President Frank Perez welcomed everyone in person and on Zoom to the Centerville Rotary Club and led the group in the Pledge of Allegiance. Brian Hayes shared a prayer with the group.
There were 31 in attendance at Yankee Trace plus 2 on Zoom.
Our visitors today included Wyatt Thorp, Brad Thorp’s youngest son who now works for Brad and Pat Turnbull, Centerville Public Works Director
Dick Hoback shared that he recently became friends with our former exchange student, Saloni Bagwani on Facebook and discovered she has been working to educate others about COVID. There are several videos where she interviews doctors about how they are handling COVID-19 in India.
Frank reminded everyone that our leadership change over celebration will be here at Yankee Trace on June 24th. It will be an evening meeting with cocktails at 6:00 pm and dinner around 6:30 pm. We will present Paul Harris pins, Service Above Self awards and name our Rotarian of the Year. We will also induct our leadership team for 2021-2022. As a special “thank you” to our members, we will be providing everyone with a drink ticket so the first round will be on the club.
Our Happy Bucks recipient this quarter is Luke5 Ministries. You can send your check to the club mailbox: Centerville Rotary Club, PO Box 41431, Centerville, OH 45441-0431
Pat Beckel was our Sergeant at Arms today and searched the room for someone to fine, only to have the first Happy Bucks be a fine director toward him:
- Harvey Smith saw Pat’s picture in a magazine that lists businesses and asked that he be fined.
- Elda Gotos-Gay was happy to get a new car.
- Sofie Ameloot announced her daughter arrived in Belgium safely, completed her COVID quarantine and is now with the family she will be working with while speaking French daily.
- Susan Schnell is happy for her daughter who graduated from Centerville High School.
- Ron Hollenbeck announced he visited a couple of Rotary clubs this week and discovered the Northmont Club is celebrating their 50th anniversary next year, and the Tipp City Club will celebrate their 100th anniversary next year
- Gerry Eastabrooks was just happy.
- Mark Febus was happy.
- Carol Sue Galloway was happy to be leaving tomorrow for a lake in Georgia.
- Brad Thorp was happy to have Wyatt here.
- Don Overly was looking forward to presentation at today’s meeting.
- Phil Raynes was watching the PGA and is glad he’s not the only one having 3 foot putting problems.
- Chuck King was happy to have spent a week at Mackinaw Island.
- Jeff Senney said he had good golf games on Friday and Monday, laid 15 yards of mulch, and then went to Kroger where not many were wearing masks. Happy we’re getting back to normal.
- Wayne Davis was happy to be seated at the power table and for our guests today.
- Pat Beckel gave thanks to wife for giving him some cash so he could pay his fines.
- Pat Turnbull was happy to announce his daughter is graduating from High School, and her 1st year of college is already paid through scholarships.
- Frank Perez was happy to have checked out the wedding venue in Philadelphia for his son’s wedding next fall.
Our speakers this week were club members Brad Thorp and Dan Johnson to share their knowledge on the economy and investing.
Brad started by giving this disclaimer - “Neither of us can predict the future, but we can help people prepare for what the future might hold.”
He gave some definitions:
- Dow Jones Industrial Average is the index that measures the stock performance composite of the 30 largest held companies in the US.
- Standard & Poor’s or S&P is the Index that measures the stock performance composite of the 500 largest publicly owned companies in the US
- GDP or Gross Domestic Product measures the value of US economy or market value of all goods and services produces in a specific time period.
On February 12, 2020, the Dow reached 29,500 for first time ever. 5.5 weeks later is had dropped to 18,000; most concentrated selloff in US history.
GDP fell down by 33% during same time. By comparison, during the Great Recession it fell by only 8%.
Why? We had a forced recession to protect the US economy during the health crisis.
32 weeks later, the market had fully recovered, the fastest ever recovery.
And the GDP grew 33% in last quarter.
Dan then shared the timeless principals of investing:
- Financial Plan
- Asset Allocation
- Bucket Approach
- A Black Swan event is when many thought it would happen but didn’t know how or when it would happen such as COVID. To be prepared for a Black Swan event, you need to take a step back and look at the financial plan in place, and be sure to have something to fall back on.
- Asset allocation - balance your assets between stocks, bonds, and cash.
- Bucket approach - have assets divided in time periods based on short term, mid term, and long term goals.
Pumping money into economy helps drive inflation.
Amazon, Google, Netflix, Microsoft - where growth was last year which is no surprise. Many people purchased online for the first time ever.
We are pushing $29 trillion in debt due to the stimulus, which is how the government keeps the country from going into a recession. Markets are cyclical by nature, so it is unrealistic to think it won’t happen at some point.
Majority of US debt is on the Federal Government with the remaining held by US investors. China is large holder, but a very small portion. Media often exaggerates this for political statement.
What is Bitcoin’s? Decentralized currency. There is a set number of coins in circulation, with no federal reserve. Block chain currency. Crypto currency.
Big swing due to speculation - buying because I think I can sell it to someone else for a quick buck. Ripe for manipulation because not very well understood yet.
Feds keep interest rates low to keep economy stimulated. Lots of political pressure on Feds to determine interest rates. Inflation now around 4%.
Had 14% unemployment, but now lower than it was before the pandemic.
The tightening of workforce drives wages up; labor market keeping up with real estate purchasing. People feel more confident to spend.
50% of Federal money is spent on entitlement programs like Social Security. So many people (Boomers) are no longer contributing to the economy, but will be cared for through these programs for many years.
Brad noted there is always something to worry about! What they strive for is to understand the Individual goal of the person, in what time, comfort of risk, and what might happen between now and then to get to your goal.
People living longer and are worried about running out of money. Good planning now helps alleviate the worry. Pushes retirees into having more stock in portfolio, need to have an asset that will keep pace.
Brad and Dan’s final thoughts: Take emotion out of investing, and stick to a plan.
President Frank Perez thanked Brad and Dan for the great program and led us in reciting of the 4 Way Test.
