Studying a Paradox: When Higher Tax Rates HELPED the Economy

My Comments: OK, if you can’t stand reading about economics, then skip this blog post. On the other hand, if you have concerns about the economy and whether your vote in the upcoming election will have any influence on the amount of money you have to spend ten years from now, then you might want …

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8 Social Security Myths Exposed

My Comments: My wife and I are proud recipients of a Social Security check every month. If that makes us "socialists" and you have a problem with that, I couldn’t care less. Demographics are going to cause adjustments in the payout to recipients, the level of contributions from working citizens, and when you can start, …

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Forty Percent of Small Business Owners Don’t Save For Retirement

My Comments: I’m a small business owner and have been for almost forty years. I’m in the business of helping others retire, and I have to confess to you that I’ve done a poor to average job preparing myself for retirement. Fortunately, my health and my profession allow me to continue to work, never mind …

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5 Crucial Pieces of Retirement Advice for Women

My Comments: Many of my clients are widows. They became my clients when their husbands were alive and over the course of time, we are where we are today. Today, I do my best to help them manage their financial lives and provide some measure of assurance about their financial future. Clearly, women live longer …

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Realistic Planning: There’s More to Life Than Retirement

By Bob Seawright (Bob Seawright is chief investment and information officer for Madison Avenue Securities in San Diego.) On the day I write this column, I made my last payment towards the education of my children. Had I paid via actual paper draft rather than electronic transfer, I would have waited to receive the cancelled …

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Thought for the Week

When I first started in financial services in 1975, I was hired by a company called American National to sell life and health insurance policies. I was able to earn a living and discovered that not having a regular paycheck was survivable. And fortunately, my wife chose to tough it out with me. Over the …

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The Medicaid Problem Grows and a (Partial) Solution Emerges

My Comments: I ran across this article a few weeks ago. With the headline recently that Governor Scott was not going to comply with the directives toward the states and Medicaid, I thought it might be helpful to have a better understanding of the implications. The idea presented below is not a full answer, but …

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Golden Handcuffs for the Practice Manager

“Golden handcuffs” are used to create a financial incentive to keep valuable employees on the payroll. If your job is to manage the practice, and you want a set of "golden handcuffs" for yourself, here’s a way to persuade your employer, the practice owners, to give you a financial reward with money being spent on …

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A Manifesto for Economic Sense

My Comment: I’m told that a blog post should be no more than 400 words. People’s attention span runs out of gas at about that point. This one is way more than 400 words but if you are interested in the political outcome a few months from now, and whether or not you are likely …

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Saving Social Security

My Comments: As an investment advisor and financial planner, I’m very aware of the role played by Social Security payments in my clients financial lives as they approach or subsist in retirement. Indeed, some of them are unable to retire as they thought they might, and some applied to the Social Security safety net before …

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