Thank you for taking time to visit Annuity Digest.  The information on this page is intended to help you better understand the annuity calculator results that were sent to you in email.

Laddering is a term that refers to staggered purchases over time. 

Is a nasty inflation brewing or is the U.S. facing a prolonged deflationary period similar to what Japan has experienced for the past twenty years?

Billions of dollars and major public policy decisions are currently positioned for both scenarios.

The need for further deficit spending and low interest rates is advocated by Paul Krugman's "Phantom Menace" comments and a recent piece by Teresa Ghilarducci.

Annuities are complex, largely misunderstood, and often misrepresented in popular financial media.

The reality, though, is that these financial products are becoming an increasingly important part of the financial plans of millions of people around the world.  In fact, annuities are a vital component of the retirement planning process.

In a recent interview, TIAA-CREF CEO Roger Ferguson discusses post financial crisis retirement planning and CREF's role in the new retirement planning landscape.

Ferguson believes that increasing longevity in the U.S. is a key driver of what will be a very different 21st century retirement system.

Ferguson also suggests that stable sources of lifetime guaranteed income--in other words an annuity--should provide the "backbone" of the future system:

Politico recently reported on the possibility of a concerted attack on the U.S. dollar which, if valid, could have a meaningful impact on annuity owners and other recipients of fixed income.

The story suggests that Arab oil sheiks are conspiring with the Chinese and Russian governments to eliminate the U.S. dollar's role as the reserve currency in the global oil trade.

The dollar's role in the oil trade serves as a linchpin for its relative strength and role as the world's overall reserve currency.