Category: News and Politics
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reflections on Kent State 1970
In 1970 the Ohio National Guard, armed with bayonets on M1 rifles, marched on and shot unarmed students at Kent State University who were engaged in a civil protest event that authorities had not approved. Although there were political agitators at Kent State that week, all of those shot were university students. I was only 9…
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Ehealth financial results and strategy are surprising to Freedom Benefits
The most recent financial operating results reported by health insurance industry leader E-health were startling to me as the owner of the much smaller Freedom Benefits. Submitted applications for individual and family plan products decreased 78% in the second quarter of 2014 compared to the prior year. We consider Ehealth to be our most direct and…
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The spiral effect of southern New Jersey’s economic slide
Today the Atlantic City Press published another bleak economic forecast for the southern New Jersey region at http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/business/stockton-report-details-series-of-job-loss-scenarios-as-atlantic/article_3fcce228-1769-11e4-bbe4-0019bb2963f4.html. This new report is based on a Stockton economic professor’s report. Another earlier study released last month by the U.S. Conference of Mayors and HIS Global Insight predicts that for the rest of this decade the Atlantic City/Hammonton…
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Where is small business health insurance headed?
This article was written for 2014 and then updated for 2017. Little has changed. These points are still not well understood or agreed upon by professionals in the small business health insurance field: Quality of information: Most of the information published in this field appears to comes from those with a vested economic interest and/or political…
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How to handle shock health insurance increases
Today’s Wall Street Journal brought the confirmation that most health insurance advisers already suspected. Medical care utilization under the new Obamacare policies is at record levels. The coming rate increases of high health insurance renewal rates for 2015 and 2016 will pose a financial shock to policyholders. But if you believe as I do that “We have to…
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Casey Gerald Speech
A great speech: I’m glad that I listened to Casey Gerald’s 17 minute commencement address at Harvard Business School on YouTube. He speaks about how he was influenced by a lawyer at Yale who say that if you want to change the world in the 21st century, get an MBA. I was moved by the comments about how we can…
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South Jersey economy predicted 5th worst in the U.S.
A study released last Friday by the U.S. Conference of Mayors and HIS Global Insight predicts that for the rest of this decade the Atlantic City/Hammonton region will have one of the slowest economic growth rates of the entire United States. The study did not include predictions for the more rural regions of southwest…
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Renewable energy report shows progress but overall weak prospects for U.S.
Despite the rosy captions in the “Renewables 2014 Global Status Report” the actual data about renewable energy in the U.S. is quite bleak. It was easy for me to conclude from this report that the U.S. is actually headed toward a nuclear energy future. This is not because nuclear is so superior to renewables but rather that…
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Whole life insurance revisited
One of the most maddening topics for me as an adviser has been whole life insurance for working class clients. It is clear that whole life insurance is the #1 financial vehicle of choice for the “top 5 percenters” in the wealth scale, often through the corporate entities that they control, but what about the…