Long-term care (“LTC”) has become a more important financial planning issue over the past several years as the baby boom generation considers their next stage in life. This area of financial planning is somewhat difficult as planning for these future costs are ever changing. For example, nationwide LTC costs have risen faster than inflation in a number of categories, and the [...]
The biggest news is the once-in-a-decade leadership transition scheduled sometime before Decmeber of 2012 (imagine a US presidential election once every 10 years). Below are some areas the new leaders will have to deal with: Terroritorial disputes: China requires energy independence to protect its economic growth. Massive oil/gas reserves lie in disputed waters off the coast of China. Currently, [...]
Discoveries and re-discoveries of global oil and gas fields along with ever improving technologies have lifted expectations for increased energy supplies. Geopolitics, technology and government regulations will influence the timing and the size of these new discoveries being brought to global consumers. Over the last 10 years developed and developing countries have been focused [...]
In the dark days of the financial crisis the Federal Reserve was forced to create more money to aid the American financial system. This was accomplished by crediting money into its own account (yes-out of thin air). The Federal Reserve then purchased financial assets including government and corporate bonds from banks such as Wells Fargo, [...]
Wall Street does not like the term “junk bonds;” they prefer to refer to them as ”high yield bonds.” Junk bonds are debt securities rated below Investment Grade by the three major rating agencies (defined as a Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organization such as S&P). Over the last 20 months investors have been investing a significant amount of money into [...]
Fifty, thirty, heck even fifteen years ago, investors invested in an economy, government and financial system which was relatively solvent and stable. There are very clear rules how you can make long-term decisions in that sort of system. Over the last ten years culminating with the credit/financial crisis of 2008/2009 the system changed – for [...]
