Is Gold a Good Investment? (Part 2)

“The commander of the imperial guard took away the basins, censers, sprinkling bowls, pots, lampstands, dishes and bowls used for drink offerings—all that were made of pure gold or silver.” – Jeremiah 52:19  In the United States, the gold standard ended in 1933 when the federal government halted convertibility of notes into gold and demanded that […]

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Passive Income: Why Cash FLOW is King (even if you’re not retiring)

By Anthony J. Faso CPA and Kim Butler and “Happiness is positive cash flow.” -Fred Adler, venture capitalist. From a financial perspective, the goal of retirement planning is providing passive income. Passive income is income that is not derived from one’s labor, though there may have been plenty of initial work to set the passive income in motion. In a […]

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Three Monkeys and a Cat: the Truth about Picking Stocks

  “A blindfolded monkey throwing darts at a newspaper’s financial pages could select a portfolio that would do just as well as one carefully selected by experts.” -Burton Malkiel, Asset manager and author of A Random Walk Down Wall Street. Economist Burton Malkiel hypothesized that share prices move completely at random, making stock markets entirely unpredictable. While his […]

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Inconvenient Truths about the Stock Market

“The person that is buying a share of stock is convinced he knows something that the other person who’s selling it to him does not know. There’s no zero sum game in Wall Street.” -Bernie Madoff No doubt you’ve heard this statistic: “Over time, the stock market averages 10% annual returns.” The numbers vary slightly, but financial planners, […]

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Life Settlement Investments: Pros and Cons and Facts

“This might be the best investment you’ve never heard of.” – Kevin Nichols, private equity fund managerAre You an Investor Seeking Stock Market Alternatives?  We think that people are tired of the word “investment” meaning only the stock market. In broker-dealer circles, even “alternative” investments often refers to products within the mutual fund world, such as […]

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Financial Flexibility: Saving Too Much in All the Wrong Places?

“More than 25% of Americans are dipping into 401(k) retirement accounts to pay for bills.” ~The Los Angeles Times, March 7, 2013   More people are raiding their 401(k)s than ever before, but not for retirement. According to CNBC’s report of a HelloWallet study, one in four Americans are borrowing from retirement accounts to pay bills, such […]

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Saving Right: Is Your Emergency Fund Prepared for Opportunities?

“The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.” -Benjamin Disraeli The Best Way to Save Money Only three years before the Great Depression started with the stock market crash of 1929, George S. Clayton published The Richest Man in Babylon, a classic personal finance books written […]

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How Safe is Your Money? FDIC Insurance and Fractional Reserve Banking

“You’re thinking of this place all wrong… as if I had the money back in a safe. The money’s not here. Your money’s in Joe’s house…right next to yours. And in the Kennedy house, and Mrs. Macklin’s house, and a hundred others. Why, you’re lending them the money to build, and then, they’re going to […]

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STOLEN SAVINGS: Three Men and a Bank Account

How Civil Forfeiture is used to Confiscate Bank Accounts“Banking is a very treacherous business because you don’t realize it is risky until it is too late. It is like calm waters that deliver huge storms.”   — Nassim Nicholas Taleb  Your bank claims to keep your money safe from fraud, theft and harm… but what happens when […]

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Family Banking 101

“A Family Bank is a strategy to keep wealth in your family and keep it growing…from generation to generation.” – The Family Banking Book (forthcoming)   This strategy has been called “Family Banking,” “Private Family Banking,” the “Private Reserve Strategy,” “Infinite Banking,” “Insurance Banking,” and probably a half-dozen other names too. By whatever name, what […]

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Life Insurance for Children and Grandchildren? The Surprising Benefits

“If you want to start an argument, ask a group of financial advisers what they think about buying life insurance for children.” – Bankrate.com   Should you get life insurance for a child? Don’t people only “need” life insurance if they have a family to support? Why do people insure their children and grandchildren, and […]

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Is Gold a Good Investment? (Part 1)

“Mr. Bond, all my life I have been… in love with gold. I love its colour, its brilliance, its divine heaviness… I ask you… is there any other substance on earth that so rewards its owner?” – Ian Fleming, Goldfinger   People have held and invested in gold since long before our U.S. dollars existed. […]

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The Leverage Test: Can You Use Your Assets as Collateral?

“When we leverage, we aggregate and organize existing resources to achieve success.” – Richie Norton, The Power of Starting Something Stupid.   When you invest or store your dollars somewhere, it’s important to consider if – or on what terms – you can borrow them back should an urgent need for cash arise.  While you […]

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Whole Life Vs. Indexed Universal Life: What Insurance Agents and Financial Advisors Really Think

“Believe (me), it’s not fun try­ing to explain to a client why his cash value went down and what are those high fees about.” – Agent/Advisor discussing Whole Life vs. Indexed Universal Life with a colleague   Have you ever wondered if a financial professional was selling you what is really best for you? Perhaps […]

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Universal Life: The Inconvenient Truth about the “Other” Permanent Insurance

“The insurance industry has a dirty little secret that threatens the retirement plans of millions of unsuspecting families. “The problem is buried in the fine print of universal life policies…” John E. Girouard, Forbes.com,“Retirement Disaster Looms for Universal Life Policyholders” If you are familiar with Partners for Prosperity, Inc., you know that we advocate Whole […]

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