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	<title>Financial aspects of planning and living a good life</title>
	<link>http://asset-aid.com/blog</link>
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	<lastBuildDate>Wed, 02 Jun 2010 19:31:58 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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		<title>Comments on Ellen Roseman&#8217;s articles on annuities in the Toronto Star</title>
		<description><![CDATA[



Ellen Roseman published good articles in the Toronto Star lately (here and here) about longevity risks, and how it can be addressed by annuities. Below is my email sent to her. I wrote the letter because a few of my own posts in the past year were devoted to related issues, and because there are [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://asset-aid.com/blog/2010/06/02/comments-on-ellen-rosemans-articles-on-annuities-in-the-toronto-star/</link>
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		<title>Submission to Task Force on Financial Literacy</title>
		<description><![CDATA[



As you may already know, a Task Force on Financial Literacy is working on a report and recommendations for a national strategy to strengthen financial literacy in Canada. The report is for the Minister of Finance by the end of 2010. As part of their job, the Task Force invited contributions from anybody within an [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://asset-aid.com/blog/2010/05/13/submission-to-task-force-on-financial-literacy/</link>
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		<title>Policies as savings, investment, or pension income products: the less gloomy aspects of insurance</title>
		<description><![CDATA[... look at the wealth creation and accumulation side of finance. Even within this realm though, some insurance products offer significant benefits over comparable bank or mutual fund products, especially for the elderly, the risk-averse, or the affluent.]]></description>
		<link>http://asset-aid.com/blog/2010/02/06/policies-as-savings-investment-or-pension-income-products-the-less-gloomy-aspects-of-insurance/</link>
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		<title>Planning around Long-term care need if one cannot (or doesn&#8217;t want to) buy LTC insurance</title>
		<description><![CDATA['There is more than one way to skin a cat' can be true for some when planning how to pay for the things (and mainly the services) triggered by a potential long-term care situation. Underwriting difficulties are more frequent than with other kind of applications, still some people who wouldn't be able to get LTD or CI plans might be able to buy LTCi. One shouldn't give up too early because the set of criteria scrutinized is not necessarily more difficult but simply different. Problems can be avoided by applying early and by including LTC insurability considerations when buying LTD or CI policies at younger ages. ]]></description>
		<link>http://asset-aid.com/blog/2010/01/18/non-ltc-insurance-solution-to-finance-long-term-care-need/</link>
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		<title>Without sensible number crunching there is no rational investment or spending decision</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Internal Rate of Return (IRR) calculator is the first piece of a planned series of useful free on-line tools to help investors with assessing the time factor when dealing with cash flows, even if with uneven amounts and irregular intervals. It can help with the numeric evaluation of many kinds of monetary decisions, including issues with loans, budgeting, or insurance planning.]]></description>
		<link>http://asset-aid.com/blog/2010/01/18/calculators-time-factor-analysis-investment-assessment/</link>
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		<title>Long Term Care insurance (LTCi) - an increasingly more important risk managing tool</title>
		<description><![CDATA[What is the smaller mistake? The 'waste premium dollars' vs. 'going uninsured' dilemma in a 'historical asset/income effects' context. There is always a risk at any age that we become unable to take care of ourselves; chances for that grow increasingly higher as we age. More and more of Long Term Care (LTC) services have to be provided and financed by families; people prefer to stay in their homes and avoid institutionalized arrangements as long as possible. Preparation for such situation is vital but most difficult. Information sources plus a decision framework is shown here to assess which is the smaller potential mistake: perhaps wasting money on insurance or gambling on self-financing the costs of a perhaps lengthy uninsured LTC period.]]></description>
		<link>http://asset-aid.com/blog/2009/12/22/long-term-care-insurance-an-increasingly-more-important-risk-managing-tool/</link>
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		<title>Comments on the Munk Debate on climate change</title>
		<description><![CDATA[This post was intended as a comment on Marie Snyder&#8217;s blog post about the Munk Debate on climate change on Dec 1, between Elizabeth May and George Monbiot vs Nigel Lawson and Bjorn Lomborg. If you haven&#8217;t watched or listen to the debate so far, I suggest you remedy that via this link. 
At the [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://asset-aid.com/blog/2009/12/03/comments-on-munk-debate-on-climate-change/</link>
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		<title>New ways of creating personal pension type retirement income producing portfolios</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Invitation to a conference dealing with annuities and optimal allocation in retirement provides an opportunity to evaluate two special calculators, one (from a major Canadian insurer) kept for financial advisors and insurance agents/brokers, while the other freely available for anyone on the web. Both have advantages over most of the other available retirement planning tools, but there are significant differences between these two as well. The exercise illustrates some of these differences and gives weight to the claim that inherent conflict of interest situations practically all service providers are in can be seriously at the detriment of clients who seek individualized pension type life-long retirement income streams that are to keep pace with inflation. The exercise helps to understand the nature of depletion or distribution portfolios, and the merits and limitations of guaranteed income providing annuities and doubly-insured mutual funds (so called Guaranteed Minimum Withdrawal Benefit Plans or GMWBs).
]]></description>
		<link>http://asset-aid.com/blog/2009/07/27/new-ways-of-creating-personal-pension-type-retirement-income-producing-portfolios/</link>
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		<title>Whole life insurance as investment - a disappearing excellent investment opportunity for retirement planning</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
Summary:
A unique, high cash value providing, permanent life insurance policy will be withdrawn in a few weeks. For some people, especially financially stable young ones (provided it&#8217;s not an oxymoron in itself!), women, and business owners, it can be an excellent investment vehicle for retirement planning. Some numeric examples are shown below, demonstrating situations where [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://asset-aid.com/blog/2009/06/26/whole-life-insurance-as-investment-opportunity-for-retirement-planning/</link>
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		<title>Set out to be more self reliant</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The more responsibility you take for your own financial plans and management, the better the chances for success. Complete outsourcing can be expensive and risky, while devoting personal time, attention and effort to it will most likely bring great rewards. Improving general thinking and decision making skills is more important than getting highly educated in the technical details, or even many basic concepts and strategies of finance and planning, ... since the latter can be bought if really needed. Emphasizing diversification, and factors potentially under our control (costs being the #1) are key. ]]></description>
		<link>http://asset-aid.com/blog/2009/01/29/reco4-how-to-be-more-self-reliant/</link>
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