Retirement Watch Weekly
Planning When There are Family Caregivers
Younger family members often care for their parents or grandparents. There often is some agreement that the caregivers should be compensated in some way for their efforts. The compensation often is with an increased share of the estate. Too often, these agreements are haphazard and create both tax and family problems. It’s easy to avoid […]
Why Medical Providers Hate Medicare
I hear regularly from readers that it is difficult for Medicare beneficiaries to find new doctors or make nonemergency appointments. The reason is the way Medicare treats medical providers. Doctors are part of the story. Their reimbursements have been reduced over the years, though there’s an annual budget maneuver to prevent the reimbursements from declining […]
Myths of Retirement Planning
The annual Retirement Confidence Survey generated more news and commentary this year than usual. One reason is that it reveals Americans are less confident about having a financially comfortable retirement than ever. Another reason is that it indicates many people simply have given up saving and planning for retirement. A good commentary is here. It […]
More About Medicare and Obamacare
Full implementation still awaits the beginning of 2014, but researchers are finding clear trends in medical delivery and pricing as we prepare for Obamacare. The reports are springing up now, because we hit the third anniversary of enactment of the Affordable Care Act of 2010. A key trend identified is a medical provider shortage, especially […]
Are Stocks Cheap?
One of the perpetual great debates among investors is the relative value of stocks. Are they cheap or are they expensive? This would be an easy question is everyone agreed on the correct metric. But they don’t. Some, such as Professor Robert Shiller and fund manager John Hussman, prefer 10-year average smoothed earnings. Others use […]
Can Gold Rise Higher?
Gold’s been a puzzle to many observers lately. It’s been in a trading range despite global central banks heavily engaging in money printing. Easy money should lead to higher gold prices. Instead, most recently gold has stayed near the bottom of the trading range. Is the gold bull market over? Most likely, I think it […]
Medicare Advantage Cuts, Round Two
Members of Medicare Advantage plans can expect a new round of premium increases or reduced benefits or both. The plans are very popular with their beneficiaries, and they’ve been growing as a percentage of the Medicare population. But the current administration in Washington doesn’t like them at all. Money put into the plans was reduced […]
A Depressing Look at U.S. Retirement
Americans have less and less confidence that they will be able to fund a comfortable retirement, according to the latest annual Retirement Confidence Survey by the Employee Benefit Research Institute. (See some media coverage here.) For many years, the survey indicated that Americans were very confident of having comfortable retirements but pointed out that most […]
