Destination Unknown
May 1975: the short bus trip ride from El Toro Marine Base to Camp Pendleton could never be tiring for him. The neon strip flickered every time there was a speed bump and it became steady again, but that didn’t flinch his stoic face as he sat quietly next to other kids, his hands tightly griping the handle of the front seat. He stared out the window into the ominous darkness of the California night. He sat in silence as it allowed him to reflect and to decide on what to remember and what to screen out from his journey from the motherland.
After an hour winding its way through several hills and then rows of barracks, the bus stopped and unloaded its ragtag passengers. As they emerged into the cold and crispy air, another jolt from inoculations greeted them in the arm along with packet of toiletries and one-size fits all military jacket. Everyone cried because they had no idea what was going to happen. As other families huddled around to console one another and took up their assigned tent and cots, he and other kids were taken to another section of Camp 9 for unaccompanied children.
Life went on for the refugees of the tent city. Each day, he walked a mile uphill to the Processing Center to search for news of his family, then every other day, every week and …whenever. The barren hill above the camp was his favorite spot each night as he found no place to loiter around. It was where the kids drew on each other for strength and companionship. They came just to stare down at the white lights of the tent city and through their tears, the lights down below started flickering, darting, and dancing. Then the Marines came and chased them away.
One day, the youngest kid received his first adoption paper, then the second, and the third one. The pack grew thinner each week and then each month. The camp was finally closed in the Fall of 1975. On the last week, there were only a handful left, the oldest and they were shoved into a bus that took them to various destinations in search for a definition of life and an identity for themselves…
As fate would have it
May 1980: the country entered a crippling recession. America was facing severe economic challenges stemming from high unemployment, double-digit interest rates, intensified inflation, and excessive marginal income tax. I was one of many lucky freshly minted college graduates to have landed a job with a Fortune 500 financial company and started to learn about a portion of the US tax code, already one of the most complex in the world. Serendipity in the making.
Retirement in America was in fact out of reach for many workers as they struggled to build a comfortable nest egg for their golden years, meanwhile small businesses were saddled with tax burden. A successful pension planning seemed and continued to be a viable solution as it provided not only retirement security to American workers but to small businesses significant tax deductions.
With extensive experience in consulting, designing, establishing and managing thousands of pension plans, Pension Kinetics Inc was formed as a boutique pension consulting and actuarial firm focusing on providing tax-deductible solutions via optimal pension planning to small businesses and professional entities.
We are a team of experienced, credentialed and friendly experts focusing on offering a full spectrum of creative plan design, strategic consulting, IRS and DOL regulatory compliance to each of our clients and its partners because after all, …everything happens for a reason.
