America and the world have received a legacy of wisdom and wealth but have squandered it as pointed out in this post from HubPages.com…
Shakespeare, Franklin, and Stanley Johnson
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine own [...]
This past weekend my wife and I attended a presentation of the musical South Pacific at the Temple Buehl Theater in Denver. The character Bloody Mary sings a song about Bali Ha’i early in the play and the words struck me as being apropos to the ongoing theme of this blog: helping Americans are find a better way to deal with their personal economies.
Over just a few decades, the Behemoths’ clever public relations firms and their ill-informed minions managed to move almost every dollar that belongs to you and every other American into either debt or equity over which you have no control. There’s just no room for savings in this scheme of things so the Behemoths sell you term insurance to keep you from putting your money in whole life insurance and local savings accounts where you control it.
It’s 2010. You can find information about every conceivable topic by doing a simple search using any one of a dozen or so search engines: Google, Yahoo, Bing, MSN, etc..
Unfortunately, much of the information you find on any given topic is biased in favor of products you can buy on the listed web sites. Other information is [...]
Planning vs. Management
The College for Financial Planning and the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc. will likely object to the statement that their business is oxymoronic. They might be justified. Let me elaborate.
The Oxford Dictionary defines an oxymoron as “a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction.” Claiming that financial [...]
I recently received this question from Christine:
Hi Jeffrey,
I hear those whole life policys have huge fees, what are all the fees?
Here’s my initial answer…
Great question, Christine!
Unfortunately your question implies a common misunderstanding so lets clarify that issue first. Clarifying things may be enough, but if it isn’t feel free to question or comment further.
Whole life insurance policies have [...]
Someone recently asked about FDIC insurance for the money in the “banks” suggested by the EUREKONOMICS’ Money for Life Modelfor creating wealth and managing personal finances, which recommends that each American should act as his/her own banker. (Some advisors refer to these as “family banks,” “infinite banks,” or “personal banks.” The use of the term “banks,” “banking,” and [...]
Preamble…
There are hundreds - perhaps thousands - of legitimate uses for participating (par) whole life insurance.
Thoughtful and creative insurance and financial guides recognize par whole life as the most powerful, flexible, and versatile financial tool in the US economy. These enlightened guides use par whole life for applications as simple as fulfilling basic family needs, [...]
In May of 2008 this blog awakened its readers to an idea that is now being recognized after decades of being dismissed. Fact is, if you had followed this practice through the ’80s and ’90s you would be well ahead of those that followed conventional wisdom.
Jeffrey Kosnett only implies the power, flexibility, and versatility of whole life insurance [...]
In 1974 the US Congress passed ERISA and began convincing Americans that saving money was a bad idea. The law they passed convinced us that investing [aka gambling] in an IRA or 401(k) was better than putting our money into guaranteed return savings vehicles. Americans listened. Wall Street and the IRS rejoiced.
In 1977 a high school coach [...]