Your Unbiased Advisor: Don’t give your money to the wrong beneficiary!

Don’t give your money to the wrong beneficiary

This is the time to make sure the beneficiaries of your life insurance, annuity, IRAs, 401k, 403b, bank and brokerage accounts are correct. Many companies fail to pay the money you intended for your loved ones because they have tricks to keep it for profit. If your ‘bene’ does not know about the money or make a claim for it, the firm keeps it. You must make sure the insurer and your beneficiary has the correct information. You must make sure the person you want to get your money, gets it. For instance, MetLife and other insurance firms were caught keeping the funds due ‘bene’s because they claimed they did not know the payer had died or they failed to try to find or pay the benefits. Beneficiaries often do not know their benefactor had set up an account for them. In another case, MetLife used the excuse that they made the bene’s money ‘available’ but only in checks of $250 at a time. Since MetLife held $ millions of benefits in their general account, they made $ millions from the earnings with the bene’s money. Each state had to negotiate with MetLife for 3 years to get their citizens’ funds released. Prudential and John Hancock were among hundreds of insurers which had no interest in paying death benefits to their rightful owners. They did not use databases like the SS death record. The courts found that this was an elaborate game that has been going on for a long time and not just with life policy death benefits. Give your executor a list in your ‘final wishes’ letter saying who gets what from whom specifically.

Make sure your money goes where you want it to go: https://www.amazon.com/Your-Retirement-Spending-Plan-enough/dp/1461084016

More employers overcharge their workers on pension plans

Mutual of Omaha and Transamerica have been caught taking excessive fees from employees in their 401k mutual fund plans. A participant in the 401(k) plan of Mutual of Omaha sued the company and plan executives alleging violations of ERISA due to excessive fees and to the plan's use of proprietary funds. The company picks the funds that are available so the workers can have a successful retirement. Excessive fees means workers may not be successful. Other ‘service’ firm employees are in litigation with their pension plans: Prudential, Transamerica, Allianz, Jackson National, JP Morgan, Edward Jones, T. Rowe Price, WellsFargo, Franklin Templeton. An employee can lose up to 63% of their potential retirement nest egg by paying more than the costs of their pension plan. Employers can use plan providers that offer funds ‘at cost’ like Vanguard, TIAA, Schwab, etc. Instead they make employees-saving-for-retirement a ‘profit center’ for their own enhancement. They control the pension options, fees, wages, matching dollars.

Workers have options: https://www.amazon.com/401k-IRA-Tax-FREE-Tax-Deferred-retirement/dp/1475057938

Do you lose with Trump’s new tax law?

Some old deductions are gone. You may have to adjust your spending and saving to maintain your tax refund. Families with kids will double the credit. Perhaps your business will benefit from the new deduction of 20%. Here are examples for different income levels. States with high property taxes will cause many to change their tax filings.

Jared and The Don have already benefited from the new real estate credits. His new Opportunity Zone deal is even better for him and his friends/family. Some deductions are still possible.

Don’t leave your credits unused: https://www.amazon.com/Tax-Credit-Class-your-credits-ZERO/dp/1539462382

Advisors’ fees are NOT coming down

Advisors charging over 1.2% in fees per year have decided not to try to compete with lower-fee upstarts. Instead, they are re-naming the services offered. Advisors think we will pay more to them than the new kids in town because services are defined in terms of our individual needs. However automation of some services requires they all be the same. Automation makes a firm more efficiency and profitable. For example, some firms are lowering their minimum asset levels for more business on the assumption that new clients will be happy to pay 1.2% for the chance to see a real person on staff compared with the robo advisors. Model portfolios can easily be established for less cost than an actual hand-crafted one. Other firms are using targeted discounts to tempt clients from other firms. Claiming greater transparency in pricing services, some are trying the ‘flat’ fee approach to lure traditional firm clients away from the brokers with ‘hidden’ charges. In a sense the industry is trying to maintain high fees by creating ‘differentiation’—if I think I am getting more services with greater efficiency, I will stick with my broker/advisor. Don’t be fooled.

https://www.amazon.com/Best-Robo-Advisor-Ultimate-Automatic-Management/dp/1537111957

Health care fees are NOT coming down either

Americans spend more than twice as much on health care per person as their peers in developed nations, according to a new analysis from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. It's not because people in the

use more medical services. Instead, it's because drugs cost more, drug firms kill generics, doctors and nurses are paid better, hospital administration is more expensive and many medical services have higher price tags, the study found. (Today drug-maker admits to national BRIBE DOCTOR scheme creating the opioid crisis.) And paying more does not result in better outcomes unless you are wealthy. The new analysis found that the

remains an outlier when it comes to spending, which was $9,892 per person in 2016. That compares to a median of $4,033 for Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries in 2016 and to the $4,559 the

spent per person in 2000, adjusted for inflation.

It’s time we tried Medicare for All: https://www.amazon.com/Health-Insurance-ONLY-right-policy/dp/1480125083

**************

Make

~~America~~

, “The Don”, Great Again

Senile Psychosis or Parkinson’s delusions? quetiapine and clozapine

Truth isn’t truth, his lawyer says

Two

Americas

: A Banana Republic? Do we really want an infant king? Daddy Putin!

McGahn was ‘lodestar’: Told Trump ‘NO’ - saved Mueller!