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Ameriprise Financial Chairman and Chief Executive Officer to Present at the Goldman Sachs U.S. Financial Services Conference 2011
MINNEAPOLIS – December 2, 2011 – Ameriprise Financial, Inc. (NYSE: AMP) today announced that Jim Cracchiolo, chairman and chief executive officer, is scheduled to speak about the company’s business and strategy at the Goldman Sachs U.S. Financial Services Conference 2011 in New York City on Wednesday, December 7, 2011 at approximately 10:50 a.m. (ET). A live audio webcast of Mr. Cracchiolo’s presentation will be available to the general public through the investor relations section of the Ameriprise Financial website at ir.ameriprise.com. An audio replay will be available through the same website later that day. At Ameriprise Financial, we have been helping people feel confident about their financial future for over 115 years. With a network of 10,000 financial advisors and outstanding asset management, advisory and insurance capabilities, we have the strength and expertise to serve the full range of consumer financial needs. For mor Read more…
A tale of two generations
“This book is about being middle class. Our immediate concern is to see what money really is and to learn how to live with it so that we may avoid the experience of living without it. It is also about how most Americans will die destitute, in poverty, or at best suffer a precarious old age, unwitting losers in a game with very unfavorable odds.”
Those words were not written recently. They are the opening paragraph of my first book. It was published in 1972, nearly 40 years ago. Since then, Social Security has improved, Medicare has grown, housing prices have soared (if you bought yours long enough ago), and a whole generation of retirees has gone on to live with a monthly pension check that today’s youth will never see.
Today, the young are endangered. And while everyone — and I mean everyone — may feel endangered these days, an increasing body of evidence shows that we’ve done a pretty good job of improving the condition of the elderly over the past 40 years.
Sadly, we appear to have done it at the expense of the young. Inc
Fact-Checking Michele Bachmann
In a speech in Ottumwa (IA) on October 29, Michele Bachmann claimed that in 1950, “the average amount of taxes that the average family (paid) was 5 percent overall.” Our analysis shows that this claim may be misleading; the actual total federal, state and local tax burden was 24.6 percent in 1950. While Bachmann is correct that total tax burdens have increased since the 50s (the tax total tax burden this year is 27.7 percent), the “5 percent” claim seems to be a gaffe.
The DesMoinesRegister.com covered this in a recent article, where they opined that perhaps Bachmann meant to refer to just federal tax collections as a percentage of GDP, which stood at 5.8 percent in 1950.
Silvio, BEHIND YOU! The EU’s light-hearted approach to democracy
Since I compared the European Union leaderships consultation of member states to the tea-making offers of Father Teds Mrs Doyle, evidence gathers apace, as if more was needed, that the European Unions relationship with democracy is becoming ever-more light-hearted.
At the time it was small-fry Slovakia getting the Oh yes it is! treatment from the EU and losing its government.
Since then they* have hooked Papandreou off-stage, with his dangerous ideas of asking the Greek people if they fancy signing away the next ten years of their economic lives to the EUs austerity demands.
And they are in the process of making sure he is replaced with their own straight man – former European Central Bank bigwig Loukas Papademos. This prompted a few other commentators to question the EUs relationship with democracy:
- The Greek rebellion against the demands of Brussels is good news for democracy
- Greece referendum: Democracy versus the eurozone
- Keeping the euro alive means death to democracy
Next up, old Silvio. N
Days After the Deal, Europe Euphoria is Fading
The last time the European Union offered a sweeping plan to bail out Greece and prevent the debt crisis from spreading to Italy and Spain was back on July 21. At first blush, the plan appeared to be sufficiently comprehensive to satisfy investors. The next day Euro Stoxx 600 index rose 0.6 percent. However, upon closer examination, the plan was determined to be inadequate and the Stoxx 600 proceeded to fall in nine of the next ten days and by 21 percent over the next nine weeks. This brings us to the latest iteration of the EU’s efforts to deal with the debt crisis. As we know, the latest plan was offered last Wednesday, October 26. The following day saw the Stoxx 600 surge higher by 3.6 percent. At this point you probably know where this is headed. While it has only been two days since, stocks have fallen on both, for a cumulative decline of 2.4 percent, or two-thirds of Thursday’s gain. Th Read more…
With CD yields so low, dividend stock might be worth the risk
What’s a good alternative to certificates of deposit in the $75,000 to $100,000 range, assuming there is one? – J.O., by email
If you are looking for something with similar (but not identical) risk, you’ve basically got two choices. First, you can shop harder for the best CD offers. Some institutions will offer higher-than-average yields when they need new money to fund a particular investment. You can do that shopping on websites such as www.bankrate.com.
The second option is to do similar shopping for CD-like annuity products. Though these don’t carry FDIC insurance, they have the guarantee of the issuing company, and state insurance programs usually cover them. You can search for these on www.directannuities.com. If you visit www.mrannuity.com, you will find a chart comparing the average yields of five-year CD-like insurance annuities and the average five-year bank CD. It has been a close race in many time periods, with the two switching positions, but five-year CD-like insurance annuities currently beat the average bank CD.