Income

In an extraordinary piece of investigative journalism, Bloomberg Markets Magazine describes the real financial bailout action that took place when banks tapped into the Federal Reserve’s Term Auction Facility for additional borrowing at below market rates. Select highlights include: While the TARP program had a big $700 billion price tag, the Federal Reserve committed as much as $7.77 trillion to banks as of March 2009. These additional trillions were provided in almost complete secrecy...

Investment News columnist Darla Mercado wrote an interesting piece of the difficulty of making meaningful comparisons among annuities and related retirement income products. Mercado focuses on the challenges created by the lack of benchmarks in the retirement income industry. Unlike the investment industry where benchmarking and transparency of product features are standard, lifetime income products are opaque and complex. Mercado examines the defined contribution plan sponsor market where...

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is a Washington DC based public policy organization. Among the many programs sponsored by CSIS is the Global Aging Initiative—a program focused on “exploring the long-term economic, social and geopolitical implications of demographic trends." The CSIS Global Aging Initiative is a rich source of demographic content. One of the more interesting pieces of content is what is referred to as the Global Aging Preparedness Index ...