Do Retirees Need Long-term Care Insurance?

My Comments: As a financial planner with thinning grey hair, my clients tend to be already retired or soon to be retired. A major worry we all face is the chance that we will slow down to the point where we need help to get from one day to the next. Sure, family members will …

Continue reading Do Retirees Need Long-term Care Insurance?

Central Banks Pump Up the Volume

My Comments: The US Federal Reserve took a very different approach to helping the economy recover from the financial crisis that began in the fall of 2008. Pushed by Mr. Bernancke, the Fed provided what came to be called QE, which stands for quantitative easing. It kept interest rates low and effectively flooded the economy …

Continue reading Central Banks Pump Up the Volume

Being a Stock-Market Bull Just Got a Lot Harder

My Comments: For over a year now, I’ve been warning my clients that a reversal is coming in the stock market. As a result, we’ve slowly moved into investments that have reacted positively and made money during downturns. Only it hasn’t happened yet. Consequently, some of them are frustrated and angry with me because while …

Continue reading Being a Stock-Market Bull Just Got a Lot Harder

Seven Trust-Based Asset Protections Strategies for Clients

My Comments: This comes courtesy of a local friend and attorney who includes me among those with whom he shares insights. I'm unsure who should get credit for writing the actual text. Over these many years I've had many clients with trusts of one kind or another and clients who needed trusts but didn't have …

Continue reading Seven Trust-Based Asset Protections Strategies for Clients

Common Mistakes When Designating a Beneficiary

My Comments: With so many of us getting older, there is an increasing focus on what happens to our money when we die. If we don’t pay attention, large pieces of it may flow to the IRS and into the hands of others simply because we couldn’t be bothered to get it right the first …

Continue reading Common Mistakes When Designating a Beneficiary

Bernanke Says 2008 Worse Than Great Depression

My Comments: Ben Bernancke is no longer Chairman of the Federal Reserve. However, before he became chairman he was widely recognized as a world class economist and an expert of the Great Depression. It was that expertise that gave him so much credibility as he maneuvered the Fed through 2008-2009 until earlier this year. There …

Continue reading Bernanke Says 2008 Worse Than Great Depression

Social Security Survivor Benefits: What Advisors (and clients) Should Know

My Comments: By now you know that I provide financial advice about Social Security and about ways to maximize your SSA benefits. That all happens when you are alive. Inevitably, someone in a married relationship is going to leave the building, as Elvis did. Then what happens?   by Paul Norr / AUG 18, 2014 …

Continue reading Social Security Survivor Benefits: What Advisors (and clients) Should Know

Before You Send Your Child Off To College…

My comments: Yes, I know this should have been posted several weeks ago. But I didn’t have it then. The advice come from an attorney in Michigan by the name of Julius Giarmarco whose website can be found HERE. I’m unsure how rules in Michigan differ from any other state but I suspect the fundamental …

Continue reading Before You Send Your Child Off To College…

YOU WORRY ME!

My Comments: I’m very conflicted by current events in the Middle East. On one hand I’m a dove, sick and tired of the hatred and death and tribal motivations of the people involved. It also reinforces my discomfort about religion since the conflict always seems to be driven by a false belief that “my God …

Continue reading YOU WORRY ME!

Don’t Fight the U.S. Treasury Rally

My Comments: We’ve been living in a low interest rate environment for some years now. The general consensus has been that they can’t get any lower and that the Fed will push them up if and when the US economy starts to see any inflationary pressure. I know that clients, who for years depended on …

Continue reading Don’t Fight the U.S. Treasury Rally