 Once again, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls and children of all ages, this is The Prince of Investments coming all the way live from a beautiful state of Denver, Colorado, via Haluah, Hawaii. As always, this is The Prince of Investments coming to you guys. Two things take Hawaii. Don't forget to hit that like, subscribe, comment, share button, and as always, I don't have a lot of time, and I definitely know you guys and girls don't have a lot of time, so we're going to jump straight into it. So today we got a very, very interesting topic as you can see in the description box, and it's probably running across the screen. We're going to talk about Sears cancelling life insurance policy for retirees. Now, I saw this come across CNBC and Yahoo Finance, and the thing about it was, what struck me the most was about cancelling life insurance policy because life insurance is like one of those sacred things that we rely on, that we think we can have. Even when the economic collapse has happened in 2000, 2008, 1929, great depressions and recessions, we always see insurance becoming tech. So in this episode, we're going to talk about why, how, how to protect yourself and what's really going on when a company does something like this. So the first thing is why. Why is Sears cancelling life insurance policy for its retirees? Talking about 97,000 retirees. As we know, the retail giant Sears have struggled over and over for many, many years with keeping up with the growing and shifting economy. For prime example, who goes to malls as much as these days, as much as these days. So for prime example, people can sit at home from a comfort at home and order food, they can order a cab, they can go on Amazon, a number of other websites to order what they want. And guess what? If I can sit at home and order a pair of shoes, I'm going to do it. Versus getting up, going all the way down to Sears and seeing if they even have what I want, going through all that crap. I just never say, hey, I just sit from the comfort of my home from my iPad and tablet and buy what I want. Think about it on subways. What do people do all day? We just thumb around, thumb around. You see people at bus stop, thumb around. And you would see people in traffic thumbing around, right? So that's what people do all day in Sears has been greatly affected by that. The number one reason being is it's massive amount of retail real estate. So for prime example, it hurts their bottom line. We'd like to call top line heavy. So for prime example, all those buildings that you see in the malls, all those big Sears signs, those lights, those things like that, those are heavy burden. It reminds me of the company called Blockbuster, who remembers Blockbuster? So Blockbuster, when Netflix came along, it had a hard time competing with Netflix. The reason I was Netflix overhead was so, so low because how much stuff does Netflix really needed to operate? You needed probably like one big warehouse to mail off movies back and forth. What it used to do then it also needs just one place to broadcast across the world because when you really bought down to a net just a website app versus a blockbuster blockbuster had so many employees and uniforms, lights, water, gas. It had so many trucks to go pick up the movies, drop off the movies. So it was a lot of hard assets that was physical that it needed to require to run every month. So versus Netflix, since they had a very low overhead, you have a very low overhead. That means profits can rise very fast. Because to operate doesn't cost that much. So that's kind of we shift topics into not shift topics, but they come back to that topic of Sears. That's seen to be his big problem. You know, if I was the CEO of Sears, it would be a very hard time. We're, you know, doing things because you have all these malls that are requiring so much money to run. So many employees, so many trucks to pick up material, so many trucks to wait material, that it becomes very hard to compete in the shifting economy that we've had. Now, so that's why you see the retail giant, this big retail giant drop. And it's another thing to keep in mind, even though we see Amazon as being a big guy in 20 to 30 years, everybody in Silicon Valley know that Amazon probably will become obsolete or probably get knocked off of his heels. You know, it's just, that's just the nature of the beast. Nobody is at the top of the, at the top of the food chain for too long. You know, you're talking about 20 years ago, Walmart is the biggest thing. We didn't think nobody could ever take over Walmart. Now we're seeing those things being threatened where the apples are. Now, so that's one big thing with the system going around. That's why that's why they're cutting. Now, the next thing is the protection. Why are they losing their protection? The only way you can, the end shot of series is agreement. The only way that people can lose their policy is that if the company goes bankrupt, which is not too far from doing it. They can file for bankruptcy back in October. But someone made a bid of like a 5.2 billion dollars to save it. But a company stepped in the government, the federal government stepped in and said that it would protect their life insurance. But the question is how are regular everyday people protected? Now, this is the part I don't like. This is the part that I don't like. Let me get into what I do like about it. The part that I don't like is that Amazon, not Amazon, but Sears has paid so much money to its investors throughout the years. It paid four times of what it owed on his life insurance to its investors. So for, for a prime example, if I insure somebody for $50,000, like, hey, if you die out of $50,000, that means that I need to have that $50,000 set aside to be able to just in case you die. If you don't die in a policy lapse, then I just collected those premiums. Right. So the thing about it was the same time Sears had this money to be able to pay for its life insurance, but instead it was paying dividends four times as much as it owed in life insurance. It was paying to its shareholders. So people like us, you, I, who buy stock. For prime example, I received dividends from McDonald's. I received dividends from Verizon. I received dividend and list goes on, right? From index funds, whatever the case may be, different stocks. So why was Sears paying shareholders when it owed life insurance? So when you look at that, that's the thing that I don't like. Whereas in that they value their investors more than they invade their loyal employees who work with the company. Someone up to 30 years that we're going to lose their policy. Right. Because what it could have done was put that money to the side to be able to ensure those policies that it issued and to make good on its promises, but instead it was just deliberately paying to its shareholders. Now, Prince, you said it's something that you like about this. Now, of course, I don't like anybody being affected by anything, but it's one of the notions what got me into investing. The thing that got me into investing was when I looked at the grand scheme of things and I looked at the grand scheme of the world, I noticed that the world was catering to always benefiting business owners, investors. And the end of the day is my belief of my understanding of the economy that the cornerstone of our existence as an economy is business. You can go get all the degrees you want to get. You can have all the skills you want to have. If those skills and if those skills or that education is not valued by a business owner, it's essentially useless. Unless we want to go into a society where the government just hires everybody, the government gives us a standard living. And then that's called communism that goes directly against the democracy. Right. But at the end of the day, business is a cornerstone of everything. I can have all the skills, have all the network and I want. But if I can't network with someone and someone doesn't spend money on my products. If people don't buy my products, I don't have any employees. If I don't have any employees, that means people don't have a job. If people don't have a job, that means they're not going to buy houses. They're not going to buy cars. They're not going to be sitting and watching this show, listening to the show or anything because they can't afford the computer. So the cornerstone of an economy, of a strong economy is a business. So as I keep in society, I always saw in America that everything was catered to business owners. If you're a business owner or you're an investor, America always took the side of a majority of the time, took the side of the big business. Because at the end of the day, if you're a politician, if I wanted to run for a local city council, if I wanted to run for governor and mayor, whatever the case may be, guess who I'm going to call? Business owners. That's who people are going to call. They're going to call business owners because guess what? To get on the TV, it costs money. To get on the radio, it costs money. To campaign, it costs money, right? And most of the times, companies are the ones that have the money. So at the end of the day, it is business. It's a cornerstone of America. And I've always seen America, whether it be a tax cut, whether it be business loans, whether it be any political favors, it always favored the business. Seville was the mayor of a town and I owned a big business that could bring a thousand jobs to your city. And if I like you or what not, whatever the case may be, I can move into your city, making the mayor look good because he put his people to work. Vice versa, if you can build something, I mean, you can break something. Same thing, a mayor, if a business owner says, hey, I don't like what the government is doing. They're passing policies that are not too favorable for my business. So in return, what am I going to do? I'm going to take my business out of this town. If a big business moves out of a small town, that could be a huge collapse in the economical system of a small or medium town. Or in some case, large cities, right? Because most big cities are just what are big cities really? Big cities are pretty much just a bunch of small towns together. So that's the big thing. I want you guys and girls to think about when you look at cities and things like that. So when I saw that the government was always favoring this, I decided to say, hmm, I want to work business owners and what investors do, you know, I need to become a landowner. I need to become a homeowner. I need to become a business owner. I need to become an investor. Right. So because it seems like America always takes takes the side of the investment in business, man. It's the exact same reason why did Sears pay all this money in dividends, but did not take care of its retired employees? Because at the end of the day, a CEO's job, as you hear from every CEO of a public and traded company, one thing I've heard from every CEO is they want to return value to their shareholders. Every single time. Oh, we want to grow the business, make profits, return value to our shareholder because my shareholder is the asset because they're putting money inside of my pocket to keep me alive versus some people start to look at our old employees as liabilities. So that's why I always seek ways to get on the side of the investor or the business owners, but it's the exact same reason. It's the thing. You can't beat them. You do what? Join. So that is a big thing that I've noticed out of the Sears thing. Now, we know Sears was this big conglomerate. Sears was almost like Walmart is today for the money. People used to go in and grab the appliances, all type of things. People used to grab the appliances from there. People used to grab clothes from there. I remember going as a child kid, you get shoes, clothes, all type of good stuff. But since who would imagine Sears would be a penny stock? A penny stock on a verge of bankruptcy. That's what Sears is. Now, for all my penny stock investors out there, this would be a penny stock I would kind of look into and not that I'm giving advice or disclaiming anything like that. But the reason why I would look into this penny stock is because I know the brand. I can research the brand. I could understand. I can look at the 10K. I know what the company is. It's pretty easy to understand. It's very risky, but most compared to other penny stocks that really don't even exist. That are nothing more than just a website. I don't know. So Sears is a penny stock now. I can't believe I'm saying this. So this is a penny stock on the verge of on the verge of collapse. Of course, over the years, I saw this coming. But I, you know, I'm remembering this prominence of my mother and my father going there and to see it nowadays be demised to a penny stock is pretty crazy. Now, Prince, what are some ways that I can protect myself? One of the things that if you rely on life insurance or anything like that, the first thing you need to do is to check the credit score of the company. Just like I have a credit score, you have a credit score unless you're a child or a kid, but most adults, you have some form of credit score. So those companies, companies have credit score. Who wrote your insurance policy? Who is backing that? For prime example, I have a life insurance policy with national life. One of the first thing I did was look up his credit score. Was it the A or B or C or D or whatnot? Because I want to see what is the stability of this company that they can pay my life insurance policy if I was to die? Or I have a whole life policy, let's say in 20, 30 years when this thing is supposed to pay me a pension every year. How do I know this company would be sturdy enough that it can't pay me? Right? Who's backing? How much money is on hand? And the credit score is based off of how much money is on hand and things like that. So that's one of the big things that I look at. So anyway, that's going to be the end of today's episode. You want to be a good episode of the Sears going back going back and look at Sears cut this retirement plan. We talked about why, how you even talk about the penny stock. Except the penny never raised that I'm saying this. The penny stock of Sears now, but also the lessons learned from that in the takeaways and also the reason why I wanted to choose this topic because it reinterprets my way of thinking as an investor. But thank you. Thank you guys and girls for tuning in all across the girl globe. Until the next video podcast cartoon, or whatever else you seem to do crazy around the globe, peace, be safe. I'm out and thank you.