Worth reading, given all the inflation hype lately: https://gmo.com/americas/research-library/part-1-inflation--tall-tales-and-true-causes/

Why would any current shareholder continue to own this fund (ARLSX / ALSIX / ARLZX)? It's being changed from a long-short fund (with nearly all assets in US equities or cash) to an international value fund. And it's going to make a huge taxable distribution (see last paragraph above), so there's no point in holding on for tax purposes.
Why would AMG (or RIver Road Asset Management, the subadvising firm) not simply liquidate the fund? Since it has under $10M AUM, it's not as though there is a lot of money being managed that it would like to hold on to.

Not to be too much of a wet blanket here, but the point of the COLA adjustment is for SS payments to keep pace with inflation, not to put recipients in a better position. Large adjustment, small adjustment, doesn't matter; the adjustment in real dollars is supposed to be virtually zero.
Higher COLA comes from higher inflation. That makes the real yield on fixed income securities even more negative. IMHO this is not a good thing.
[The Fed seems to be looking more at the economy (including delta strain) than inflation in determining when to begin reducing (tapering) the $120B/mo in bonds it is buying (QE).]
Regarding the 6.2% COLA estimate, consider the source. The Senior Citizens League. Last month, its estimate was at the high end of projections.

Estimates for the 2022 COLA range[d] from 4.5 percent from Moody's Analytics to 6.1 percent from The Senior Citizens League. Economist Bill McBride, who writes the finance and economics blog Calculated Risk, estimate[d] the 2022 COLA at 5.5 percent.

https://states.aarp.org/west-virginia/2022-social-security-cost-of-living-adjustment-could-be-5-percent
It looks like the SCL made the most naive estimate possible: it seems to have assumed that the M/M percentage increase in CPI-W for July to Aug, and from Aug to Sept, would be the same as the M/M percentage increase from June to July. It extrapolated from this single data point, not caring at all about trends in the data let alone trends in the economy.
[I came up with 6.22%, which is rounded to 6.2%, when calculating COLA this way.]
Consider CNN's recent headline: "Inflation moderated in July but prices are still rising in America". This is enough to suggest that SCL overestimated what COLA will be.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/11/economy/july-consumer-price-inflation/index.html

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/912036/000119312521245986/d214700d497k.htm
497K 1 d214700d497k.htm AMG FUNDS IV
Filed pursuant to 497(k)
File Nos. 033-68666 and 811-08004
AMG FUNDS IV
AMG River Road Long-Short Fund
Supplement dated August 13, 2021 to the Summary Prospectus, dated February 1, 2021
The following information supplements and supersedes any information to the contrary relating to AMG River Road Long-Short Fund (the “Fund”), a series of AMG Funds IV (the “Trust”), contained in the Fund’s Summary Prospectus (the “Summary Prospectus”), dated as noted above.
At a special meeting held on August 12, 2021, shareholders of the Fund approved: (i) a change to the Fund’s fundamental investment objective; (ii) the redesignation of the Fund’s fundamental investment objective as non-fundamental; (iii) the amendment of the Fund’s fundamental investment restriction with respect to borrowing; and (iv) a modified “manager-of-managers” structure for the Fund.
Effective as of August 16, 2021 (the “Implementation Date”): (i) the Fund will change its name from AMG River Road Long-Short Fund to AMG River Road International Value Equity Fund; (ii) the Fund will change its principal investment strategies, resulting in changes to its principal risks; and (iii) the Fund will replace its primary benchmark index with the MSCI EAFE Index and replace its secondary benchmark index with the MSCI EAFE Value Index.
Also effective as of the Implementation Date, the following fee changes for the Fund will take effect and will result in the overall reduction of the Fund’s net expenses ratios as compared with the Fund’s current fee structure: (i) the management fee for the Fund will be reduced from 0.85% to 0.53%; (ii) the Fund’s existing contractual expense limitation agreement with AMG Funds LLC (“AMGF”) will be replaced with a new contractual expense limitation agreement with AMGF pursuant to which AMGF will agree, through at least March 1, 2023, to limit total annual operating expenses (exclusive of taxes, interest (including interest incurred in connection with bank and custody overdrafts and in connection with securities sold short), shareholder servicing fees, distribution and service (12b-1) fees, brokerage commissions and other transaction costs, dividends payable with respect to securities sold short, acquired fund fees and expenses, and extraordinary expenses) of the Fund to the annual rate of 0.73% of the Fund’s average daily net assets, subject to later reimbursement by the Fund in certain circumstances; and (iii) the shareholder servicing fee waivers in place for Class N and Class I shares will be eliminated and the amount of shareholder servicing fees each of Class I and Class N shares of the Fund are authorized to pay to financial intermediaries will be decreased from 0.15% to 0.05%. AMGF pays a portion of the management fee to the Fund’s subadviser for its services.
The disposition of Fund securities in connection with the transition of the Fund’s investment objective and strategies is expected to cause the Fund to realize taxable income for U.S. federal income tax purposes. The Fund intends to make a special distribution to shareholders of all or a portion of such income and any other undistributed income for the current taxable year. This distribution will be taxable to shareholders who hold their shares in a taxable account. See “Certain Federal Income Tax Information” in the Fund’s Prospectus for further information...

I taken that you don't invest with Matthews Asia funds or have high opinon of their outlook? Though I agree that Matthews Asia funds have not excel with the exiting of several experienced managers.

Yes, quite--- re: Matthews. I was going to create a separate thread about this. The Matthews funds I track are MAPIX and MAINX. (The latter will finally be 10 yrears old at the start of Nov, 2021, if I'm not mistaken.) Seems that for a few years, at least, they have just sucked, performance-wise.

M* warns of a couple funds that might have biggies...
https://www.morningstar.com/articles/1052941/4-funds-to-watch-at-tax-time?utm_source=eloqua&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_fundspy&utm_content=31014
Disclaimer: With 96% of our nest egg in tax-deferred a/c's, CGs are NOT an issue for us.

Unfortunately, Grantham has been wrong for over 10 years. But he is not alone, Arnott (PAUIX) and Hussman were too.
See one source(link)
He was so off on US LC(SP500) and EM stocks.

yeah I still like listening to him. He is a great story teller. But yeah, he hasn't been correct for awhile.

msf +1 Thanks for the clarification about ACAT vs ACH .

Miscellaneous Securities ‡ 1,642,719,101
Total Investments in Securities 19,036,241,115
- or about 8.63 %

Knowing how to make money is different than knowing how to spend money.

Small changes true but electric generation will swing slightly towards coal this year:
“ We expect coal consumption for electricity generation to grow by 75 MMst (17%) in 2021 as a result of relatively high natural gas prices that make coal more competitive for dispatch in the electric power sector. Forecast electric power sector demand for coal then falls by 47 MMst (9%) in 2022. We expect demand for coal for other uses to rise by 5 MMst (13%) in 2021 and by 3 MMst (7%) in 2022. This increase is mostly for coking coal, which is used in steelmaking.”
https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/

Per TRP (link below), it doesn't look like the PM wants the public to know about these "Misc Securities". Perhaps some kind of derivatives?
Miscellaneous Securities ‡ 1,642,719,101
Total Investments in Securities 19,036,241,115
‡ At the discretion of the advisor, the identity of certain securities has been
concealed to protect the fund's interests.
https://individual.troweprice.com/staticFiles/gcFiles/pdf/phhsfq2.pdf

I made a mid-career return to graduate school in the mid-1980's in applied economics. My focus was on public policy analysis related to non-renewable and very slowly renewable natural resources. My basic take-away from that experience was that discount rates (as they relate to the time value of money) and the more self-centered aspects of human nature present high hurtles to overcome. Fuller global acknowledgement that substantial disruption to life as we know it is likely to occur within a generation will be needed before it will become reasonable to hope for implementation of adequately focused global action regarding climate change. The significant global climatic disruptions the world is now experiencing are encouraging for that reason. They at least move forward the time at which that consensus can be obtained.
This ending quote from a recent article comes to mind.....

For some reason I can’t quite explain, when I first saw this woman’s suffering, I kept thinking: I hope she has children, and her children have children, and they are not only furious, but also smart, strategic and fearless. And young, unacquainted with des­pair and allergic to the idea that anything is too late.

The photos of Greece on fire are shocking. But shock doesn’t always lead to change.

TMSRX had a decent 2019-20 and terrible 2021 and why you need to trade these funds. I pretty much gave up on alternative funds. Their performance is uneven and unreliable over the years.

Unfortunately, Grantham has been wrong for over 10 years. But he is not alone, Arnott (PAUIX) and Hussman were too.
See one source(link)
He was so off on US LC(SP500) and EM stocks.

I have read Jeremy Grantham's stuff for years and have also read all of the analysis of his so far, far from perfect track record. He does have good data and arguments, and I thought I couldn't learn anything new from him.
However, this analysis of his of the macro and political issues in the markets today is fascinating and worth hearing. He also has a very perceptive comparison between 1929 1972 2008 and now.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/2xH5m4fGf4G2bsnrqXSShd

The latest estimate:
Social Security cost-of-living adjustment could be 6.2% in 2022

Well, who knows at this time. Surely the central banks are watching, eh???
$600 million crypto hack ???

The phrases carbon neutral, net zero and carbon offsets are used to market to the green investor. They can involve a shadow world where hype and reality are hard to distinguish. This article looks at this issue.
How to Sell ‘Carbon Neutral’
Here is another somewhat related article that looks at this general topic as it relates to pellet fuel production in the rural American Southeast.
There’s a Booming Business in America’s Forests.

Having just spent 1.5 hrs on the phone with Vanguard (a hefty percentage of that on hold), I really do appreciate and share people's frustrations with its customer service. That is still a matter distinct from the website or the ease of fund investing there.
The matter I was trying to resolve originated with limitations of a worse financial institution (really!) and I was exploring workarounds that Vanguard could provide. That turned out to be unfortunately little.