Incentives

“Trees grow” is an adage that has stuck with me over the past several years.

In a post financial crisis interview, a successful investment manager was talking about his decision to load-up on Citigroup and a handful of other banks in early 2009 when the decision to do so was difficult to say the least.

The manager referenced a professor who shared the trees grow saying with him, and he emphasized the impact that the idea had on his decision to build and maintain significant long positions in banks and other financial services stocks when everyone else was certain the world was coming to an end.

The trees grow idea involves considering fundamental qualities of things—whether trees, people or businesses.

Growing is what trees do—it is...

Putnam Investments President and CEO Robert Reynolds spoke on the need to address America’s lifetime income challenge at the recent Retirement Income Industry Association (RIIA) conference in Chicago.

While Reynolds has spent most of his career in leadership positions in the investment management industry, his...

Boston University Economics Professor Laurence Kotlikoff has provided a conceptual alternative to Medicare, and he is seeking support of the new health care initiative in the form of endorsements of The Purple Health Plan.

Kotlikoff provides frequent commentary on the dire state of government finances in the United States.  Health care spending and Medicare are fundamental drivers of this fiscal distress, and Professor Kotlikoff is seeking consensus on viable alternatives to Medicare.

The Purple Health Plan seeks to cap the government's liability by turning the defined benefit Medicare program into a voucher-based defined contribution system.

Additional features of the proposed health plan...

An article on indexed annuities appeared in Bloomberg yesterday (click here to read).

The article is substantive and comes from a credible source.  It is provides a good explanation of why surrender fees need to be a front-and-center consideration for any consumer considering the purchase of an...

Walter M. Bortz II, M.D., is a Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine and a graduate of Williams College and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

Recognized as one of America’s leading scientific experts on aging and longevity, Dr. Walter Bortz's research has focused on the importance of physical exercise in the promotion of robust aging....