One of the biggest take-aways from the recent market meltdown, for many people, was the rediscovery of many kinds of fun that don’t cost money–a lot of the things that people did years ago before the advent of 3D movies, gourmet restaurants, traveling soccer teams and endless consumerism. “All men seek happiness. This is without [...]

It’s all About Fiduciary Duty to Your Clients Everyone who listens to the news, either on the radio or TV, knows that the SEC is going after Goldman Sachs. There are significant problems to be ironed out. If, as is alleged by the SEC, there was criminal activity at Goldman, then someone needs to be [...]

Now that we have passed the Health Care Reform Bill that was scored by the CBO to say it is not going to increase the deficit and over the long  term actually reduce the deficit, Congress is now floating the idea of a VAT, a Value Added Tax, like Europe. To me this is an [...]

Investing, in the final analysis, is a matter of faith. This, I think, is an important fundamental to understand. I am not writing of “blind faith.” Nor, necessarily, religious faith. It is my conviction that there is no such thing as blind faith. If a person acts blindly, it is not out of faith; it [...]

Larry P. Arnn, the twelfth president of Hillsdale College, received his B.A. from Arkansas State University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in government from the Claremont Graduate School. From 1977 to 1980, he also studied at the London School of Economics and at Worcester College, Oxford University, where he served as director of research for [...]

We are all familiar with the idea of “the wisdom of Solomon” because he figured out how to discern the real mother of an infant by threatening to cut the infant in half and each woman could have half an infant. Of course the real mother said, “No, give it to the other woman” and [...]

It is all a product of greed…the current economic crisis, I mean. But whose greed? The lenders? The creators of mortgage backed securities? The home purchasers who were unable to meet their obligations when their adjustable mortgage payment schedules reset? Yes. All of them, and a few more. Families who borrowed money to buy homes [...]

All of us who have been paying attention to the health care debate have been hearing the same arguments over and over. I believe the one value of the oft repeated protests is that  Washington does know it has a problem. Many of the voters are very  upset with what they are attempting to do. [...]

Actor John Voight was interviewed on television this afternoon. He read what I thought was a very powerful quote. Then, I heard who it was he was quoting. A man who has become one of my favorites, Mr. Thomas Sowell, who is the Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University. Here [...]

A review of 10 of the largest variable annuity providers by Symetra Life Insurance found widespread increases in the fees charged to customers, reductions in guarantees and benefits offered under many riders and sometimes the elimination of an entire guaranteed living benefit offering according to Paul Menchaca in a brief article in financial-planning.com magazine, a [...]