Category: advice and tips

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advice and tips

Online privacy: some minor struggle I had today

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I was fairly active online, including on LinkedIn. I started on LinkedIn on fall 2008, about 16 or 17 years ago: mainly for job and networking purpose. But recently I noticed a minor problem I had after I posted my Calendly link. And I liked to get back to the LinkedIn post and edit it: unfortunatley there is no good UI to get to my post. As you can see, the google caches the wrong linkedIn post (probably same month).

Mar 6, 2024 — How to create an #appointment #button in #LinkedIn without #premium sub. I put my #calendly link – https://lnkd.in/gAWsYrPM (this is the link goes to my Calendly link) as a link in my …

I also thought about maybe I posted the link at another person’s post as comment. I looked manually and didn’t see my name there.

After some struggle, I finally found the place in Calendly that I can turn off the meeting invitation.

My lesson here IS: post or comment on LinkedIn less. One reason is it’s impossible to go back and edit (endless scrolling) to get the old post. Another reason is because LinkedIn is usually for work or look for work. Saying too much there may not be a good thing for work or when I need to look for work 🙂

PS: this reminds me of a similar thing. Once, to be precise twice, I posted my children’s piano teacher contact information in a FB group, as I was under the “wrong” assumption that he was interested to have more students. And he found out it’s me and told me to delete the post (comment to be precise). I did. But at first it seems I only deleted one post. Later he told me he still got calls, and I searched the FB, and deleted the other post (or comment). Comparatively speaking, FB is better than LinkedIn in terms of search capability.

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advice and tips Life Life Tips

Don’t always dwelling on the past 不要总是留恋过去

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对过去的留恋可能是人之常情，尤其是对上了年纪的人（大概过了50岁的人可以说是上了年纪？），还有一些曾经辉煌，现在落魄的人。

有一个例子是鲁迅笔下的祥林嫂。实际生活中其实这种情况不少。我感觉我自己有时候也会说/想：想当年，我年轻的时候，blah blah blah.

最近 formerly executive assistant at square, sorry I could not find her profile on LinkedIn now, as I unfollowed her recently. Due to LinkedIn’s algorithm (or AI), it seems quite hard for me to find her again (refer to my recent blog post re: LinkedIn’s search-ability).

PS (02-09-2025) I gave it more thought: I think self pity (e.g., 祥林嫂) and similarly self victimization are probably traits or characteristics of narcism. I didn’t read the psychology behind it. Pure guess on my part.

(Update 10-28-2025) Self pity is the trait Charlie Munger talked about quite a bit, and he thinks that’s one of the most destructive traits.

Value Trap

This just reminded me of one thing or one phenomenon in the stock market or stock trading: value trap. Sometimes I got into it. The past price of stock just reflects the past. Nothing more. But sometimes, people think it a stock drops suddenly and drops a lot, they will think it’s a deal, and rush to buy it. And I have done that many times too, like today I bought some PayPal stocks. And I quickly realized it could be value trap, just like the Polaris Inc stock that I traded a while ago.

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advice and tips Chinese articles video

A list of Chinese YouTubers

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By Chinese I meant Mandarin Chinese. First, please note in this list I am not going to comment on those 键政 (literally translation: keyboard politicking, or discuss politics via keyboard, link here is from Wikipedia). Not a complete list. Will be updated from time to time. There are a few special topics such as finance and cooking, and I may add below or create separate post.

Good

(Update 05-25-2025) 行者东谈西说。Here he talked about when/how/why he started the YouTube channel (自媒体). My impression is he is based in SH, and he is very much grounded re: his content. He has background in media and design, and he wanted to create good documentaries.

Jeff科技视角: he talks a lot on technology, and sometimes he touches stocks too: such as this recent one on NVDA, and PDD. I believe Jeff is a Chinese guy who lives in Canada, and he has direct experience in the IT industry. In fact IT is probably still his day job. I don’t necessarily agree with everything he said: such as this one on AAPL (Apple Inc). He touches some interesting topic such as this one – 【第284期】从内地“奋斗逼”整顿香港职场说起

Teacher Mike 麦克老师: I noticed him during pandemic (the lockdown). He is American, and he married a girl from Shanghai, they lived in Shanghai then. They came back to the USA in year 2023. He is a YouTuber and he talks English to ESL learners. His mandarin is also very good.

This is his most recent video – I decided to go back to Shanghai – he has a nice tip on the Saily app (a cheap/economy international data roaming app by NordVPN, available on App store).

刘伟元的旅行: he is actually from my hometown (Ningbo, Zhejiang province, China). He is a travel vlogger (video blogger). This is his self intro: 大家好，我是刘伟元（旅行频道）单人单车骑行中国，自己拍摄视频，自己手机剪辑视频
无团队，无签约，希望大家能够喜欢，不要忘记订阅我喔每天中午更新旅行日常（我们视频中见哦）. He has strong Ningbo accent in his mandarin – which reminds me of my old friends in Ningbo. His recent 冬季騎行川藏中線 trip is extremely difficult. Personally, I’ve never been to Tibet. I have been to Jiuzaigou (Si’Chuan province) once about 20 years ago. This is one video – 冬季騎行川藏中線，道路結冰天黑被困雪山山頂，半夜被狼聲嚇醒 – YouTube

Since I am on the travel, I recall seeing videos from 阿軻在路上AKe on the road and this one left me impressions – 古巴最后的华人，曾经10万华人为何只剩下不到100人，发生了什么？【Last Chinese in Cuba. And I haven’t watched a lot of new videos from his channel since then though. I could watched his video on a south America country (not very well developed) but could not find the video though.

北美天馬行: a Chinese couple, who are a few years older than me, retired and are traveling full time now. They also make some money from YouTube.

TheDerekShow: I like Derek. Derek is from Tian’jin, and he talked about common topics among Asian/Chinese Americans. Sometimes he will share stories from the audience (with permission and privacy). Here is one – 作为亚裔美国人，怎么看待DEI 多元化？平权行动会变成少数人的特权吗

20岁了还没去过星巴克: I used to watch his YT videos quite a bit, especially during pandemic. I watched less recently. Don’t know why. Here is one taken in Australia.

Okay

罗小曼在西安One day in Xi’an: this is actually one of the first China YouTubers I watched (also during pandemic), but I got tired of them for two things: 1) They talked a lot about going aboard, but they never did (not even for a visit), it seems to me they are just talking about it; 2) They started to monetize via selling product in the video. The products are somewhat like “snake oil”.

Bad

Mike是麦克 : initially I found out he has some decent knowledge on China car industry (he used to be a technical od engineer in the Internal Combustion Engine powered car industry. It seems his original business is in the investors immigration arena. I understand there are many rich Chinese people want to get the US green card: demand is not an issue. The main thing here is not actually providing best service (this is similar to the financial service, or financial advisory sector), but on sales and marketing, in other words persuade potential customers so that they would believe his company (or himself) is most experienced or qualified to providing immigration consulting.

The main reason I realized his YouTube channel is bad: it seems to me he has no moral ground when he pumps cryptos (this video) and/or betting on Nvidia earnings.

If you know me in person, or if you are in my WeChat stock group chat, you may know both are big no-no for me.

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advice and tips kids

My younger kid’s Roblox AdoptMe account got hacked

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Around November 5 of last year (year 2024), my 10-year-old’s #Robox #AdoptMe account got hacked, and most of all her virtual belongings were gone. My thoughts in Mandarin Chinese via YT.

(Nov 12, 2024) Some random thoughts on the security online including the kid’s Roblox games and adults FB activities. A few weeks ago, I was a bit surprised to find out my younger daughter’s #Roblox account was hacked, and all her virtual goods and points in her AdoptMe game were stolen. I had some responsibility because she used my Gmail as the registration email and I didn’t promptly go to her account shortly after I receive an email alert that morning (someone in Kazakhstan logged into her account).

On Nov 11, I realized one post in one FB private group that I am an admin, was actual spam, about 10 days after I saw it. The scammer was trying to sell some t-shirt (spirit wear), from 1st look, appears to be legit. But after some reasoning, I determined it was a scam. I banned the offender along with 2 more similar offenders.

A few weeks ago, during the winter break, I enabled the two-factor authentication for her Roblox account, after another incident in which someone tries to break into her account when she was playing the game on iPad.

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401k and Personal Finance advice and tips Edu-and-Ladue-School kids

More on 529 plans

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About 14 or 15 years ago when my old daughter was new born, I saved some money and put it into her 529 plan. About a year later, I wrote this blog post Some questions about 529 plan.

I haven’t put in much new money into her 529 plan since the early days, and for our younger daughter I did open an account for her, but I only put in couple hundreds dollars. I know I know: but it’s not because we favorite one daughter over another. It’s mostly because the money is tight, and I think 529 plan had one downside: the money can only be used for higher education (college etc.). For me flexibility is important as I was also thinking about retirement – I mean quitting my 9 to 5 job, and potentially do something else I would enjoy more: and potentially with a smaller paycheck too.

529 plan had some change to the rules recently. This is a big one: You can now transfer some 529 amounts to a Roth IRA.

Note I am late to the Roth IRA party too. Actually I opened a Roth IRA (my first) at Robinhood App last year (after the tax day). So my one year anniversary will come up this April 🙂

College cost, along with healthcare cost and housing are top three most expensive things Americans pay in last 20+ years. If there is anything we can alleviate or do, we should.

Traditionally I am under impression as in America 18 year old is considered adult (or beginning of adulthood), American parents share some college cost with the kids, in general or on average. I have seen two extremes: parents pay all; parents pay nothing. I also saw two kinds of students too: those who work hard and do their best; those who quit and had to drop their classes or get an “F”.

There is no one size fit all for the college cost (sharing cost, or not) among all the families. For me personally, I would try my best to pay off my kids (I have two) college cost (tuition plus living cost). Anything they earn: scholarship, part time job are icing on the cake.

That’s the main motivation factor behind my investing and uber driving (or other side gigs, ideally $500 an hour consulting will work out better 🙂

FAQs

Do I have to open 529 plan in my state (the state I live in)?

No. See this Answers to Questions about 529 Plans in Different States for longer answer.

What state plan do you recommend?

Ohio 529 collegeadvantage plan. Sorry show me state 🙂 Also you may want to look at the answer to the next question.

What are the best 529 plans in 2025?

Forbes thinks those are the best.

What if my kid is already in high school?

Better late than never in terms of saving. However, you do need to think about the investment options, your tolerance for risk and market volatility, etc. I know for my better half (my wife), she is pretty much risk averse, and hates volatility. So in those cases, you may consider the bond investment options vs. stock mutual fund.

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advice and tips Fun kids Life Software development

Reflections and moments in year 2024

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Travel Mishaps

One of the most memorable moments in 2024, for me at least, we already checked out the hotel in HK and got on the taxi to the airport, then our 14-year-old said, “I left my hoodie in the closet”. We already checked out thus cannot go back to the room directly. Had to use a concierge service. It seems took forever when we waited there. The real time is probably 20 to 30 minutes. We tipped the house clean staff who retrieve the hoodie 100 HKD. Same for the taxi driver. Adding them up it’s probably $20: I think we paid that hoodie a bit over $20 at the Plato’s Closet. But it’s not about money. I remember this because my wife was furious (more than anxious) when she and our 10-year-old waited in the taxi. The younger taxi driver drove fast to the airport (we did make sure we have enough time even with this mishap).

Presidential Volunteer Service Award (PVSA)

One of the proud moments as a dad: our 14 year old Serenity received the Presidential Volunteer Service Award 🥇 on December 31, 2024. Pictured below: she is receiving the certificate, the congrats letter from President Biden, and the Gold award pin from Rick Skinner, who represents the United Way of Greater St. Louis, the verifying org for this award. We (my wife and I) are thankful for all her teachers, from toddler program and pre-schools (pre-K), from Kindergarten to high school at the Ladue School District, her coaches and teachers who helped her in her extra curriculum activities: for teaching her the right things. I know sometimes I didn’t teach her or show her the right thing 🙁 . Her friends over the years too. Thank you all! And we hope she keeps up the attitude and efforts 🙂

My Panic Moment

I had my share of moment at work. One evening, I was acting as the technical lead representing the development team during our production deployment (rollout). I noticed an issue after the system engineer made the server configuration changes and restart. I quickly realized why: instead of adding a few parameters in the middle of the server start configuration, the system engineer did a replacement – in other words, he removed all the parameters from the location where we intend to replace until the end. And he repeated for multiple nodes/servers without confirming any node/server change with me 🙁

This could potentially cause longer outage as we planned, and could drag out our change windows from 2 hours to 4 hours or more. Luckily, the junior system engineer called his colleague who is much more experienced, and he came out and fixed the issue in under 20 to 30 minutes and saved the evening 🙂

The lesson for me here is making sure always backup the server configurations – earlier I did make some backups (not all) after my project manager suggested. Always be open minded and listen to colleagues even when I think it’s probably not necessary at the time – because we never know it could be handy down the road!

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401k and Personal Finance advice and tips gadgets

Cheaper iPhone deals

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I’m talking about the unlocked iPhones. Because I don’t think the carrier promotions are “cheap” in the sense they usually make the money back from the monthly fees, and then more.

I can think of a few places, some are probably cheaper, but I am not 100% sure about the quality (especially the battery life for the refurbished iPhones). Below are the two places that I trust.

New iPhones at Apple, SE and 14 are two cheaper choices. Personally I think 15 or 16 are probably the better deals.

If one has the Chase sapphire or freedom credit cards and has some Ultimate Rewards (UR) points to spare, from time to time they have promotions for Apple products in the redemption center. It’s another way to get brand new iPhone. Note this may not be the most cost effective way to burn the UR points. But if they do promotion: it means 1 point is worth 1.25 cent during the redemption. If you travel, and could use the UR points, try to use the points there as 1 point is usually worth 2 cents or more there.

Personally I have used UR points for a few iPhones in last few years.

Refurbished

In the order of quality guarantee (top to bottom).

Refurbished iPhone at Apple: it seems they don’t have a lot of iPhones in stock now. Most are the larger or pro models (which are usually more expensive).

Other two places I am aware of refurbished iPhone: eBay and Amazon.

This somewhat reminds me of the preowned certified Toyotas I bought in year 2013 and year 2022.

Insurance

Do we need insurance? I usually insure it by myself (you may read this post if you have some time). Personally if I need insurance: I would buy from Apple instead of the carrier.

But this again reminds me of the one time I bought the “extended warranty” for my 2012 Toyota Sienna (preowned certified) from the dealer. Most of those are not necessary. In the case of iPhone, no pun intended, buy a good case from Amazon is probably the only insurance you need.

Comparing iPad Air and regular iPad – Update 01-04-2025

deals (dealsea iPad) – I end up bought the 11-inch iPad Air from Amazon. It should come in about 10 days and I plan to use it for Kindle, Apple Intelligence etc.

Reddit – iPad Air vs iPad

Google – iPad Air vs iPad

Apple – Compare iPad Models

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advice and tips Saint Louis

Not all urgent care places are equal

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And personally, I am not happy with Mercy Go Health

First some background. There are 3 urgent care places near where we live. In the order of opening:

St. Luke’s urgent care (next to a CVS).

Total Access Urgent Care (TAUC): an independent chain that has no affiliation with a hospital; they have X-ray and can run common tests/labs. I’ve been to a location where they have the CT Scan machine. I talked about them quite extensively here.

Mercy Go Health: they opened it almost across the street from the St. Luke’s urgent care.

Scenario: in Labor Day weekend our younger daughter S6 got sick. Tried to take her to TAUC, the appointment time is about 5 or 6 pm when we looked for appointment. In other words, it’s about 6 or 7 hours away. So, I took her to the St Luke’s, our 2nd choice. The estimate wait time was one hour or more. At that time, I decided to try out Mercy Go Health.

Two things I was not happy about:

  1. They didn’t diagnose my kid’s pneumonia. The doctor did listen to her lungs, but I am not sure if the doctor made a mistake or at that time her breathing is still normal etc. They don’t have X-ray, or they didn’t do X-ray on that day.
  2. The bills. I don’t know if their billing department has buggy software or something, I paid the bill on myuhc.com (yes, it’s the United Healthcare in the news lately) but later I received a paper bill with same amount. At this time, I am just too tired to call them – I just paid online. But I may call them later: maybe I would get a refund. I am not saying myuhc.com works 100% of the time. But it seems to me there is some issues or explanation between the provider and UHC. (Update 02-12-2025) I finally got around and called / contacted them. I will update the outcome. (Update 02-27-2025) I called them a few times, today I decided to get hold of them until the end. I am on the hold for one hour and 18 minutes now. Also, from Reddit, this doesn’t seem to be a complete isolate issue. (Update 05-23-2025) I finally got my money back, after about 3 months. What I did: I filled out the complaint form online, and they used Zendesk. I replied back to them when Zendesk asked me questions via email.

Lesson for me: Next time, I will probably go to Total Access Urgent Care. For kids, I think I would also consider going to a pediatrician first. They may have longer wait times, but I don’t want to waste my time at Mercy Go Health.

Earlier, I talked about this a bit here too.

Next, I may talk about “not all doctors are equal” too.

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advice and tips

The insurances one must buy in the USA 我们在美国必须买的保险

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还有再加上保险里面的一些坑。

Must buy 必须买的保险

Healthcare insurance, better include dental and vision too. Without healthcare insurance, it’s much harder to get needed medical care, should you or your family need it. This actually happened to one of my friends. And I believe the friend probably died from the disease because of that: lack of insurance, and delay of the needed medical care.

Life insurance: please note for most people, term life is good enough. It’s better to buy this outside work because this way we got protected when we switch jobs. Note sometimes the benefits at new workplace doesn’t kick in immediately (it happened to me actually).

Note for life insurance, most US employers offer some life insurance under a group plan – it usually doesn’t require a physical etc. The only thing needed for employee is to “opt-in” during the open enrollment period (usually in November). Once I had a former colleague (he is younger than me) who unexpected died, and upon further examination, company benefits people cannot find the record that he “opt-in”. It was a sad story for his wife and his parents (in addition to losing him).

Car insurance: besides the required liability insurance, it’s best to buy the comprehensive (including collision) too. If the premium is high, you may raise the deductible (meaning you will pay up to that amount, out of your own pocket), if your car experiences damage. The reason to buy comprehensive including collision is: this way, if you involved in another party in an accident, your insurance company will pay you right away, and they also have more incentive to fight with the other party’s insurance company regarding the liability etc. You probably like the fault fall to the other party, because if the fault is yours, your insurance company will likely raise your premium during the upcoming renewal.

Home insurance: if you have the mortgage, the bank or the mortgage company will likely ask you to show the home (or home owner) insurance.

Types of insurances or extended warranties you may not need

Extended warranty for car or other products. I know Apple offers iPhone insurance, this one is probably okay. But many used car extended warranty plans are just junk. And yours truly managed to fall into it once.

Home or major appliance (e.g., HVAC) protection plans.

Annuity sold as life insurance. There are a lot contents on this topic. I am not going to elaborate. Fortunately I didn’t fall into this one so far. (Update 19-Dec-2024) WSJ: They Look Like CDs, but They’re Annuities—and Sales Are Booming:

Below is Chinese translation done by Google Translate.

必须买的保险

医疗保险，最好也包括牙科和视力保险。如果没有医疗保险，如果你或你的家人需要医疗服务，就很难得到。这实际上发生在我的一个朋友身上。我相信这位朋友最后死于疾病，很可能因为没有保险，以及所需的医疗服务延误。

(以下部分上面英文里还没有）

没有医疗保险，或者没有好的医疗保险，很多医生平常就看不到，更别说住院。紧急时可以去医院急诊，但这个不是解决问题，或缓解病情的好办法。好的医疗保险现在一家人在村里大概要 $1,500 左右。我知道如果你上班的话，一般自己不会掏这么多：一般是公司出一千，个人出五百。一分价钱一分货。过于便宜的保险，一般来说保得差一些。如果是自己给自己打工，market place (Obama Care), 比如这个 healthcare.gov 可以看一下。

我记得我读研究生的时候，那是二十多年之前的事了，有些男研究生因为嫌贵（我印象中大概是一个月是一百美元）没有给太太买医疗保险。那就意味着如果太太怀孕，她们要到圣路易斯的 St. John Mercy 来生小孩。St. John Mercy 因为是天主教的医院，不提倡流产，好像是一口价生小孩（顺产）是当时两千多美元。

其实刚来美国的时候，我自己也是有点讳疾忌医：因为美国的医疗系统和中国国内完全不同。还有语言的障碍：医学方面的单词确实是不太懂。当时还带了一点常用的药，比如说头孢。这个可能也是不少国人的习惯，有点小病自己吃点药。美国人的观点不一样：美国的药主要有两种，处方药是医生开的药（自己拿处方去药房买），over the counter (OTC) drugs 非处方药自己可以直接在药房买。

后来上班以后，才慢慢好一点。我先找了会汉语的医生作为我的primary care physican (PCP)。后来我的PCP退休了，我换了我的PCP：先是一个美国人医生，他一年后也退休了。我又换了一个年轻的华人医生。年轻医生最近又有工作变动，我就又找了一个大概是中年人的华人医生。

(以上部分上面英文里还没有）

人寿保险：请注意，对于大多数人来说，定期寿险（term life insurance）就足够了。最好在工作之外购买，因为这样我们在换工作时会得到保护。请注意，有时新工作场所的福利不会立即生效（实际上我遇到过这种情况）。

关于人寿保险，请注意，大多数美国雇主都会提供一些团体计划下的人寿保险——通常不需要体检等。员工唯一需要做的就是在开放注册期间（通常在 11 月）“选择加入”。曾经有一位前同事（他比我年轻，印象中他好像还没小孩）意外去世。经过进一步检查，公司福利人员找不到他“选择加入”的记录。所以保险公司就不会赔钱。这对他的妻子和父母来说是一个悲伤的故事（除了失去他）。

汽车保险：除了必需的责任保险外，最好也购买综合保险（包括碰撞险）。如果保费高，如果您的汽车受到损坏，您可以提高免赔额（意味着您将自掏腰包支付最高金额）。购买包括碰撞在内的综合险的原因是：这样，如果您与另一方发生事故，您的保险公司会立即向您支付赔偿金，而且他们也更有动力与对方的保险公司就责任等问题进行斗争。您可能希望将责任归咎于对方，因为如果责任在您，您的保险公司可能会在即将到来的续保期间提高您的保费。

房屋保险：如果您有抵押贷款，银行或抵押贷款公司可能会要求您出示房屋（或房主）保险。

您可能不需要的保险类型或延长保修，或者说保险里面的一些坑

汽车或其他产品的延长保修。我知道 Apple 提供 iPhone 保险，这个可能还可以。但许多二手车延长保修计划只是垃圾。而我曾经真的陷入其中。

家庭或主要家电（例如 HVAC）保护计划。

年金作为人寿保险出售。关于这个话题的内容很多。我不打算详细说明。幸运的是，到目前为止我还没有陷入这个。

PS: 得罪保险销售的视频: 为什么买保险不是投资?我买保险的原则是什么? by MoneyXYZ

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401k and Personal Finance advice and tips

Avoid the traps aka the financial fraud

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(Update 02-16-2026) Scam on rye: The inside story of a $100 million deli fraud – I recall this saga.

(Update 12-30-2025) Reuters – Trump’s funding cuts put America’s consumer watchdog on the brink of collapse. Quote a bit here (below):

Warren said that as a law professor studying bankruptcy she saw that consumer protections were weak and fragmented, and that America needed a single federal agency dedicated to protecting consumers from unfair, deceptive and abusive practices.
“I was stunned by the number of people in financial trouble who had lost a job or got sick but who had also been cheated by one or more of their creditors,” she told Reuters. “For no agency was consumer protection a first priority, it was somewhere between fifth and tenth, which meant there was just no cop on the beat. If the CFPB is not there, people have nowhere to turn when they get cheated.”

Personally, I feel the lack of personal finance knowledge, as well as bad math, are contributing factors for people getting into financial trouble.

(Update 11-08-2025) Couple loses $180,000 from retirement savings after accounts hacked. I suggest avoiding the TastyTrade company mentioned in the article. That’s also one reason I am a bit skeptical of upstart like Robinhood App. It appears though Robinhood has decent security measures in their app.

(Update Dec-16-2024) The fintech company that collapsed and took $90 million of people’s life savings with it: The collapse and bankruptcy of fintech middleman Synapse in May has left more than 100,000 Americans locked out of a collective $90 million of their own money, prompting a class action lawsuit. (I don’t know how much money can be recovered for the victims though).

(Original) One downside of the free speech in this country, is one can hear or see all kinds of shenanigans or “God damned lies” on TV (both network and cables), on radio, and the latest and greatest the social medias.

Examples of financial frauds in America I read today 11-22-2024 Friday:

CNBC: ‘I have no money’: Thousands of Americans see their savings vanish in Synapse fintech crisis : this one has impact to thousands of people. Here is a YouTube video that explains the situation – Yotta Bank & The Problem with Fintech! It’s somewhat to see Joe Rogan and Marc Andreessen talking about this. Note the Synapse was backed by the VC firm Andreessen Horowitz. This is confirmed at their website too. Fat cats usually get away in this country, btw. Talk about Marc Andreessen, personally I felt he is full fledge MAGA now (google is marc andreessen maga).

Synapse is a Andreeseen Horowitz company

Google search “treasury department warning on yotta”.

WSJ: ‘I Don’t Know Where to Turn or What to Do.’ His $763,094 Retirement Fund Is in Limbo. subtitle: Richard Whitacre transferred his entire 401(k) into an account offering a ‘guaranteed’ 15.25% return. Will he ever see his money again?

(This probably is rare, but I suggest to avoid it) An investor says he put 98% of his retirement funds in Trump Media stock and won’t bail because Trump has a ‘secret’ plan. Since the Enron and WorldCom debacle, many companies started to remove company stock as an investment choice in 401k plans. Personally I think it’s a wise choice. In fact, I noticed the company I used to work for, Siemens, did divest my Siemens stocks (not a lot), and put it in a target date portfolio. Not all companies are doing that though: e.g., I know Arch Coal (now Arch Resources after the emergence post bankruptcy), used to offer the company stock in its 401k plan – note that stock became useless when it went through bankruptcy about 10 years ago. GE had similar issues: it didn’t go through bankruptcy, but at one time its stock went down a lot before its eventually company split (the original company was split into 3 companies).

中国企业家3千万美元搭上川普 获邀任顾问 : don’t just walk, run away from this guy and World Liberty Financial if you could. I remember Warren Buffett famously said he won’t pay $25 for all of the bitcoins. But he was duped by this 孙宇晨（Justin Sun）guy – when Warren was just trying to raise money for charity.

Major’s Rule Number 1

If something is too good to be true: IT IS A LIE e.g.: ‘guaranteed’ 15.25% return (annually?) – Run not just walk, when you hear this kind of guaranteed return.

Major’s Rule Number 2

Refer to rule number 1

PS: my YT podcast on the same topic, in Mandarin Chinese.