Affluent People on Medicaid? It Can Happen
Only six percent of Medicaid recipients use nursing homes, but their bills account for 42% of Medicaid spending. Many of those who receive Medicaid for long-term care expenses are...
The Decumulation Beat
The Tell-Tale Brokerage Statement
Judging by what I saw (and didn't see) in a friend's brokerage IRA statement, class action lawsuits for breach of the DOL Best Interest Contract might be a lot...
Three Lessons Learned
By my late 20s, life had taught me a few homely but memorable lessons about leadership, entrepreneurship, and cross-cultural relations.
‘Don’t Expect Action By the SEC’
The retirement industry and its legal teams are receiving about as much useful new information from the SEC about the fiduciary rule as Dorothy Gale got from the Scarecrow...
A New Book from PIMCO’s Stacy Schaus
If you don’t know Ms. Schaus, you must be new around here. She’s an EVP at PIMCO, the head of its defined contribution practice and the voice of its...
Do Rollover IRAs Contain Pension Money?
The Labor Secretary did little this week to dispel the annuity industry's uncertainty about the future of the fiduciary rule. Neither did he demonstrate that he understands what the...
Real and Fake News on State Auto-IRAs
Opponents of state-mandated auto-IRAs say the plans will unintentionally rob small business employees of the opportunity eventually to participate in 401(k)s. But that's really a phantom opportunity for many....
Today at the Retirement Industry Conference
The consensus here at the LIMRA Secure Retirement Institute/SOA Retirement Industry Conference is that the fiduciary rule is here to stay. But industry executives hope that it will be...
Many Happy Returns!
As a self-employed person who writes painful quarterly checks to Uncle Sam and pays both ends of his Social Security tax, I made my peace with the infernal revenue...
Anecdotal Evidence: Fresh News from the Emerald City
Here's the latest from the nation's capital on the fiduciary rule, the state-sponsored auto-IRA 'Secure Choice' retirement plans, and the 'auto-portability' of 401(k) accounts from old employer to new....
Leaks in the Bucket Method
After reading Wade Pfau's new article on bucketing, I concluded that bucketing has three flaws as a retirement income generator. It calls for equities in the last bucket, not...
Anecdotal Evidence: What Fee-based Indexed Annuities Reveal
Advisors who recommend the purchase of a no-commission FIA should split the yield advantage more or less evenly with the client. As a fiduciary, how could the advisor justify...
The Dollar as Reserve Currency: Benefit or Burden?
Should the dollar abdicate its role as the lingua franca of money? In this exclusive interview, economist Barry Eichengreen of the University of California, Berkeley offers some much-needed perspective.
Fee-Based FIAs Are Customer-Friendly. But Will They Sell?
'While the education process is taking longer than we’d like, the bucket of money is so large that it’s worthwhile,' said Joe Maringer, national sales vice president at Great...
Anecdotal Evidence: A.I. Is Coming
New reports from PwC, DST kasina, and Deloitte all herald a world of 'Robotics Process Automation' that will probably feature many more chatbots and many fewer phone reps or...
A Safe Harbor is in Jeopardy
We shouldn’t deprive workers of 'bread' on the chance that brokers will be able to sell 'cake' to their employers.
How Ticos Turn DC Savings to Income
Retirees can take a monthly income equal to 1/12 of the earnings on their DC savings, or they can take a “scheduled withdrawal” where their accumulation is divided by...
President Trump and the DOL Fiduciary Rule
If the DOL rule is removed or neutered, then financial services firms may have more autonomy in choosing how to use the savings that digital automation brings: To raise...
Anecdotal Evidence: The 10% Solution
The smartest companies contribute 10% of pay to each employee's retirement account--not as a bonus but as a carve-out of compensation. This policy is the most effective way to...
The View from Costa Rica
By visiting Costa Rica and interviewing retirement experts there, I hope to gather a few facts that might help me and RIJ readers understand our domestic retirement financing...
