next episode. Frankie, you can nominate a friend for the show. Which friend do you have in mind? Wow. Ita beshtiangu Jaki Vike ya kujuhu. Ya kuna tatu. Eh, aneza eka. Vike kuna tatu? Eh, mona si eke. Ateke ingo hoa apu.  Shukran sana, til next time, please, SPM bars for always giving you exclusive content, exclusive interviews, my good name is Silvakido. Behind the scene, director Wangu Palin Bili. Thank you.


And now, great moments in unintended consequences. Part 1 – Window Wealth The year? 1696. The problem? Britain needs money. The solution? Tax windows. Windows increase with relative wealth and are easily observed and verified from afar. A perfect revenue generator is born. Sounds like a great idea. With the best of intentions, what could possibly go wrong? To avoid higher taxes, houses were built with fewer windows and existing windows were bricked up. Tenements were charged as single dwellings, putting them in a higher tax bracket, which led to rising rents or windowless apartments. The lack of ventilation and sunlight led to greater disease, stunted growth, and one rather irate Charles Dickens. It took more than 150 years for politicians to see the error of their ways, perhaps because their view was blocked by bricks. Part 2 – Looney Ladies The year? 1992. The problem? New dancing is degrading to women and ruining the moral fabric of Alberta, Canada. The solution? Establish a one meter buffer zone between patrons and dancers. Sounds like a total buzzkill with puritanical intentions. What could possibly go wrong? It turns out that dancers earn most of their money in the form of tips. And dollar bills don't fly through the air very well. Thus, the measure designed to protect dancers from degrading treatment resulted in the looney toss.  Way to make the ladies feel special. Part 3 – Gallant Grocers The year? 2021. The problem? Local bureaucrats need to look like they care. The solution? Mandate grocery stores provide hero pay to their workers. Sounds like a great idea, with the best of intentions. What could possibly go wrong? Never mind that these ordinances may preempt federal labor and equal protection laws. A 28% pay raise for employees can be catastrophic to grocery stores that traditionally operate on razor thin margins. As a result, many underperforming stores were closed, resulting in a hero pay of sudden unemployment. Don't spend it all in one place, heroes. Great moments and unintended consequences. Good intentions, bad results.


I'm Siti Prakash, age 59 to 60 years and I was in Bombay joined Tata Power in 1987. Then I was an operation engineer, worked for 34 years in Tata Power. He was actually a very active person when he was in service at Tata Power Bombay. He was very involved in all the club activities and professionally also very doing very well. And suddenly we were attacked by this Parkinson's disease which really floored us and we didn't know what to do. In the year 2011 I had a frozen shoulder which caused me little problem for my movement on left shoulder. So for which I went to an orthopedic and he treated me very well. Since some close friend of mine recommended me to a neurologist, he gave me eye doses of Parkinson's disease medicines. So these medicines which I was unaware of consumed for 10 months and my body movement stopped totally. This was the time I started crawling like a baby and this was the time I went for second opinion with Dr. Sathin Vaidya. He stopped me all the medications, then he said that you are taking these medications for Parkinson's disease which shook my life like anything. I was referred to Dr. Guru Prasad and Dr. Raghuram. After the progressions started my movement literally stopped and became very stiff and shuffling used to take place at every step and I could not walk properly. Then I was recommended to undergo DBS surgery. Actually he was very positive about it but I was not so convinced. I was actually scared that it may affect him in some other way. But both the doctors were kind enough to convince me every time I think we would go there nearly every week or 10 days. In spite of all my questioning and everything they gave me a lot of support and then mentally made me strong and finally I agreed to the DBS. For surgery I had difficulties in my family, my father-in-law expired and my mother expired which caused Dr. Guru Prasad and Dr. Raghuram to give more time for my device settings which they did and zeroed into a particular setting with medication. So through medication now I am totally normal, I am happy, I am really leading a normal life and I do my exercises and I do my gym cycle for 4-5 kms every day. While watching TV I do peddling and all these things has kept me on my toes. Today we are very happy, he is leading a normal life. He is like what he was before. Thanks to Manipal, thanks to the entire team of doctors.


Yeah What's good YouTube this is what you were back to all again with another art video man If you're new to this channel go ahead hit that like button come in Subscribe makes you click post notifications, so you will be notified anytime you budget on heat in today's video I will be turning a customer into a boom dogs character So without further ado Let's jump right into this video and by the way man if you haven't already go ahead and go Subscribe, I mean not subscribe go follow me on Spotify because I will be dropping a lot of music soon You know I'm saying so go ahead and be in a routine of already following your boy I'm Spotify before I start dropping that heat now. Let's jump right into the video There you have it you guys How to make a Boom dogs character My real dough like I'm gonna make that the string shot Put a thumb there All right, man Thank you guys for watching May she stay tomb on heat coming soon And I'm about to go to sleep, but I'm tired. I might be thing


Hi, I'm Joe Laurier, editor-in-chief of Consortium News, the oldest independent news site on the web. In 25 years, we've brought you groundbreaking journalism on many of the most significant issues of the day, including national security, foreign policy, and the environment. We've done this in print since 1995 in the tradition of our late founder, Robert Parry, who united the world's first consortium of journalists for a redefunded and independent online news service. In 2019, we expanded into video with CN Live, produced by Cathy Vogan in Australia. CN Live is now watched in over 60 countries. As mainstream media increasingly fails the public, independent media is becoming more crucial than ever, and relationships amongst independent media are becoming more collaborative. In addition to our original programming on CN Live, we maintain the consortium model of collaboration. We simulcast great content from media partners around the world who promote ethics in journalism and evidence-based reporting that holds power to account. We have no pay wall and everything we publish is made to share on a Creative Commons license. And today, I'm happy to tell you about a new development at CN Live. We will be adding a new member of the team. John Kiriakou is joining us on a regular guest host basis. John is a former CIA analyst who blew the whistle on the agency's use of torture. He was convicted under the Espionage Act and condemned to prison for two years. In 2012, John received the Joe A. Callaway Award for civil courage given to those who advance truth and justice despite personal risk. John is the former co-host of Loud & Clear. John, welcome to the team. We can't wait to have you on the show. Thank you, Joe. The pleasure is all mine. I'm proud to be associated with Consortium News first with Consortium Print online. That's been going on the last several years and now with CN Live. I think we're going to have a lot of fun and God knows there are a lot of important issues to raise. Just a reminder that Consortium News is wholly supported by the donations of our readers so that we're able to be independent in our reporting. If you appreciate our work, please support us by visiting our website at consortiumnews.com and clicking on the donate button. Or you can become a patron of CN Live by going to patreon.com slash cnlife.


Unless you're using a device from the Unify Dream Machine lineup, a Dreamwall or the Unify Express, which all have the Unify controller built in, then the question will come up, where should I host my Unify controller? If you've already decided you want to go to self-hosted route and you're just here looking for a tutorial on how to set that up, you'll find my tutorial linked in the description below. If you're looking for other solutions that come with automatic updates such as a Cloud Key, Unify Zone Hosting, or a third-party solution such as Hostify, that's what I'll be covering today, so let's get started. Are you an individual or forward-thinking company looking for expert assistance with network engineering, storage, or virtualization projects? Perhaps you're an internal IT team seeking help to proactively manage, monitor, or secure your systems. We offer comprehensive consulting services tailored to meet your specific project needs. Whether you require fully managed or co-managed IT services, our experienced team is ready to step in and help. We specialize in supporting businesses that need IT administration or IT team seeking an extra layer of support to enhance their operations. To learn more about any of our services, head over to our website and fill out the higher S form at lorenzsystems.com. Let us start crafting the perfect IT solution for you. If you want to show some extra love for our channel, check out our swag store and affiliate links down below that will lead you to discounts and deals for products and services we've discussed on this channel. With the ad read out of the way, let's get you back to the content that you really came here for. Now, the first option we're going to talk about is the Unify Cloud Key. This is a pretty simple device that does have auto update, has the controller built in and whether you're using one of their gateways or not. If you're just using, for example, switches and access points, you can completely manage this. And as far as remotely getting back to it so you can manage one of your clients, this would be tied to the Unify dashboard. That is an option they have with all of the controllers, whether they host it or you host it. And this allows you to easily access each one of those. Now they have a capacity calculator down here and the max for the Cloud Key is only 40 devices. So if you have a client with more than 40 devices, this rules this option out. But as I said, it's not a bad option. It's going to be easy to set up and easy to manage. And you just leave one on site for each one of your clients. Now the next option is Unify's own official hosting. They'll be deployed and manage Unify network sites, manage up to a thousand devices. But $29 a month is not for a thousand devices. They only give you 100 devices for $29 a month. And then $99 a month lets you manage up to 1000 devices. Now I set up this Lawrence Systems demo account and we're going to jump over to that particular network as you sign up for accounts and set these instances up. They all show up in the Unify dashboard. And if you'd like to have multi-tenancy, you have to go over to the system and check the multi-site management box. It does not check by default when you set these up, but it does support that. And for example, when we want to add another site, we can go here, click on this to the site switcher. And you'll see I've already got one called Tom Studio. And if we wanted to add another one, we can simply add a new site. So we'll add Dunder Mifflin if we took them on as a client. Now they're going to show up in the list here and I can now manage their instances as well. And now it's deployed. Deploy is that quick. So here we are in the Dunder Mifflin paper company and we can once again set their Wi-Fi, their devices, and adopt them all in here. Now as far as adopting devices, they do have instructions for how to adopt them by SSHing into the device. They have the inform URL right here, which wasn't obvious when I first signed up. But now that I know where it is, it's pretty simple that you can just copy this and then you can use the set inform to adopt any devices you have into this instance. Now I want to go back over to the site manager because not only is that site in the list when you go to that particular controller, it also automatically adds it to the main site list inside of UI. So as I add more and more companies, they automatically show up here. I've had no issues at all using the Unify Hosted Controller system and auto-adopting everything into here. Now let's talk about Hostify. They're a third party company that will host the Unify Controller for you. So let's go over here and click right on pricing because that's what everyone wants to start. And here in January of 2024, they're charging $99 for 250 devices, and 1,000 devices is $249. As I noted, this is January of 2024. So if it is a future beyond this when you're watching this and prices may have changed, hey, check their website. This is all public-facing. The yearly option does offer you a little discount. So if you want to pay upfront for a year, they do have that as an option. And if you have more than 1,000 devices, they do have custom options that you can contact and work with them on. Now, when you set up a Hostify account, each one of these instances does not have any relationship to Unify other than it's using their software. You can tie it to their dashboard, but you don't have to because they're going to give you direct access to your instance and your controller. They also have support for not only Unify, but UISP and OMATA hosting. Now, here's where you would choose yearly or monthly, and then you have the option to choose a location. This is not a feature you get when you set up with Unify. You automatically go into the Unify Hosted system, but you don't get to choose where. And geography can matter for sometimes regulatory reasons or other reasons such as ping times you may want faster to be in the area or region you're in. And they have a pretty broad amount of locations all around the world. Once you choose your location, you click Deploy Server. And they run through this setup process automatically and very quickly. Now, once it's deployed, you're assigned a random number.hostify.com. And we can go ahead and change this to a label and we'll just call it Tom's server and hit Save. But it's still going to be this random number for the service URL. They're automatically going to have certificate on this. And then they have your set and form URL, which is also just that same number. You can, though, add your own custom domains. So if I have DNS and I want to modify it, so I create a record that points at this, absolutely that is supported. And this is another custom feature they have. So maybe I want it to be Unify.LauranceSystems.com or Unify.CNWR.com. I can create custom domains, put these entries in here, and then all the controllers will point to my domain, including the set and form URL. It's a nice feature they have in here. Now, the next thing is we have a temp user and temp password setup. So I can just go in here and copy this user, click in the copy, expose the password. And the first thing I should really do is go in and change it. But they made this pretty easy. They also have the option if you need to do any type of recovery of your password under their tools here. So you can reset your credentials. Well, let's go ahead and take a look inside the controller itself. And you'll see that I don't have any access points adopted. But I will point out in their system, if we go here to the system and then settings, they already have the multi-site management box check. So I didn't have to check that to be able to add multiple sites. But they do have that same option like you do when Unify hosts it to be able to add a new site, which makes it easy enough to add more clients to this. And they all show up in this view here or to the full overview. If you're running a self-hosting controller, which essentially this is hostify doing this for you, you get these sites overview. And as I said, they can be tied to the Unify dashboard, but don't have to be. Now, a few final notes about hostify is they can give you SSH access or custom firewall rules on request. This is not something in their dashboard. And they do have a lot of experience. They're not new at the unified hosting. They've been doing it for a very long time. Currently, they have over 2,682 Unify network controller instances. And that accounts for 433,000 devices. Yes, that's almost half a million Unify devices being managed by hostify. And they're also working on a new piece of software that is in beta right now. Hopefully to be released maybe by the time you're watching this video that makes adopting them easier. I think this is really cool and I'm looking forward to testing it. And I might do a video on it as well once it gets released. Now, I don't have any issues of all the testing I did with the Unify instance of posting. I think these are both solid options. But which one's right for you? Let me know in the comments down below. Let me know which one you've already went with or which one you're thinking about or if you watched my other video and just did that whole self-hosted thing and you want to maintain the underlying operating system and the Unify controller yourself. Hey, that's a perfectly good option. But so is using hostify or Unify to manage all that for you. Like and subscribe if you want to see more content from this channel or head to my forums, forums.laurancesystems.com to have a more in-depth discussion about this and other topics on my channel. Thanks.


I'm going to talk about the Pala consensus protocol. This is joint work with the Hilbert Chen and Rafa Alpas. So in Chinese, Pili Pala is the sound of thunder. It also means fast, furious, and streamlined. OK. So I will begin by explaining the problem I'm trying to solve. So in all these cryptocurrency systems, the core abstraction is called state-to-machine replication, also referred to as blockchain or consensus. So in the rest of the talk, these terms are used interchangeably. We have a set of decentralized nodes. And these nodes are trying to reach agreement on ever-growing, linearly-ordered log of transactions. OK. There are two important security properties that we care about, namely consistency and liveness. Consistency says that all of the honest nodes must agree on the same log. So it could be your log is a little faster than mine because the network has delayed. But nonetheless, at the end of the day, we have to all agree. Lifeness says that whenever I want to buy coffee, the transaction will appear in all of the honest nodes logs very quickly. It's not like I want to wait forever for my coffee. OK. Now, initially, the problem may seem somewhat boring. So what's so exciting about building a linearly-ordered log? Well, indeed, if all of these nodes were honest and they correctly followed the protocol, the problem would have been trivial. But what's challenging about it is when some of these nodes can be corrupt. And these corrupt nodes can behave arbitrarily and deviate arbitrarily from the protocol. And even in such adversarial conditions, we want to make sure that the remaining honest nodes must nonetheless satisfy these security properties. So in the rest of the talk, we are always going to assume that less than 1 third of the nodes are corrupt. OK. So I will tell you a very simple consensus protocol that satisfies these two properties, consistency and liveness. And to begin with, I will first explain somewhat of a strongman scheme, a protocol that's very natural. It works by single-rounder voting. This is actually Thunders' fast-path consensus protocol, the previous version. If you are not familiar with Thunders' protocol, it doesn't matter because the entire talk is going to be self-contained. OK. So let's start with this very simple voting-based protocol. And before I talk about the protocol, I will very quickly explain the block formats we are going to assume throughout the talk. So in the talk, we are going to assume every block contains the parent hash. Basically, it's a cryptographic digest of the entire prefix of the chain. It has an epoch number. So we are going to assume every epoch is one second. And whenever honest nodes send a message, the message is going to get delivered in, let's say, a quarter of the second. So in one epoch, you can have four round trips. For simplicity, in this talk, I'm just going to assume the synchronous model. Basically, every honest message will get delivered very quickly. But at the end of the talk, I will mention, it's actually very easy to extend the approach to partially synchronous setting, too. OK. So now, of course, the block is going to contain the transactions you want to confirm. So very simple. OK, to make it more fun, this is the scenario we are going to work with. Vitalik acts as the proposer, and everyone else is a voter. So some of these nodes can be corrupt. Like in this case, Loki is corrupt. And the proposer can also be corrupt. So here's how a very natural protocol would work. Step number one, the proposer makes a proposal. The proposal contains a block. And the block is tagged with the epoch number, indicating the current epoch. OK. Now, when the voters receive the proposal, they are going to vote on the proposal. And in this case, Vitalik proposed an orange block. So if you are honest, you are going to vote on exactly the proposal you have received. So almost everyone casts an orange vote, except for Loki. Loki is corrupt. And instead of voting honestly, he voted for two blue blocks. OK, so now we have voted. What do we do next? We basically wait. We wait until we collect enough votes on the same block. And when there are enough votes on the same block, we have high enough confidence that we can confirm that block. So what is enough? In this talk, I'm going to assume votes from two-thirds the committee is considered enough. And in fact, if we have two-thirds votes, we are going to call that a notarization. OK, so a very important thing to remember about this protocol is that all of the honest notes are going to vote uniquely in every epoch. This means that in every epoch, I'm going to wait until I hear the first proposal from the proposer. I'm going to vote on that proposal and only that proposal. I'm not going to vote on anything else. So this invariant is very important for consistency. And in fact, given this invariant, I can give you a very simple consistency proof. OK, so imagine let's fix an epoch. OK, so imagine for this epoch, the blue block obtained notarization and the orange block obtained notarization too. And what I want to prove is that the blue block must be the same as the orange block. And remember, as I said in the beginning, we are going to assume less than one-third nodes are corrupt. OK, so how does the proof work? If you look at the blue set and orange set, and remember, there are only n nodes in total, right? So it must be the case that the intersection contains at least one-third n nodes. And now, because the adversary controls less than one-third, this means there must be an honest node in this intersection. OK, now remember what I said about honest nodes, right? They are going to vote uniquely. And if this honest guy in the intersection voted for both the blue and the orange, there is only one explanation, right? Basically, the blue block must be the same as orange. OK, so this establishes the fact that with this very simple protocol, for every epoch, only one block can get nodarization. OK, and another thing to note is that this consistency proof doesn't rely on the proposal being honest. The only thing it relies on is the fact that honest nodes vote uniquely. OK, so with this in mind, let's take a step back and think about this very simple protocol, right? As I said, we are going to assume two-thirds of the nodes are honest and online. And when the proposer is honest, life is all good, we have both consistency and liveness. Consistency, I've just proved to you, liveness is also simple because if the proposer is honest, he's going to propose the same thing to everyone. And because two-thirds of the nodes are honest, soon enough you are going to collect enough votes and you'll make progress. So when the proposer is corrupt, what happens? In this case, we still have consistency because as I argued, the consistency proof doesn't rely on proposer being honest, right? But we don't have liveness because the proposer can just crash and fail to propose anything or maybe he can propose different things to different people and everyone will end up voting on a different block. And no block will gain nodarization in this case. So OK, so now if you look at this picture, we have three out of the four properties. And the only thing we need to fix is the liveness issue when the proposer is corrupt. And if we can fix that, we can get a full consensus protocol. OK, before I talk about Pala, I want to quickly mention the approach that's used by the previous version of the Thunder protocol, right? In the previous version of the Thunder protocol, the idea is that we have the fast path and the slow chain. The slow chain is basically think of it as Ethereum as Bitcoin, but it can also be a proof of stake slow chain, right? So on the fast path, we run this voting-based protocol, like I just explained. But when the proposer crashes and the fast path doesn't have liveness, we will fall back to the slow chain. And we use the slow chain to resolve the problem and to re-elect the next proposer. And then you can re-boostrap the fast path. OK, so this is a very simple and powerful idea. One drawback is that if you use this approach to fall back to the slow chain to fix the proposer, then the proposer switch is going to take about 10 minutes. If, let's say, we use Ethereum as a slow chain. And that's rather slow. And one implication of this is that if we want the proposer to be decentralized on the fast path, it's kind of impossible because every time we switch the proposer, it's going to cause interruption for 10 minutes. And that's not going to be OK. OK, so what we want is a mechanism to allow us to rotate the proposer on the fast path in a seamless manner. And that's what I'm going to talk about. I'm going to talk about the PALA protocol. PALA is Thunder's new fast path consensus protocol. It's actually a full-fledged consensus. It gives you both consistency and liveness.  And one question you might want to ask is, since now PALA itself is a full-fledged consensus protocol, do we still need a slow chain? And the answer is, it still makes sense to have a slow chain because the slow chain is a multi-centralized backing. You can have decentralized monitoring of the fast path through the slow chain. And whenever under these extraordinary circumstances, let's say maybe the entire committee can be corrupt, in these cases you can still use the slow chain to recover. OK, so again, if you are not familiar with Thunder's current approach, it doesn't matter because the protocol I'm going to explain, as I said, is self-contained and the full-fledged consensus protocol in itself. OK, so since we are going to talk about proposal rotation, the most challenging case is if every block can allow a new proposal. And that's what we are going to stick to in this talk. We are going to assume a very simple round robbing policy. In epoch I, node I is the proposal. So if we can solve this extreme case, then the other cases are simpler. Like for instance, you can have a stability favoring policy where you only switch the proposal when the current one doesn't work. OK, but this is what we are going to stick to in this talk. OK, so let's kind of quickly recap the fast path, the one-round voting protocol we mentioned, right? And let's try to work the proposal rotation into this protocol. So as I said, the protocol goes by epochs. In every epoch, we are going to do the following, very natural. If I'm the proposer of this epoch, I will take my freshest, notarized chain, and I will propose the next block extending the freshest, notarized chain. So very natural. When people receive the proposal, they are going to vote. As I explained earlier, everyone votes uniquely in each epoch. But I'm also going to assume that when people vote on the block, they are going to check that the parent chain has been notarized. Because if the block extends from an invalid parent, you shouldn't vote on that block. OK, so the protocol goes by proposed vote. Proposed vote, very simple. Of course, it doesn't quite work yet. And what I'm going to do next is to describe the problems with this protocol and introduce two very simple fixes to this very simple protocol. And then the resulting protocol would be actually provably correct. OK, well, the nice thing is that this very simple protocol already works in an ideal world when everyone is honest. If everyone is honest, what you should expect is that as the epochs go by, these blocks get notarized one by one, and nothing will be skipped, and things are all good. But when some of these people can't be corrupt, so by the way, I forgot to mention, I'm just going to assume the committee itself will act as the proposer. I'm not going to distinguish the committee and the proposer anymore. Because the proposer is by rotation. Now, when some of these notes are corrupt, then you're running to these somewhat tricky problems. And I will use this as a running example to illustrate the problems and to introduce the two simple fixes. So let's look at this scenario. So imagine this is a notarized chain that I see during the protocol. What are the problems here? One problem is that the block number two is being skipped. There is no block number two. And another problem is that the fifth block is extending from three and not extending from four. So this actually creates a fork. What I really want to talk about is the second problem. But let me just very quickly explain the first one. So how can block two be skipped? So if proposer two is corrupt, let's say he just crashes and he didn't make any proposal. I mean, of course, no epoch two block will get notarized.  And we can do this if we just basically, we're just going to allow skipping. In a notarized chain, the epoch numbers don't have to be consecutive. You can skip. OK. But this skipping behavior kind of introduces the second problem, which is what I want to focus on. In this case, you may ask, why does the block number five extend from three and not from four? OK. So let's think about it. One very natural explanation is that perhaps the proposer five is corrupt. Although he sees block four notarized, he tries to undo block four by extending from a previous block. OK. And that's not going to be OK. And in fact, in the extreme case, if I'm malicious, I can extend from a very, very ancient block from the past. And that's not going to be OK, right? So the fix is actually very natural. This was the protocol we had earlier. And I'm just going to add an additional rule to the voting to say whenever I vote for a block, I will make sure that the parent chain is fresh enough. If this proposed block is extending from something way, way, way back in the past, I'm going to refuse to vote on it. So technically, we have to specify what it means to be fresh enough. And the most natural strongman kind of idea is to say I will compare the parent block with the freshest notarized chain I've seen so far. And I want that the parent block be at least as fresh. So this almost works, but not quite so, because one thing is that the proposal was made, let's say, half a second ago. And if I'm comparing the proposal with my current freshest notarized chain, that's kind of unfair to the proposal because a lot can have happened during that half second. I could have seen new notarized blocks during that half second. So what the protocol actually does is to have a slightly relaxed condition. Instead of comparing with the present myself, I'm going to compare the parent block with myself, but a second ago. So a second is like a parameter. It actually captures attention between consistency and life-ness. And the actual proof to show that this parameter works is it needs a little bit more work. But for the talk, I'm going to ask you to take my word for it. If you set this to be one second, it'll all work. OK, so that's the first fix. And we are almost there. We just need one additional minor fix. OK, and I'm going to use exactly the same scenario, same question, to motivate the second fix. So remember what we asked is, why does the block number 5 extend from 3 and not 4? And earlier we said, perhaps the proposal 5 is correct. Now I'm going to ask you to erase everything from your mind, forget about everything I explained, and let's start from scratch. Here's another possible explanation. It actually could be the case that proposal 5 is honest, and it is proposal 4 who is corrupt. And this scenario can also happen when proposal 4 is the bad guy. And how can it happen? Here's the concrete attack. So let's say Loki is our proposal 4. He proposes two blocks in epoch 4, the blue block to the blue guys, and the red block to the red guys. Now we have six people on the committee, so you need like four votes to have a nodarization, right? In this case, if you collect all of the honest notes votes, it's not enough to make a nodarization for either the blue or the red block, because we have three for blue and two for red. But remember that the corrupt guy also has a vote. Now if the corrupt guy votes for blue, he can have a nodarization for the blue block. And the bad thing here is that the corrupt guy is the only guy who knows a nodarization for blue. And no one else has seen a nodarization for blue yet, right? So now he can play it to his advantage. In particular, he can time the release. He can, let's say, release the last vote to a subset of the notes first. So some of the people will see nodarization for this block first before others see it. OK, so concretely, OK, so this is the only guy who knows a nodarization for the blue block. So concretely, he's going to exploit this advantage in the following way. So at some instant, the bad guy chooses one victim, in this case, Spider-Man. And he's going to tell Spider-Man a nodarization for the fourth block. OK, but at the same instant, everyone else hasn't seen a nodarization for four yet. They've only seen nodarization for the prefix up to three. So now what's going to happen is that these guys are going to vote for the block five. And because the fifth proposer is honest, and he hasn't seen a nodarization for four yet, so he's going to build this block from three, and then this block can get a nodarization in this very instant. OK, so what is problematic about this scenario? The problem here is that, suppose, at the instant when Spider-Man sees nodarization for four, if he hastily confirms block four, then he's in trouble, because at the end of the time, he'll live to discover that, in fact, this other fork survived to the end of time, and four is abandoned, right? So he risks inconsistency with the rest of the nodes at the end of time. OK, so what do we do now? Well, the moral of the story is that, like perhaps I shouldn't confirm a block the moment I see the nodarization. For me to confirm a block, not only do I want to see a nodarization for the block, I also want to note that many other people have seen a nodarization for the block, too. So I want like a higher degree of confidence. OK, so now to implement this idea, the question we have to answer is, how do I know that many other people have seen the nodarization, right? I know when I see the nodarization, but how can I tell that you guys have seen the nodarization, too? In fact, we can do this also very simply. So imagine we have two consecutive blocks, in this case, three and four, and I've seen both of them nodarize. So remember, the honest notes are only going to vote for block four if they have seen nodarization for three, right? I must see the nodarization for the parent before I vote for the block. So this means by voting for four, I'm also attesting to the fact that I've seen nodarization for three in epoch four. So whenever I see this pattern, two consecutive blocks get both getting nodarized, I can draw the conclusion that many honest people must have seen a nodarization for three in their epoch four.  So this is very nice, because for any future block, many people have seen nodarization for three very quickly, they're going to insist on the prefix ending at three, being included in any future chain. And that's how the block is going to stick around and not be lost, right? So for instance, in epoch five or any future epoch, if anyone makes a proposal, this proposal must include the prefix ending at three, otherwise people are just going to refuse to vote on it, right? Remember, people check that the parent block must be fresh enough when they cast the vote. Okay. So essentially, this motivates the second very simple fix, and all we need to do is to add the following modification to finalization, right? So remember, in Bitcoin, whenever we see a chain, we don't confirm the whole chain, we chop off the trailing six blocks. The trailing six blocks are not stable yet. And here it's a little bit similar, except that we don't chop off six blocks, right? Whenever I see a nodarized chain, and let's say the nodarized chain ends at a streak of consecutively nodarized blocks. So basically everything except the last block is final. So if at any time I see a nodarized chain ending at a streak of consecutively nodarized blocks, I only have to chop off the last one, and then the prefix is nodarized, but the prefix is final. Okay. So that's basically it. And just to quickly recap, the protocol is very simple. You go by proposed vote, proposed vote, and you need to check a couple of things when you vote. And then this very simple proposed vote-based protocol combined with this finalization rule actually gives you a provably correct consensus protocol. And I'm not going to go through the proof and to quickly conclude. In this talk, I talked about a synchronous protocol that tolerates one-third corruptions, right? For thunder's new fast path consensus, it's not too difficult to extend this protocol to the partially synchronous setting. And as I said, the protocol is extremely simple. It's like almost the most natural protocol combined with a carefully thought-out finalization rule. And what's cool about this protocol is every block requires only a single round of voting to confirm. I'm just going to... Okay. So let me just quickly conclude. Try out our test net, and also thunder is currently hiring, and we have all sorts of positions including executive-level positions like CMO and COO. And contact me if you are interested. Thanks.


Copper is an essential micronutrient that plays a critical role in many biological processes. It is also a pro-oxidant and can cause damage if not properly controlled. Recently, researchers have discovered a new type of cell death called cuproptosis, which is caused by copper binding to lipolylated enzymes in the TCA cycle. This causes protein aggregation, proteotoxicity, and eventually cell death. Cuproptosis has been linked to several diseases such as Wilson's disease, neurodegenerative disorders, and cancer. Targeting cuproptosis may be beneficial in treating these diseases. This article was authored by Liun Chen, Duan Xiaominit, and Fudi Wang.