If enacted, Obamacare would extend coverage to 32 million people who currently do not have insurance.  The healthcare industry already accounts for about 18% of our nations economy.  Toppling this law would be the biggest overturn that the Supreme Court has tackled since the 1930s when it voided parts ofFranklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal.

The court will most likely make its decision in late June.

Anyone who buys thier own health insurance, or anyone who sells it, knows that the system is terribly broken.  Insurance companies are turning down coverage for thousands of people who would normally be considered healthy.  If they don’t turn them down completely, then coverage is often limited by not covering certain conditions.  For example, I recently helped a gentleman who is taking cholesterol medication obtain some health insurance.  He was accepted for coverage but with the condition that medication for cholesterol would not be covered.  He decided to accept the coverage that was offered and just pay for his cholesterol medication himself.  The plan is going to cost him over $500 per month, just for him.  For his age, this was actually a good rate.  He is in the red zone:  too young for Medicare, but old enough that insurance companies consider him an expensive risk.

Now lets say that this gentleman could not afford an extra $500 per month for health insurance and did not want to buy it.  Obamacare would force him to buy it, or something like it.  And if he did not buy it, he would be penalized with a tax/fee/penalty.  Can anyone explain to me how that fixes the problem of the high cost of healthcare?  Yes, it would put more money into the insurance companies pockets.  And it would put more people into doctors offices because now they can see a doctor for a mere copay.  But it doesn’t seem to address the real problem of how expensive healthcare and health insurance really is.  Forcing more people to buy it would also mean forcing insurance companies to cover everyone, which may actually make insurance premiums go higher.  Unless the government is going to subsidize the cost of it with more taxpayer money.  I think we all know that is not a good solution.  But what is the right answer?  If the government can make us buy health insurance, then why couldn’t they make us also brush our teeth and go to the gym every day.  Sure, those are good things to do.  But is that the government’s role?  I welcome your comments and suggestions.

These are very comforting comments for the market, and so we see that it’s rallying up again today.  The optimism in the market right now is at some pretty high levels.  The stock indexes are pushing ever closer to their pre-2008 crash levels.

Bernanke did however say that he is concerned that this recent improvements in unemployment may be temporary and short-lived.  This is another reason the Fed is not ready to tighten monitary policy yet.

Just yesterday I was informed by Fidelity Investments that the IRS granted them an extension to the Feb 15th mailing deadline.  Fidelity made this request due to delays from certain third-parties, causing tax information to not being available yet.  The deadline extension was approved by the IRS and Fidelity says they are committed to mailing the documents by the end of February.

The good news is that this extension will likely reduce the number of corrected 1099′s that will be sent out in March or later.

Most of us would like to slap someone like this up side the head. But this is exactly what our government is doing right now. I would love to hear your comments and feedback.

If a public official did not use a blind trust for his or her investments, the only other way to avoid conflicts of interest would be to simply not invest in anything.  They would be limited to owning bank CD’s or treasury bills, etc.  Blind trusts help these individuals avoid being accused by others of conflicts of interest, and also avoid being tempted to take advantage of information they may have.  It’s called a blind trust because the beneficiary cannot see what is held inside the trust.

A blind trust is not just for someone who is super rich or wealthy.  Anyone who is a public official, or who is in a sensitive public position could protect themselves from scrutiny by using a blind trust.  In the trust they would be able to specify the general perameters for investing such as asset allocation (the mix of stocks, bonds and cash), and the timeframe for the investment to be used.  But beyond that, the trustee will manage the particular investments, and would be paid for their services.

This got me to thinking about how many “mud holes” are out there slowing down investor’s retirement plans.  This would include things like excessive fees & commissions, low returns, poor investment decisions, inflation, market volatility and unnecessary taxes.

If fact, I just had a conversation the other day with one of my clients who told me about a mud hole that another adviser had created for her.  The adviser had been managing some money for her invested in dividend paying stocks that were supposed to reduce her risk and generate income.  In 2011, the account lost over 16%!  I was shocked!  How’s that for low risk?!  When we compared that to the way her portfolio with me was performing, which actually made money this year, her comment really hit me.  She said, “I will think long and hard before I ever let anyone but you manage money for me.”  I really makes me feel good to know that I’m helping my clients make money AND take less risk than the market.  With the difficult times ahead that this country is going to be facing, no one can afford to be losing money like that.

How did we do it you ask?  Well it doesn’t happen by accident.  Over the last 16 years I’ve developed a strategic method of investing designed to lower volatility and protect against inflation.  I don’t use any kind of risky derivatives or options or anything like that.  And my clients money is liquid, easily accessible if they ever want or need it.

If you would like to discuss how I can help you protect your assets from the wild swings of the market, and stay ahead of inflation (which is likely to get ugly), then please call me.  My toll free number is 1- 866-983-4222. I will offer you a complimentary review of your current portfolio and show you how we can help you eliminate and avoid the worst proverbial “mud holes” that face investors like you.  Don’t live with retirement plan “mud holes”.  These can be fixed with a little time and effort.  Some are much easier to get rid of than others.  And chances are, it won’t COST you anything to fix these problems in your retirement plan, it will likely SAVE you money and increase your retirement assets in the end.

Ingredients:

• Washed & dried off turkey (giblet bag removed)
• 1 or 2 sticks of butter (depending on the size of your Thanksgiving bird)
• 1 cup chopped pancetta, ham or bacon
• 1 or 2 tablespoons of poultry seasoning (again, depending on size of gobbler)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Lay the turkey on the counter on its back with the cavity facing you.  With your hands, gently separate the skin from the breast meat.  It’s cold and gross feeling, but you’ll get through it.  Leave the skin attached to the meat at the front of the turkey breast so that it forms a pocket to hold the butter.  Mix the softened butter with the other ingredients.  Now spread the butter over the turkey breast evenly, underneath the skin.  Rub the outside of the turkey with some vegetable or olive oil.  Sprinkle some extra salt on the outside of the bird as a final touch.  Tuck the ends of the wings under the rest of the wing.  This will prevent them from burning to a crisp.  Tie the ends of the drumsticks together with the string provided with your Thanksgiving turkey.

I’m not big on cooking stuffing inside a turkey, I think it tastes better if you don’t.

Heat your oven up to 500 degrees and cook the turkey for about 30 minutes.  Then turn the oven down to 350 and put a meat thermometer into the thickest part of the breast.  It’s a good idea to cover the turkey with some foil for the next 45 minutes to prevent the skin and breast from drying out too much.  Make sure you take it off for the remaining time so the skin gets nice and golden brown.

Don’t go by the per pound cooking time, go by the temperature of the meat.  The USDA says you should cook the turkey till it reaches 160 degrees.  But once you take the bird out of the oven it will continue to cook and the temperature will rise for about 15 minutes.  I recommend taking the bird out when the thermometer reaches 155 degrees for a moister meat.  This is the key to a moist turkey meat.  Don’t cook it too long and crispify it!  After you take it out, plan on letting the bird sit for 30 – 60 minutes prior to carving it.  A 20 lb. bird will take around 3 hours to cook.  But again, don’t go by time, go by temperature!

Follow these simple instructions and your family and guests will be telling you that this was the best Thanksgiving turkey they ever had!  Now you know how to cook a turkey, and how to cook a moist turkey.

Happy Thanksgiving!

This 13% increase in the traditional turkey dinner costs includes a meal of the following for 10 people:

• 16 pound turkey
• Bread stuffing
• Peas
• Sweet potatoes
• Rolls
• 1 lb relish tray of celery and carrots
• Pumpkin pie with whipped cream
• Milk & coffee

Writing this post is already making me hungry, I’m not sure if I can wait until Thursday for the feast!

But in all seriousness, this rising inflation should sound an alarm to everyone out there.  Costs of the things we use every day are increasing rapidly while many Americans are unemployed or underemployed.  Inflation has historically averaged about 3.5% over the last 75 years or so.  But there have been periods of time where it was much higher than that.  Most of you remember the 80′s when mortgage interest rates were well into the teens.  In fact, a 12% interest rate on your mortgage would have been very good at one time.  I only mention mortgage rates because they do tend to be tied to overall inflation rates in general.  Mortgage rates right now are very low.  In fact, mortgage rates are now much lower than the inflation rate of food, medical care, and housing.

One of the important aspects of personal financial planning is diversification.  Everyone knows that you should diversify your retirement assets into various classes to protect yourself from everything going down at once.  Diversification also protects you from missing out on an investment class that grows at a rate far greater than other classes.  If you have part of your assets in that class you’ll be able to take advantage of that increase.

Buying insurance is another way to diversify your assets.  Putting part of your money into an insurance policy to protect you from a significant loss makes good sense.  I’ve always supported buying insurance for the big things that could creast a catastrophic loss.

I want to suggest today another way to diversify your assets, and protect yourself from major losses.  This may seem crazy to some of you, but to many who are already doing this, it makes perfect sense.  I think every family needs to put some of their assets into buying extra food and other household consumables.  Having a supply of food daily consumables will protect you against rising inflation.  In fact, if you were able to use food today that you bought 1 year ago, you would have essentially earned 13% on the money you invested into that food.  I’ll bet you didn’t make that in the market last year.

Now I know that not all food items can be stored that long before use.  But there are a lot of ways to store food for much longer than a year.  Many canned goods and dry food items are packaged in a way that they can be used well over 1 year later.  Powdered milk and powdered eggs can also be purchased and stored for well over a year.  Wheat, which can be ground into flour can be stored for up to 25 or 30 years.  There’s a ton of information on the web about building up a food storage for your family.

You could also invest some of your assets into food and aggriculture stocks.  But if food becomes difficult to get, you can’t eat your shares of stocks.

We are experiencing food shortages in many parts of the world right now.  This could continue to affect food prices going forward.  Food costs rose by 13% this last year, how much will they go up this next year?

Now I’m not say to go dig a bunker in your backyard and prepare for the end of the world.  What I am saying is to just buy a little extra each time you go to the store.  Find things on sale and buy a few more of them than you normally would.  Turn an extra closet into a food storage pantry and start filling it up.  Gradually build up a storage of food and household supplies as an easy way to protect yourself from rising costs.  And if inflation really gets out of hand down the road, you’ll be glad you did.

The problem is that inflation eats away at the purchasing power of retirement nest eggs.  Over the course of 30 years (a very likely retirement period these days), a 3.5% inflation rate will cause today’s dollar to buy about 36 cents worth of goods.  To look at it another way, someone who can live today on $50,000 a year would need about $140,000 a year 30 years from now (if inflation holds at that pace).

Lately, the Consumer Price Index (CPI), the most common measure of inflation in this country, rose to 3.6% annually in July.  That’s above the historical average, and worries many experts that it could discourage the Fed from too much more stimulus for the economy.

With no cost of living increases in Social Security checks over the last two years, many retirees are beginning to feel the pinch of what rising costs can do to someone on a fixed income.

The truth is, the CPI measurement of inflation may not be realistic for some people.  People in retirement years often spend more than average on healthcare.  The cost of medical care only accounts for 6.6% of the CPI index.  At the beginning of retirement, healthcare accounts for about 25% of your essential expenses, and near the end of retirement if can account for almost 50% of your essential expenses.  As you get into the later years of retirement you tend to spend less on other things like travel, entertainment, transportation & clothing, so you still need to plan on at least a 3% overall inflation rate.

The good news is, there are ways to hedge your portfolio against the inflation enemy.  Things like stocks, real estate and commodities have historically outperformed inflation.  More recently, inflation protected bonds have also helped investors stay ahead of rising costs.  Many fixed and variable annuities now offer riders that automatically boost income payouts to policyholders each year.

The bottom line is, you need to plan on doubling or tripling your income over a 30 year retirement, even with modest inflationary numbers.  This can definitely be done with some careful planning, and by using a diversified approach to allocating your nest egg.  Working with a competent financial planner will help you accomplish this.

Judging from President Obama’s impactful speech last evening, the Administration has at long  last recognized the severity of America’s unemployment crisis and the need for a comprehensive policy response.

U.S. President Barack Obama, flanked by Vice President Joe Biden and Speaker of the House John Boehner, addressed both houses of the U.S. legislature to highlight his plan to create jobs for millions of out of work Americans on September 8, 2011 in Washington, DC.

The program is a credible attempt to address structural obstacles that undermine economic growth and employment.  Its effectiveness, however, is hostage to two factors that will become clearer
over the next few days.

Let us start with the good news.

After a painful and, for many, inexplicable delay, the Administration is finally shifting from an ineffectual series of ad hoc measures to a comprehensive program that targets key impediments to job creation.

The emphasis is rightly on employment incentives, labor market reforms, infrastructure, and improving the
functioning of the mortgage market.  There are even efforts, albeit even more limited in nature, to bypass clogged credit pipes, alleviate pressures facing our schools, and reduce bureaucracy. And there is a token attempt to
provide more summer jobs for teenagers.

I suspect that many would agree with me that, having finally identified the key areas, the President should have
been much bolder upfront — proposing deeper, more ambitious and more detailed structural reforms.

Yet he deserves the benefit of the doubt as he did point to the possibility of reinforcing the program over
time.

Now, for the bad news.  The effectiveness of this program is far from guaranteed as two big — and critical issues — are outstanding.

First, we have to wait until next week for the fiscal component of the program. Specifically, the cost of today’s announcements needs to be offset over the medium-term by credible reforms to both taxes and budgetary spending. Second, it is not clear whether this inherently centrist program will succeed in sufficiently bringing together a highly polarized congress.

Democrats and Republicans now have a choice. They can either coalesce around the President’s program, drawing comfort from individual elements that appeal to them; or they can hold out for more and, in the process, turn the pursuit of their personal best into an enemy of the public good.

A lot is at stake, especially for those that have been jobless for too long but also for American society as a whole. Let us hope that Washington is, collectively, able and willing to follow through. If it does, tonight’s speech could well mark the initiation of America’s economic Sputnik moment.