‘Mission in a Bottle’

My Comments: Book reviews are way outside my normal comfort zone. But this book is about entrepreneurship, which is way inside my comfort zone. I have not yet read the book, but I have plans to. Review by Jason Abbruzzese | August 21, 2013 4:47 pm Mission in a Bottle: The Honest Guide to Doing …

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Bits and Pieces – August 20, 2013

DOW DIPS - Familiar story behind a fall in stocks: fears that the Fed is about to begin a taper off of its bond-buying program. The indexes moved lower as St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard said there could be risk of excessive inflation in the future. Yesterday, Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart lifted …

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Barack Obama Declines to Correct His Egyptian Mistake

My Comments: You may ask yourself why, as a financial advisor to individuals and small business owners, would I care about what happens in Egypt. Your are right in that whatever happens in Egypt is not going to greatly influence how you and I live our lives here in north central Florida. But it matters …

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Correction Seen as Welcome

My Comments: You should first note the date when Jeff Benjamin posted these comments. For whatever reason, I saved them and decided this morning would be a good day to bring them to the table again. What is happening to the DOW and the S&P500 and Russell 2000 is a good thing. In the short …

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Prospect of Financial Crisis Tops Fears of Pre-retirees

My Comments: You will note to the right of my image as you look at this page a comment about my professional objectives as a financial planner and consultant. None of us live in a vacuum where we avoid the influence by what we hear on TV, what we read in the papers and somehow …

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How “Safe” is your money?

For those of us in the financial advice business, there is a never ending circulation of ideas that question the future outcome of our recommendations. It’s less so when the markets go up every day, but there are always uncertainties that surface. Recently, the questions have been much louder than usual. There are a number …

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What’s Happening?

My comments: For many of my clients, the recent quarterly statements from their custodian was disturbing. The numbers suggested and does suggest that their investments are at risk and some are asking whether we’re looking at another major financial crisis. None of this is new to me; I've been down this road several times before …

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Worst July For Munis Since 2003 Seen Paving Way For Rebound

My Comments: See, it's still possible to find some good news! August 1, 2013 • Bloomberg News The municipal market’s biggest July decline in a decade is leading investors such as Vanguard Group Inc. to bet history is on their side as they buy with yields close to a two-year high. Tax-exempt debt fell about …

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5 Reasons Americans Have the Economic Blahs

TK: “My sentiments, exactly!” By Drew DeSilver | July 25, 2013 Four years into the current recovery, the views of most Americans about the economy can be summed up as “meh.” According to a Pew Research Center survey conducted last week, 45% of Americans rate the national economy as “only fair,” and 37% call its …

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Estate Planning is Dead — Long Live Retirement Planning!

My Comments: While these comments were directed toward advisors like me, they are representative of something that happens to many of us over time. What we are trained to do, and from which we earn a living, changes and we become irrelevant. An example happened in Detroit, once the heart of American car manufacturing. And …

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