As many clients know, we sometimes recommend and offer annuities in our practice. Annuities are the only product which guarantees lifetime income backed by the claims paying ability of large insurance companies. They are among the most misunderstood of all investment vehicles. Many of the misconceptions are based on outdated viewpoints which do not take into consideration the tremendous advances in product design. Some of the features that clients did not like have been eliminated. For example, most of the annuity products today do not require annuity owners to “annuitize” their policy in order to get guaranteed lifetime income. Annuitization means that you convert your account value into a stream of payments. Many people did not want to annuitize because it usually meant that there was no death benefit left to their heirs. Annuity owners could receive less money than they originally invested if they annuitized and then died prematurely.
Congress continues to play a game of chicken with the debt ceiling. This marks the fifth summer in a row of “potential” financial Armageddon. Treasury secretary Geithner went on record this morning saying “Each side has said definitively that default is not an option”, “They’re not going to play around with this”, and “Default is off the Table”.
| Posted in Resources / Articles, Weekly Insight | Posted on 18-07-2011
I thought this graphic which appeared in the Wall Street Journal a couple weeks ago was very interesting. Vegas has the distinction of having the largest boom and bust but you would be worse off if you bought a home in Detroit a decade ago. They didn’t have much of a boom in the early part of the decade but still had the bust.
| Posted in Resources / Articles, Weekly Insight | Posted on 20-06-2011
Click on the link below to view and/or print the 2011:
- Tax Brackets and Rates
- Standard and Personal Exemption Amounts
- IRA and Pension Plan Contribution Limits
- IRA Minimum Required Distribution Chart
http://www.columbuslife.com/becomeaproducer/2011_TaxReferenceSheet.pdf
