We must listen to what bond markets are telling us,

not what the pretend politicians are telling us. Financial Times article by Martin Wolf What is to be done? To find an answer, listen to the markets. They are saying: borrow and spend, please. Yet those who profess faith in the magic of the markets are most determined to ignore the cry. The fiscal skies …

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The Whole Truth and Nothing But

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN Published: September 6, 2011 Kishore Mahbubani, a retired Singaporean diplomat, published a provocative essay in The Financial Times on Monday that began like this: “Dictators are falling. Democracies are failing. A curious coincidence? Or is it, perhaps, a sign that something fundamental has changed in the grain of human history. I …

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Trusts and What They Are – Part Two

In Part One we ended talking about Revocable Family Trusts and what they are. Continuing that conversation, the next step is... Asset Protection for Trust Beneficiaries A revocable trust provides no asset protection for the trust maker during his or her life. Upon the death of the trust maker, however, or upon the death of …

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Capital Market Insights – September 6, 2011

Here is your Weekly Insights update from Curian’s Asset Management Group. This informative capital market update is designed to help you stay informed about important developments in economics, the markets, and … CONTINUE

Trusts and What They Are – Part One

Many thanks to Richard M. White, a friend and colleague who is an expert on Wills and Trusts. He is an expert estate planning attorney with an office in Haile Plantation here is Gainesville. He has given me material over the years from which I have drawn conclusions that will be helpful to the general …

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SEC Charges Florida Pair in Ponzi Scheme

From AdvisorOne.com The Securities and Exchange Commission announced Monday that it has charged two Florida men for running a Ponzi scheme that robbed more than 100 investors of $22 million. The scheme, which purported to be a private equity fund and was marketed under the names “Managed Capital Fund,” “Safe Harbor Private Equity Fund” and …

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Be Careful What You Put Into Your IRA

Individual retirement accounts (IRAs) exist in many forms. In general, if you have income from working for yourself or someone else, you may set up and contribute to an IRA. Most of the more than $3.4 trillion held in IRA accounts are held by the major brokerage firms and invested in stocks, bonds and mutual …

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How Safe Are We?

What Almost $8 Trillion in National Security Spending Bought Us By Chris Hellman The killing of Osama Bin Laden did not put cuts in national security spending on the table, but the debt-ceiling debate finally did. And mild as those projected cuts might have been, last week newly minted Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta was …

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The Race to the Bottom

The idea behind this post came from Bob Veres whose thoughts and writings appear from time to time in the magazines and journals that I follow regularly. This has been an up-and-down summer and there are lots of thoughts to share. 1. Emotions rule asset prices and any effort to invest rationally is doomed from …

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The Risk of Loss

It is a given that when someone invests money there is a potential for loss. How much loss and when is an absolute unknown. The only protection against such a potential loss is a contractual guarantee, and even then it may not be. (See the recent debt crisis in Washington) What is possible, however, is …

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