SEC Offers Primer on Selecting a Financial Planner

My Comments: I describe myself as a financial planner and investment advisor. I use this blog to attempt to bring my ideas to the general public, some of whom will from time to time contact me for advice. (at least that’s the plan...) Meanwhile, members of the general public are faced with a choice of …

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Are Richer Clients Getting Outsized Benefits From Tax Deferral?

My Comments: As a financial planner for longer than I can remember, there has always been tension around the question of whether or not to have an individual retirement account, or IRA. The IRS makes the rules that allow someone to put earned income in a special account with tax advantages. You know what I …

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Obama’s Medicare Plan Tentative

My Comments: Yesterday, I posted some comments on Romney’s approach to Medicare. The reason I’m putting this out there is that as a Medicare recipient myself, I’m very interested in the outcome. Many of my clients are in similar situtations, and as we age and develop health issues, how we get treated has a huge …

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Romney Medicare Plan Remains Vague

My Comments: This post comes courtesy of BenefitsPro.com. The editor has been a strong supporter of Mr. Romney until an email he sent last week said “It’s Over”. He said he could no longer support the GOP candidate and was going to vote for Ron Paul. Here’s a link to his comments. I’m not sure …

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The Biggest Bubble in Human History

My Comments: The word “bubble”, in the context of investments, has come to mean a time when values are overstated, and many people are going to suffer financial disaster. The classic examples include the Tulip Mania, where in February 1637 in Denmark, some single tulip bulbs sold for more than 10 times the annual income …

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Good Piece on U.S. Concerns: Libya v. Egypt v. Whomever

My Comments: This comes to you via the NYTimes and Tom Barnett whom you have seen me repost before. The anger we are seeing over there results from decades of US behavior. We now live in an internet age, and those folks are discovering what the rest of the world looks like and, like teenagers, …

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Ignore The Deficit Hawks: Social Security Is Easy To Fix

My Comments: Social Security can be a hot button issue from time to time. Proponents of small government decry the socialist trends foisted on this country by Democrats over the years. And while I've been a Democrat all my life, and a proud recipient of checks from the SSA for about six years now, I've …

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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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Thought for the Week:

"Money isn't the most important thing in life, but it's reasonably close to oxygen on the "gotta have it" scale." Zig Ziglar So I asked my clients, "which would you prefer; a plan that has a 70% chance of success or one that has a 90% chance of success?" We had been discussing how to …

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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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