Unrest in the Banking Industry & A Heart-Healthy Retirement
by SGL Financial
Our 2 Cents – Episode #137
Unrest in the Banking Industry & A Heart-Healthy Retirement
Another bank failure doesn’t mean a failure of the banking system. But we are talking about the very real implications that it does have. Plus, we’re sharing a listener-suggested article about how heart health should be top-of-mind as you plan for retirement.
- Gabriel’s Quote Picks of the Month:
- “It’s good to have money and the things that money can buy, but it’s also good to check up once in a while and make sure that you haven’t lost the things that money can’t buy.” – George Lorimer
- “When a man retires and time is no longer a matter of urgent importance, his colleagues generally present him with a watch, for some reason.” – RC Sherriff
- More Unrest in the Banking Industry:
- At the end of last year, First Republic was the nation’s 14th-largest bank. As of May 1, the bank had failed.
- How did the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank lead to a 97% plunge in First Republic’s stock?
- With some larger banks attempting to save First Republic by infusing billions of dollars into it, how did it still fail?
- Biggest takeaway of the current uncertainty in the banking sector: diversification of deposits.
- A Heart-Healthy Retirement:
- Although a highly-prevalent cause of death in the U.S., why is heart disease under-discussed in the media?
- What makes retirees within a year of transitioning from work 40% more likely to have a heart attack?
- How having “a well-written retirement plan equals better health and wealth.”
Request Your Free Consultation Today
847.499.3330
Podcast Transcript
Announcer: You are listening to Our 2 cents with the team from SGL Financial, Building Wealth for Life. Steve Lewit is the president of SGL Financial and Gabriel Lewit is the CEO. They’re here to discuss all the latest in financial news, trends, strategies, and more.
Gabriel Lewit: Good morning, good morning and welcome to Our 2 cents.
Steve Lewit: Yes, good morning.
Gabriel Lewit: Or good afternoon, as we always say, because I don’t know what time of day you’re listening to this. For us, it’s morning here on recording day.
Steve Lewit: Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: It almost always is morning on recording day.
Steve Lewit: Yes. Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: And Steve is in a particularly enigmatic mood today.
Steve Lewit: You think I’m an enigma.
Gabriel Lewit: You’re a special…
Steve Lewit: I have-
Gabriel Lewit: … puzzling piece of person, human.
Steve Lewit: I have diverse psychological and personal interests.
Gabriel Lewit: Guys and gals, what you can’t see is that prior to our show starting here, he was humming like a wild man.
Steve Lewit: I was warming-
Gabriel Lewit: He was humming random things. I thought there was something going wrong with him for a second, but he seems to be okay.
Steve Lewit: No, I was warming up my voice for the shoe. Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: The shoe.
Steve Lewit: The shoe. The great show. Good morning, everybody.
Gabriel Lewit: Yes. Well, we hope you are doing great. And we’ve got a couple of interesting topics here lined up for you today. It is a new month. It’s May.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: My birthday month.
Steve Lewit: Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: Which you probably remembered, right?
Steve Lewit: May 30th.
Gabriel Lewit: Yes.
Steve Lewit: 13th.
Gabriel Lewit: 30th. Come on. You had it on the first go. You got to go with your gut.
Steve Lewit: May 30th, right?
Gabriel Lewit: I just said yes.
Steve Lewit: Oh, I was right.
Gabriel Lewit: May 30th.
Steve Lewit: I’m really bad at birthdays.
Gabriel Lewit: You are.
Steve Lewit: I know.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Many birthdays where I got no gifts.
Steve Lewit: Well, you don’t tell me what you want. I keep asking you, what do you want?
Gabriel Lewit: Actually, I used to tell you what I wanted and then you would just not get it for me, and my hopes would get crushed.
Steve Lewit: I’m sorry, son. So I still love you though.
Gabriel Lewit: Of course. Of course. Alrighty. So actually, to kick off this new month, we’ve got a couple of interesting humorous quotes for you.
Steve Lewit: We always have the bank failure.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, yes.
Steve Lewit: Are we going to talk about that?
Gabriel Lewit: We are going to talk about the bank failure, but let’s start with something a little more fun first.
Steve Lewit: Okay.
Gabriel Lewit: Keep our listeners entertained. I think that’s important. Are you ready?
Steve Lewit: I’m in.
Gabriel Lewit: So, we had to look him up. George Lorimer, who producer Katie said, was an American journalist. Yes. George Lorimer says it’s good to have money in the things that money can buy, but it’s also good to check up once in a while and make sure that you haven’t lost the things that money can’t buy.
Steve Lewit: George, very profound. What can’t money buy? Money can’t buy-
Gabriel Lewit: Health, which we’re going to talk about on today’s show. There’s a little lead in for us there.
Steve Lewit: Oh, I see.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay. Health, time.
Steve Lewit: Money can’t buy time.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, one would argue some money can buy some time.
Steve Lewit: Some time.
Gabriel Lewit: But generally speaking, money can’t buy time.
Steve Lewit: Cannot buy happiness, cannot buy peace of mind.
Gabriel Lewit: Yes and no.
Steve Lewit: How can money buy peace?
Gabriel Lewit: Sometimes just having money gives people peace of mind.
Steve Lewit: That’s true. That is true. I’m good on that. I’m down.
Gabriel Lewit: Wisdom.
Steve Lewit: Can’t buy wisdom. Common sense.
Gabriel Lewit: Definitely can’t buy common sense. Might even hurt common sense.
Steve Lewit: In fact, most of the time. Yeah. I would wonder about that.
Gabriel Lewit: But I like this quote because you all know this. Our whole theme here motto, philosophy at SGL Financial is that money is about more than just money. It’s about how it impacts your life, your health, your wealth, your family and friendships, your meaning and purpose. And we call those the four dimensions of real wealth. And ultimately, the idea is that money should support you in those and help improve or enhance those different areas. But as this quote is very apt to say, it doesn’t necessarily have… Sometimes the best things in life are free and they are not money related. And it’s good to step back and assess those things from time to time.
Steve Lewit: Well, we both know people that have a lot of money that are miserable and people that have no money are really happy.
Gabriel Lewit: Indeed.
Steve Lewit: And vice versa.
Gabriel Lewit: So, George, we liked your quote. I don’t think he’s… He’s not alive anymore, right? Yeah. So George, wherever you are.
Steve Lewit: Thank you, George.
Gabriel Lewit: We appreciate your quote. Still getting good use out of it today.
Steve Lewit: Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay. Our next quote for today is also, we had to look him up. Who is he again, Katie?
Steve Lewit: He’s a writer.
Gabriel Lewit: You go to these quote sites, and they just tell you people’s names as if you know who they are.
Steve Lewit: He’s an English writer.
Gabriel Lewit: English writer. That’s right.
Steve Lewit: An English writer.
Gabriel Lewit: RC Sheriff.
Steve Lewit: RC is an English writer. And that’s all I know about RC.
Gabriel Lewit: That is all we know.
Steve Lewit: He writes.
Gabriel Lewit: RC says-
Steve Lewit: Or wrote, he’s gone too.
Gabriel Lewit: When a man retires and time is no longer a matter of urgent importance, his colleagues generally present him with a watch for some reason.
Steve Lewit: That is so funny. It’s like you retired, it used to be in a company where you work 50 years and you’re retiring, and what do they give you a watch?
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. When time is no longer over.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. That’s the last thing on earth I want to run my life by is a watch for the rest of my life. Very funny.
Gabriel Lewit: I see that. I think I’ve seen a couple TV shows where somebody’s retiring and they get presented with a watch. So I don’t know if that’s still as prevalent today as it used to be.
Steve Lewit: Well, most people don’t stay with companies 40 years anymore.
Gabriel Lewit: That’s true. Sad state of affairs.
Steve Lewit: Yep. Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: All right. So hopefully you enjoyed those quotes. Just trying to lighten things up to kick off our show here for you.
Steve Lewit: I like RC’s quote better than the other guy. Lorimer.
Gabriel Lewit: You’re going to pit them against one another, huh?
Steve Lewit: I’m going to rank them.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay.
Steve Lewit: Yep.
Gabriel Lewit: All right. Well, to kick off our show here, Steve mentioned it. We’re going to talk a little bit about what’s trending in the news this week, which is, and don’t panic here when you hear this if you hadn’t heard this already, but another bank failure. Okay. And why are we talking about it? Well, because you’re going to hear about it and we want to continue to ease your concerns and give you some additional peace of mind about what this means and how it may impact you. So the news of this week is that First Republic, which is a fairly large bank, I believe out of California also. Is that where it’s from, Mr. Lewit?
Steve Lewit: No, I don’t know. That’s interesting.
Gabriel Lewit: Let’s see here. Let’s see if it tells us where First Republic was.
Steve Lewit: Can you look that up real quick?
Gabriel Lewit: Yes. Branches in high income communities such as Beverly Hills, Brentwood, Santa Monica, Napa Valley, California.
Steve Lewit: Now, here’s the deal. First Republic was on the watch list right from the failure of SVB.
Gabriel Lewit: Yes.
Steve Lewit: So, this is not a surprise.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, so if you recall, I think it was a month ago or so.
Steve Lewit: Yep.
Gabriel Lewit: We talked about SVB, Silicon Valley Bank was a bank failure out in California and some of the different causes that were basically a part of why that occurred. But since then there has been of course, some unrest and some uncertainty in the banking sector. And so following the SVB collapse, First Republic stock had plunged more than 97%.
Steve Lewit: Yep.
Gabriel Lewit: Because their investors were worried about the state of their banking relationship with First Republic Bank.
Steve Lewit: Well, so here’s the deal guys, is that the failure of SVB is because they had a very narrow clientele of venture of small companies that needed money. I’m not going to go through that again, but it wasn’t a broadly diversified consumer base. And First Republic is the same deal. They had very, very wealthy people that they attracted money from wealthy people by providing them with good mortgage rates. And they said, if you put your wealth with us, we’ll give you great mortgage rates. So they had a very narrow wealthy group of people. And what did these people do once when SVB failed? They started taking their money out of First Republic.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, and so here’s interesting about this also that you’re spot on. That’s part of what occurred. And then because of the reporting and regulatory requirements of banks and publicly traded companies, they were required to report their financial strength and balances and updates in all of this information at the end of the first quarter, which was recently released. And so they reported that they had lost almost half or slightly more than half of their deposits during the first quarter of this year.
Steve Lewit: And that’s a disaster for a bank.
Gabriel Lewit: And so, then what happens is, because of the reporting, not that people didn’t already know this, but then people really know this and then they rush to pull out even more.
Steve Lewit: That’s right.
Gabriel Lewit: So sometimes transparency, I mean, it’s a good thing, but it’s also interesting because it can create emotional….
Steve Lewit: Now in the system-
Gabriel Lewit: Chain reactions.
Steve Lewit: Folks, understand this. There are safeguards in the system. So banks were putting money into First Republic to try and save it when they could no longer save it because the withdrawals were just too, see, when a bank takes money out, then when the depositors take money out, the bank has to sell its securities that backed those deposits. And right now you’re selling the selling them at a loss, which is what happened to SVB. So the system says, we’re going to try and support you, but we can’t support you. We’re going to go into receivership. And when a bank goes into receivership, then the way it works is other banks start, buy it up.
Gabriel Lewit: So that’s the follow-up to this. The second piece of this is that it got seized by the FDIC.
Steve Lewit: Yep.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay. And they took control and immediately that weekend sold it to JP Morgan Chase.
Steve Lewit: That’s right. That’s right.
Gabriel Lewit: Who promised to take over all the deposits and make everybody whole.
Steve Lewit: And that’s the way the system works. This is a banks fail. This is not unusual for a bank to fail.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, I would push back on you there.
Steve Lewit: It’s unusual to have-
Gabriel Lewit: These are more higher profile banks.
Steve Lewit: Well, because they’re high net worth banks. You don’t hear about the other banks that are-
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, your tiny little mom and pop, but doesn’t have much of an impact on the system. But when you’re talking about banks with a hundred billion or more of assets, it tends to create a little bit more stir in the industry.
Steve Lewit: Well, yes, it’s worth looking at. It doesn’t worry me at all because that’s way the system is working, the way it’s supposed to work. If a bank fails, the depositors are insecure because in other banks, just like in the insurance business.
Gabriel Lewit: Typically, the depositors are insured. However, in this case, 70% of depositors were above the FTIC insurance limit. So in theory, had JP Morgan Chase not swooped to buy the bank, there was risk there for those holders.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, definitely.
Gabriel Lewit: So, we’re going to talk a little bit about just not to beat the same bell over and over and over again here about the importance of FTIC insurance.
It’s being split across.
Steve Lewit: It’s beat the same drum-
Gabriel Lewit: Drum.
Steve Lewit: Not the same bell.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, I was going to say horizon. And I’m like, I’m trying to not use that phrase because I don’t like it.
Steve Lewit: It’s a terrible phrase.
Gabriel Lewit: It gets stuck in your head from whenever you first heard it.
Steve Lewit: You don’t beat a bell. You ring a bell.
Gabriel Lewit: As I said, I was looking for the right word. Drum. Yeah, beat the drum.
Steve Lewit: Beat the drum.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay, thank you.
Steve Lewit: You’re welcome.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, but my point was there-
Steve Lewit: There was a point, folks. I’m sorry.
Gabriel Lewit: You took me off. My train of thought.
Steve Lewit: I know.
Gabriel Lewit: Is that it’s important to.. There is a system, there is insurance coverage for people, but you’ve got to follow those rules. And if you go above those limits, you have a little bit more outside risk, even though you’re correct, in most cases, somebody else will swoop in and take over the assets of the struggling company.
Steve Lewit: Gabriel, it’s similar. It’s not the same as the system in insurance companies because many people have their assets with insurance companies and insurance companies from time to time will fail. Not because of the assets, because they make bad business decisions. And the way it’s set up is that, okay, the insurance company failed, but then there are other insurance companies that come in and buy that block of business. So I guess the point is, yes, it’s interesting, it’s concerning to a point, but there’s a lot of fear being registered on some channels on the news.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, you and I always say this. News loves negative. That’s a short way of saying, news loves negative, they love negative things. This is negative. It draws clicks-
Steve Lewit: Get people people’s attention. Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: The more people worry, the more they click and read the follow-up articles. I mean, negative news sells. And so we are here to give you a little perspective, let you know that this still doesn’t mean there’s any sort of mass spread banking failure lurking around the horizon. But it’s something just to cause you to take another look at your savings, your cash, making sure you’re following best practices there. And by and large, as you’ve mentioned, these really, really, really big banks, Bank of America, Chase, they’re so diversified in their deposit holders way, way, way different story than SVB First Republic and well other ones, Silicon Bank or SS, there’s another one. Forget the name.
Steve Lewit: Yes. And I think one I read in the article, Gabriel, was he said that someone said that this is a bank failure, not a failure of the bank system.
Gabriel Lewit: Which is correct.
Steve Lewit: Which is really, really a good way of putting it.
Gabriel Lewit: Very, very well stated. Now what’s also interesting about this, just one last piece of I think interesting, First Republic was actually still profitable. The bank itself wasn’t struggling in the traditional financial sense.
Steve Lewit: No. They just had to run on.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. And what people don’t always realize is when you deposit your money in the bank, they’re not just taking that money and stashing it in a vault somewhere and dollar bills and doing nothing with it in case you come back to pull out your deposit later, they are doing other things with that money to generate return, interest. They lend it out. They do mortgages, they do credit cards, they do all sorts of other things.
Steve Lewit: I think I read somewhere; a bank keeps like 2 cents on the dollar.
Gabriel Lewit: So, there’s a reason why run on the banks can cause otherwise profitable, successful businesses to go under, which is kind of interesting and crazy at the same time. So that’s why some of the bigger banks at what they have call more diversification of depositors can be safer in many, many ways. Not just because of their size and their scale, but the diversity of the type of clientele that they have.
Steve Lewit: Well said.
Gabriel Lewit: Yep.
Steve Lewit: Yep.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay. Well that is all that we wanted to share with you about that. If you have questions on banks on what’s going on out there with First Republic, if you have questions about your FDIC insurance coverage, you want us to help review that with you, give us a call. You can reach us here at 847-499-3330 or go to sglfinancial.com or email us at info@sglfinancial.com. And of course we would and will answer your questions for sure. You didn’t say it.
Steve Lewit: Surely.
Gabriel Lewit: Yes.
Steve Lewit: Surely.
Gabriel Lewit: Here it is.
Steve Lewit: Surely.
Gabriel Lewit: I was waiting for it.
Steve Lewit: Surely, we will. I said for surely.
Gabriel Lewit: If you weren’t on one of our last shows, we give each other a hard time from time to time, and I was giving Steve some flack about saying surely response to everything. Oh, also funny little comment here, Katelyn, producer Katie, mentioned in the last episode where I was talking about how my voice wasn’t very good and I said that I couldn’t even meow. And after the episode, she’s like, “People have no clue what you’re talking about. Why would you be meowing?” I said, “Wow, you’re right. I don’t think people would have any context there.” So let me give you some context in case you listen to last episode and we’re wondering about that here.
Steve Lewit: I was thinking you are an enigma.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, not as much as you. No. So I lost my voice and my daughter is one of her favorite songs to sing is Pumpkin Jack, which she goes around the house seeing in Pumpkin Jack, which is, there’s a pumpkin and a pumpkin patch, and his name is Pumpkin Jack. And I’m not going to sing it for you.
Steve Lewit: Come on.
Gabriel Lewit: No, no, no. You can Google it. And then it goes through this little chorus where he says he squeals like a bat, meows like a cat, squeaks like a door. And then it does a little adapt to each one. So when it does meows like a cat, then you hear a little meow, which I can now do.
Steve Lewit: Look at you.
Gabriel Lewit: And so, my point was when I was saying, I was telling everybody I can’t meow when people ask us how I was doing and giving that explanatory backstory, which I realized I forgot the backstory and just…
Steve Lewit: Yeah. I wondered about it when I came in and you said, “Dad, dad, I can’t meow.” And it’s like, “Well, okay, I’m sorry to hear that son.”
Gabriel Lewit: Yes. I don’t moonlight as a cat in my spare time. I thought it was very funny. So I meant to bring it up on today’s show and give it a little context, which we now have.
Steve Lewit: Thank you.
Gabriel Lewit: All right.
Steve Lewit: Thank you very much.
Gabriel Lewit: Thank you producer Katie for noticing that. Otherwise, people will just think I’m somebody that goes around meowing.
Steve Lewit: They’re all worried about you.
Gabriel Lewit: Yes, yes, yes. Okay. Well, as a little kind of interlude here, Steve, you picked out a little comment about our city of Chicago.
Steve Lewit: Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: All right. Now I don’t want to get into the whole crime thing. Everybody knows Chicago’s going through some issues there right now that they’re trying to deal with. And that’s the kind of the less exciting, entertaining stuff. We don’t want to get into too much negative news here on our show, but we got some positive news for you. That our great city of Chicago has a top-rated park.
Steve Lewit: Well-
Gabriel Lewit: This was your article so I’m going to let you run with it.
Steve Lewit: All right. So I thought it was really interesting. So they sent out a survey and to get the top-rated park and there were 10… Oh, the parks that were included. Well, Millennium Park.
Gabriel Lewit: Millennial.
Steve Lewit: I’m not wearing my glasses. Douglas Park, Jackson, I didn’t even know all these parks. Jackson Park, Humboldt Park, Lincoln Park. Garfield Park, Washington Park. And Grant Park. And those are, I know some of them. And those are really a strong list of parks. So folks, who do you think was number one? Millennium Park, Douglas, Jackson, Humboldt, Lincoln.
Gabriel Lewit: Is it Millennium or Millennial? Now I’m confused.
Steve Lewit: It says Millennium here.
Gabriel Lewit: Millennium.
Steve Lewit: Garfield, Washington, Grant. Then the second, then the elimination was, came out on top. The first round came Millennium, Humboldt, Lincoln and Grant Park out of all of those. So those were the top four. Millennium, Humboldt, Lincoln and Grant. I had my top one going in. I’ll speed this up.
Gabriel Lewit: You’re really going to go through all four rounds of the-
Steve Lewit: Yeah. And then the next round was between Millennium and Lincoln Park. Those were the two finalists. Millennium and Lincoln Park. And the winner is to my great surprise, was Lincoln Park.
Gabriel Lewit: How could that be to you? I used to live in Lincoln Park. It’s amazing.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. But Millennium is just a magnific. It’s never I’ve never been to Lincoln Park. I don’t think I’ve ever been there.
Gabriel Lewit: Have you been to the zoo?
Steve Lewit: Yes. Is that Lincoln Park?
Gabriel Lewit: Lincoln Park Zoo.
Steve Lewit: Oh, that’s great. Yeah. So that is the number one park folks in Chicago. So make sure you-
Gabriel Lewit: I do wonder how much the zoo has to do because it’s for being a free zoo.
Steve Lewit: I bet it is. I bet that’s the reason.
Gabriel Lewit: It’s a pretty cool free zoo.
Steve Lewit: I forgot the zoo was there.
Gabriel Lewit: And they got a little plant. They got a little plant building with all sorts of pretty plants.
Steve Lewit: With all sorts of pretty plants.
Gabriel Lewit: I don’t know. I don’t know what you call it.
Steve Lewit: Arboretum or something like that.
Gabriel Lewit: It’s like a mini… Yeah, maybe. I don’t know. I forget what it’s called. But it’s got water and plants and you walk through it and it’s cute. It’s like a little… It’s right next to the zoo.
Steve Lewit: Do you want a meow for us again?
Gabriel Lewit: No. No. And then, yeah, they have little ponds with boats, you can paddle boats that you can kind of go around and you got the skyline right in the background. You’re right by the beach.
Steve Lewit: Nice.
Gabriel Lewit: Is great.
Steve Lewit: You know more about it than I do.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, I used to live one block from Lincoln Park.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. I forgot you did that.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, exactly. So I did not get invited to take the survey. What’s producer Katie’s looking at me. What’s it? The Lincoln Park Conservatory. That might be it. Yes. Exotic plants. Yeah. They have plants, as I said.
Steve Lewit: And water.
Gabriel Lewit: Plants and water.
Steve Lewit: Plants and water.
Gabriel Lewit: The zoo’s got animals and people.
Steve Lewit: And food.
Gabriel Lewit: And food, yes. We’re really dumbing things down to their base level here. Alrighty. So for our next topic here was he actually wanted me to-
Steve Lewit: We’re supposed to impress people, so they give us our money. Trust us with their money.
Gabriel Lewit: We’re partially here to entertain folks. You wouldn’t tune in if we were really dry, which we try really hard not to be dry.
Steve Lewit: Like water and plants.
Gabriel Lewit: Yes. So this was actually sent to me by a client and he said this, he thought this would be, it wasn’t a question, even though we have listener questions. This was a listener discussion topic, which was a recommended topic, which we’re going to talk about next. But he wanted me to shout out, give him a shout-out on the show. So, Tom J., shout out to you for the topic here that we are going to discuss, and we appreciate you sending it over to us. It’s about heart health and your retirement wellbeing.
Steve Lewit: Yes. I thought this was where you were going, or when we were talking about watches and time after retirement. I thought you were going to segue right into this.
Gabriel Lewit: I had all sorts of segues planned for today’s show.
Steve Lewit: Okay.
Gabriel Lewit: And I used a few others for other segues.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. Heart health is… A lot of people die of heart attacks.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, now the article here that we are going to reference from has a nice introduction. It says, with retirement, most people worry about having enough money and funding healthcare. But did you know that your heart health should really be at the top of your list of retirement concerns?
Steve Lewit: Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: And it says, humans often worry about the wrong things. And it gives a couple of examples here. Because for example, putting the pandemic aside, research shows that the media puts way, way more attention on things that can causes of death or things that can hurt you, but not nearly enough on the actual number one killer in the US, which is heart disease.
Steve Lewit: Men and women.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah.
Steve Lewit: So, a lot of people feel your heart disease is a man thing, but it’s a men and women thing.
Gabriel Lewit: So, let me give you some statistics that are here. It says causes of death in the US what Americans die from, and then what they search on versus Google, and then what the media reports. Okay. So heart disease is 30.2%. Cancer is 29.5. Road incidents, falls accidents, 7.6%. Respiratory disease, 7.4, Alzheimer’s 5.6, stroke, 4.9. Diabetes, it gets less and less. And then you have suicide 1.8 and then some homicides and terrorism gets less and less. 0.91% and then less than 0.01%. And as far as what the actual news reports on, 22.8% of course is a very large number. It’s on homicides.
Steve Lewit: Well, you turn in-
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah.
Steve Lewit: I don’t watch the week, the nightly news because every time you get on night, the first thing they report as well, there were three people killed in Chicago.
Gabriel Lewit: All terrorism is reported 35.6% of the time, suicide, 10.6, cancer, 13.5. And heart disease has only talked about 2.5% of the time that anything negative that could hurt you or harm you or kill you is discussed.
Steve Lewit: And here’s what struck me in this article, Gabriel, that I didn’t know is that there’s a higher risk of heart attack right after you retire.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, that’s what the main and-
Steve Lewit: Is really cool.
Gabriel Lewit: Which is part of why we’re going to talk about this. Not just for the fact that staying healthy is important, but some of the connections here between retirement that I think are pretty striking that we want to talk about. But it’s interesting. You mentioned, you go on the news. I actually took a screenshot once because I was sharing it with some people, I knew about that exact thing, how crazy the news is because it just struck me as I was reading it one day and I had to take a screenshot to memorialize it. But on the front page of my computer, I took the screenshot, something like 80% of every possible link you could click. And there was like 40 links. Was something about somebody dying, getting murdered, getting shot, somebody robbed. Was just negative, negative, negative, negative, negative, negative. And it’s like, my goodness, can’t there be some positive news to report upon?
Steve Lewit: Yeah, no, t’s sad.
Gabriel Lewit: But anyways, so yeah, heart disease, very, very important. Number one thing that can harm you and kill you in retirement and otherwise. So why is it very unreported or undiscussed? I don’t know. That’s a good question.
Steve Lewit: It’s boring.
Gabriel Lewit: Maybe.
Steve Lewit: It’s boring. You take care of your heart. I mean, it’s like something everybody knows.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah.
Steve Lewit: And either you do, or you don’t. Either you exercise or you’re cognizant of it or you’re aware of it. Maybe you had some heart trouble and you’re on a better diet or you stop smoking or something.
Gabriel Lewit: So maybe it seems it’s more boring, but-
Steve Lewit: It’s not an exciting topic to me. I mean, it’s an imperative and important topic because when your heart stops beating, it’s not a good thing.
Gabriel Lewit: It’s generally not.
Steve Lewit: It’s generally a bad thing. So you want to set up conditions where you’re going to keep that heart pumping along. So exercise-
Gabriel Lewit: Well, let me give you the data point first about retirement in particular. So a study done by researchers at Harvard School of Public Health said that retirees, within a year of transitioning from work were 40% more likely to have had a heart attack or stroke than those who were still working.
Steve Lewit: That’s an incredible number. Think about it. What is it saying to you?
Gabriel Lewit: And it was most pronounced in that first year after retirement and then it leveled off after that.
Steve Lewit: And that’s because there’s tremendous stress when you go through a change of life like that. It’s like when somebody dies or you’re diagnosed with cancer or an illness of some kind, fatal illness, that stress of change from work to no work is tremendously stressful.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, and again, it is not a 4% increase. 40. So that’s huge. And they did give some reasons for it. You mentioned stress is one of them, but the biggest one here on the list, they said it can shake up your social life. And there’s so many studies done talking about how important it is to stay social. And even if you had a stressful job or emotionally unfulfilling, you might have had great coworkers that you saw every day and hey, how are you? How was your weekend? You talked to. And for many of us, especially if you’re working hard, you sometimes lose your friendships. People move away, they get busy with their families, they retire and move off elsewhere. And then you can retire and realize, wow, I’m talking to the wall. And that can be a big impact for people is realizing they no longer have a social life because of their retirement.
Steve Lewit: And part of that is looking at it a little bit differently too. So when you’re working, you have a rhythm to your life. You know you’re going to get up at six 30 or seven in the morning. It’s going to take you 45 minutes an hour to get dressed and 20 minutes to get to work. And you can get there at nine, you can have a lunch at 12. You’re going to get home at five or six or seven, sit down with a wife or your friend or your buddy or have a beer or watch a movie, go to sleep and do that. And then have the weekend to yourself. So you have this rhythm of life and rhythm in life I think is very important. And that rhythm gets abruptly changed when you retire. It takes a year to establish a new rhythm.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, it’s funny, as a parent, they say for your kids, structure is so important, but it’s also true for adults.
Steve Lewit: Well, we all have structures that sometimes we’re not aware of the structures we build for ourselves because we’re comfortable in those structures and they give us a rhythm.
Gabriel Lewit: And you say, I’m an adult who needs structure if it changes. But this data is telling you that structure can be very, very important for you. And if you lose it, that’s one of the increased risk factors. And similarly, it can also reduce your sense of purpose.
Steve Lewit: And self-worth.
Gabriel Lewit: Right? So you had that structure, it gives you goals and milestones. It gives you a retirement target to aim for. It gives you something that you’re working towards as a big goal, which can give your life a lot of purpose.
Steve Lewit: When you’re working.
Gabriel Lewit: When you’re working. And then the moment you stop working, you can feel like a ship without the rudder where you’re saying, what is my goal now? Well, my goal was retirement. That was it.
Steve Lewit: I love working for two reasons. First and foremost is I love what I do. So retirement isn’t on my radar, but I often think about it, you and I talk about it. You say to me, “Dad, you think I’ll ever retire?” And I’ll go home and say, “Would I retire? What would I do?” But work, not only do I love it, but it does give me a sense of purpose and a place to go or, and people that talk, I have so many good relationships with all of our clients. It’s a center of my life in a way. So if I retired, I would have to set up a new structure. I think about it, what would I do? I probably attend writing classes. I would set-
Gabriel Lewit: Bingo.
Steve Lewit: Bingo. Yeah, no, I would set that all up before I retire.
Gabriel Lewit: Pickleball is the big one these days. Everyone’s a pickleball.
Steve Lewit: That is a-
Gabriel Lewit: I know you don’t-
Steve Lewit: That is a gross… an insult to tennis.
Gabriel Lewit: To the tennis man.
Steve Lewit: Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: Pickleball.
Steve Lewit: Pickleball.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. So you’re spot on. There’s, there’s many things that you can do. And we’re not going to get into the details of them. Of course, eating healthy, keeping your stress low. Financial stress low is a big part of that. Social group activities, getting out there.
Steve Lewit: Classes, learn-
Gabriel Lewit: Meeting other people.
Steve Lewit: Learn new stuff, and I would put on the top of that list, and I believe this absolutely, exercise, exercise, exercise. It will lengthen your life and give you a better quality of life.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Also finding a purpose is what’s recommended here. So we had a client once that those sticks in my head that I went to visit him once at his house many, many, many years ago. And just to pick something up along the way. And he was like, oh, I’ve got this massive boat that I’m building in my garage.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, I remember him.
Gabriel Lewit: And that was what he did. And this isn’t a small project, this is a big… But it gave him something to do every day.
Steve Lewit: He built racing boats, and he was rather good at it.
Gabriel Lewit: Yes. So it is finding some hobby, it’s doing things that’ll give you purpose. And then of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that this article also said, have a detailed written financial and retirement plan.
Steve Lewit: Did it say that?
Gabriel Lewit: It is right here. I’m not making it up.
Steve Lewit: That’s not an advertisement.
Gabriel Lewit: I will literally read it for you here.
Steve Lewit: Really?
Gabriel Lewit: Only 30% of Americans have a long-term financial plan that includes savings and investment goals. However, research finds that people who have a formal written retirement plan are more likely to feel competent and less stressed. In fact, they are more than twice as likely to feel very prepared for retirement than those without a written plan. Less stress equals better health and a well written retirement plan equals better health and wealth.
Steve Lewit: So, we are contributing to heart health in America. I feel good.
Gabriel Lewit: As you should.
Steve Lewit: I feel great.
Gabriel Lewit: As you should. Mr. Steve Lewit.
Steve Lewit: Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: No, no. I will be happy to send you this article too, if you’d like it. But not just us saying that it’s good for your health, but data is saying that financial planning and retirement planning is in fact good for your health.
Fantastic.
Steve Lewit: Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: And wealth.
Steve Lewit: And wealth as it says.
Gabriel Lewit: All right.
Steve Lewit: Is that it?
Gabriel Lewit: That’s all we got time for today.
Steve Lewit: Are we done?
Gabriel Lewit: We’re done. I think we covered a wide range today.
Steve Lewit: We did. We were all over the place.
Gabriel Lewit: We went to the moon and back. So we thank you for joining our show, for listening. We’ve had a couple comments about sharing shows with family members that you’ve said, Hey, we’ve listened to this podcast. It’s interesting. You should check it out too. We appreciate you doing that.
Steve Lewit: Absolutely. Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: We love doing the shows. We want you to come back every week and that’s why we keep striving to find more entertaining and interesting content for you. So if you do have ideas like Tom, thank you so much for sending over things that you’d like us to talk about. We want this show to be for you and have a wonderful, wonderful day and we’ll talk to you on the next one.
Steve Lewit: Be well everybody. Are we going to get a parting meow?
Gabriel Lewit: A meow? Meow.
Steve Lewit: All right.
Gabriel Lewit: See, there you go.
Steve Lewit: Be well everybody. Thank you.
Gabriel Lewit: See you on the next one. Bye-Bye.
Steve Lewit: Bye.
Announcer: Thanks for listening to our 2 cents with Steve and Gabriel Lewit. For any questions about your finances, give SGL a call at (847) 499-3330 or visit us on the web at sglfinancial.com and be sure to subscribe to join us on next week’s episode.
Prerecorded Voice: Investment Advisory Services are offered through SGL Financial, LCC an SEC Registered Investment Advisor. Insurance and other financial products are offered separately through individually licensed and appointed agents.
