Retirement

Inflation protection for fixed annuities would seem to be a sensible consideration given the fact that central banks around the world are doing everything they can to reflate in the wake of an historic deleveraging.

After all, the worst possible place to be if and when inflation does kick-in is on the receiving end of nominal (not adjusted for inflation) fixed payments, and most fixed annuities fit this description perfectly.

While the inflation protection makes sense in theory, it turns-out that inflation-protected annuities may not be so sensible in practice....

In a recent Barron’s interview, Ray Dalio discusses financial deleveraging and makes an interesting point about the relationship between nominal interest rates and nominal...

Laurence Kotlikoff is a Professor of Economics and Boston University. Professor Kotlikoff is one of the nation’s leading experts on fiscal policy, national saving and personal finance. 

Professor Kotlikoff is the author or co-author of 15 books and he publishes extensively in newspapers, magazines and blogs on issues of personal finance, financial reform, taxes,...

Dividends contributed five percent of the 7.9 percent total return from stocks over the 200 year period from 1802 through 2002.

Dividend paying stocks in the S&P 500 produced an average return of 8.92 percent since 1972.  Over that same roughly 40 year period, non-dividend paying stocks in the same index returned 1.83 percent.

Most equity indexed annuities only count market price gains in their reference index when crediting...