Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Debt?
Not Warren Mosler, bond trader, racecar dabbler, Senatorial candidate and recent author of “The Seven Deadly Innocent Frauds.”
How to End ‘Annuicide’
Compensation-wise, income annuities can backfire for many advisors. An industry committee wants to solve the problem, but it’s not easy.
MassMutual Rediscovers the Immediate Annuity
A few years ago, MassMutual mothballed Jerry Golden’s SPIA tool for advisors. Now, post-crisis, the company has re-embraced SPIAs, and sales are up.
Channel Surfing for Low-Cost SPIAs
Where can you find lowest SPIA prices on the web? RIJ compared prices at Immediateannuites, Income Solutions, Fidelity and (as a benchmark) Cannex. And the winner was...
Featured
A Hub Named RICC
DST Systems’ Larry Kiefer says his firm’s new “middleware” simplifies the distribution of lifetime income products to plan participants, IRA owners and others.
Heritage Foundation Suggests Means-Testing for Social Security, Medicare
Under the conservative think-tank's proposal, a new optional, auto-enrolled savings plan would start in 2014. Under this plan, 6% of each worker’s income would go in a retirement savings plan that the worker owns and controls.
News
Taxes deferred aren’t taxes denied: ASPPA
In their attacks on retirement savings incentives, 'budget hawks' don't appear to realize that 401(k) participants and others pay the deferred taxes after they retire, albeit sometimes at a lower tax rate.
Unbundle advice and product sales, older investors say
Chris Brown and Laura Varas (left) of Hearts & Wallets, a Boston-area research firm, find that many pre-retirees and retirees want financial advice that's not simply the prelude to a product sale.
New York Life launches GPA (It doesn’t mean grade point average)
Smaller defined benefit pension plans are adopting a liability-driven investment model that resembles the three-bucket system used by retirees to provide income. New York Life has designed a fixed income option for the first bucket.
Public doesn’t trust Wall Street, Prudential survey shows
People need financial help, but avoid financial services providers. Is it possible that they blame the industry itself for their financial woes?
Structured product from AXA Equitable blends upside potential, downside protection
Called Structured Capital Strategies ADV, the product will be distributed at first to fee-based advisors in the Commonwealth Financial Network.
SPARK accepting requests to change lifetime income product data standards
The SPARK Institute's Data Layouts for Retirement Income Solutions provides the standards for DST Systems' RICC hub featured in today's issue of RIJ.
