Posted on January 11, 2007 by Jason
Media Wire, January 9th, 2006
Reverse mortgages, also called Home Equity Conversion Mortgages, have
gained popularity over the last few years, and as a result, have gained
more media attention. Valerie VanBooven RN, BSN, PGCM, long-term care
and reverse mortgage expert warns that many recent articles, such as
those posted on Bankrate.com and in the Wall Street Journal contain
misleading information, and leave out important facts about this
federally regulated program.
“Some of the most important aspects of reverse mortgages are their
ability to help seniors in crisis. A reverse mortgage can off-set the
astronomical expense of long-term care, and can keep people off of
Medicaid for longer periods of time, ” states VanBooven.
Some use the equity for long-term care needs, to pay bills, pay off
existing mortgages or debt, pay for prescription drug costs, home
improvements, home modifications, or to simply be able to enjoy life a
little more by traveling and enhancing their retirement cash flow. Many
seniors use reverse mortgages to pay high property tax bills, and have
even been saved from foreclosure and bankruptcy because they applied
for a reverse mortgage.
Other seniors use reverse mortgage proceeds to fund advanced estate
planning techniques. This includes increasing the value of their estate
through life insurance purchases, planning ahead for future long-term
care needs, assisting grandchildren with college funding, making
charitable donations, and to convert IRA funds to Roth IRA funds, just
to name a few.
Read more of this article. Learn more about Reverse Mortgages.
Posted on January 11, 2007 by Jason
MSNBC, January 10th, 2006
As someone born in late 1945, I say this to the 76 million or so subsequent baby
boomers and particularly to Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, our generation’s
leading politicians: shame on us. We are trying to rob our children and
grandchildren, putting the country’s future at risk in the process. On one of
the great issues of our time, the social and economic costs of our retirement,
we have adopted a policy of selfish silence.
As Congress reconvenes, pledges of
“fiscal responsibility” abound. Let me boldly predict: on retirement spending,
this Congress will do nothing, just as previous Congresses have done nothing.
Nancy Pelosi promises to “build a better future for all of America’s children.”
If she were serious, she would back cuts in Social Security and Medicare.
President Bush calls “entitlement spending” the central budget problem. If he
were serious, he, too, would propose cuts in Social Security and Medicare.
They are not serious, because few
Americans—particularly prospective baby-boom retirees—want them to be. There is
a consensus against candor, because there is no constituency for candor. It’s no
secret that the 65-and-over population will double by 2030 (to almost 72
million, or 20 percent of the total population), but hardly anyone wants to face
the implications.
By comparison, other budget
issues, including the notorious earmarks, are trivial. In 2005, Social Security,
Medicare and Medicaid (the main programs for the elderly) cost $1.034 trillion,
twice the amount of defense spending and more than two fifths of the total
federal budget. These programs are projected to equal about three quarters of
the budget by 2030, if it remains constant as a share of national income.
Read more of this article.
Posted on January 10, 2007 by Jason
Government Executive Magazine, January 10th, 2006
A nonprofit advocacy group dedicated to encouraging young people to
join the federal government has turned its eye toward the baby boom
generation.
The Partnership for Public Service announced Wednesday the
launch of an initiative to recruit private sector retirees into second
careers in public service. Partnership officials say this could help
address the impending wave of federal baby boomers leaving government
after decades-long careers. Forty-two percent of senior executives in
government are projected to retire by 2010.
Strategists want to build on two ideas: most baby boomers will
be healthy after retirement and will want to continue working, and many
will want a second chance to give back.
“Rocky Balboa is not the only 60-year-old looking for a
challenge,” Partnership President Max Stier said Wednesday at a news
conference.
As it is, however, most federal executives worked their way up
internally. Only 15 percent of GS-12 through GS-15 employees hired in
fiscal 2003 came from outside the government.
Read more of this article.
Posted on January 10, 2007 by Jason
Pioneer Press, January 10th, 2006
When then-73-year-old Leo Stulen was contemplating using his life
savings to buy a deferred annuity policy from Allianz Life Insurance
Co. of North America in 2001, he asked his agent what would happen if
he needed some of the money to pay his wife’s medical bills.
Buy an Allianz Flex-Dex Bonus annuity, Stulen said that his
independent agent instructed him, assuring him that the product was
flexible enough to accommodate his needs. So Stulen used the $40,000 he
had tucked away to do exactly that.
But when the Hutchinson resident later tried to dip into those funds
to pay the medical bills he knew were coming, he was told he’d have to
pay a steep surrender charge — a whopping $6,000 — because the annuity
hadn’t matured.
On Tuesday, Attorney General Lori Swanson sued Golden Valley-based
Allianz, accusing the company of violating Minnesota law by offering
and selling annuities to senior citizens like Stulen that were
unsuitable for their financial needs. Swanson said her office had been
investigating Allianz Life for some time and had attempted to settle
with the company.
“Allianz Life strongly disagrees with the allegations made by the
office of the Minnesota attorney general,” Allianz said in a statement.
“Allianz Life is confident that it has complied with Minnesota law and
will vigorously defend our products, practices and legal position.”
Read more of this article.
Posted on January 9, 2007 by Jason
Chicago Tribune, January 8th, 2006
Amid last fall’s celebrated rally for common stocks,
two uniquely uncommon securities began trading without fanfare on the
American Stock Exchange.
Simply put, the securities permit you to place money on the direction of oil prices–up in one and down in the other.
Unlike conventional investments, which require you to take a stake in
an underlying company or commodity, the Claymore MACROshares Up and
Down Holding Trusts do nothing of the sort. Prices of the securities
are pegged merely to a number, the per-barrel price of crude oil.
“Oil is so important to the world’s economy” and “it matters so much
for people, jobs and their ability to function in the economy,” said
economist Robert Shiller of Yale University, the brains behind the new
securities. “We do have futures markets, but most investors don’t do
those things. They aren’t user-friendly enough.”
Shiller’s
ideal portfolio, built of securities pegged to economic indicators
instead of to stocks and bonds, raises an important question: Can
long-term investing become sufficiently relevant and user-friendly that
people actually will do it?
Read more of this article.
Posted on January 7, 2007 by Jason
Hartford Courant, January 7th, 2006
Q. I would like to retire in 2008, when I turn 62. At that time I will
be eligible to collect most of my pension of about $47,000 a year, will
be eligible for Social Security, and my husband receives about $20,000
a year from railroad retirement.
My 401(k) totals more than $500,000, and we have another $400,000 in
investments. My problem is I’m scared to retire, but really want to. It
is scary to consider retiring from a position where I make more than
$100,000 a year.
The big question, of course, is do you think we will have enough to live on?
Our current monthly mortgage, taxes, insurance and assessment on our
condo costs about $2,400 a month, and we really don’t want to move. We
have about $5,000 in outstanding credit card debt, which we plan to pay
off before we retire.
It will cost at least another $2,000 a
month for health and dental insurance, and by then we will probably
need to buy a new car.
Read more of this article.
Posted on January 3, 2007 by Jason
The New York Times, January 2nd, 2006
James Smith, a health economist at the RAND Corporation, has heard a
variety of hypotheses about what it takes to live a long life — money,
lack of stress, a loving family, lots of friends. But he has been a
skeptic.
Yes, he says, it is clear that on average some groups in every
society live longer than others. The rich live longer than the poor,
whites live longer than blacks in the United States. Longevity, in
general, is not evenly distributed in the population. But what, he
asks, is cause and what is effect? And how can they be disentangled?
He is venturing, of course, into one of the prevailing mysteries of
aging, the persistent differences seen in the life spans of large
groups. In every country, there is an average life span for the nation
as a whole and there are average life spans for different subsets,
based on race, geography, education and even churchgoing.
But the questions for researchers like Dr. Smith are why? And what really matters?
The answers, he and others say, have been a surprise. The one social
factor that researchers agree is consistently linked to longer lives in
every country where it has been studied is education. It is more
important than race; it obliterates any effects of income.
Read more of this article.
