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Written by Richard B. Wagner, JD, CFP®
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Thursday, 19 March 2009 11:41 |
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You have to admit, these have been strange times for money. Writing about money and our relationships with it has been challenging from the get go, of course, but who knew we would be entering a period of unprecedented crisis? When we initially launched the blog in the fall of 2007, we thought we understood what InsideMoney should look like. Things have changed a bit since then. Unfortunately, we did not know what was unfolding either in its particulars or its implications. As Tom Friedman observes in his New York Times column of March 11, 2009, "This is the big one."
The money forces have been manifesting urgently. To what end? Our crystal ball is still cloudy, but it is all fascinating. And befuddling. And terrifying.
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Written by Martin Siesta
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Wednesday, 14 January 2009 11:35 |
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 To reflect its complexity, the Calvert-Henderson Health Indicator (initially discussed in Part 2) focuses on three basic questions: "Who gets a chance at life?", "How long will that life last?" and "How healthy will that life be?" Infant Mortality Rate is a measure of the first question, Life Expectancy is a measure of the second question and Self-Reported Health is one way of measuring the third question. All of these help to reveal inequalities in health both within the US and between the US and other countries.
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Written by Neal Van Zutphen
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Wednesday, 29 October 2008 17:38 |
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I am fascinated by the human mind and our emotions, particularly as they engage money. This blog is based on my financial planning practice, my current research and attempts to understand them.
Let me share my own bias. My fundamental belief system is humanistic in nature. Accordingly, I tend to seek empirical data that embraces the concept of free will or the power of choice. That is my worldview. Generally, it serves me well in both my personal life and my professional services.
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Written by Martin Siesta
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Thursday, 15 January 2009 14:48 |
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As we discussed in Part 1, GDP has outlived its usefulness. There are now many new, better indicators, from the Canadian Index of Wellbeing (CIW), the UN's Human Development Index (HDI), the World Bank's Wealth Index to Genuine Progress Index (GPI), Bhutan's Gross National Happiness (GNH) to the Calvert-Henderson Quality of Life Indicators. A GlobeScan survey of ten countries in November 2007, in conjunction with the Beyond GDP Conference in the European Parliament, found that large majorities in India, Russia, Germany, France, Italy, Britain, Australia, Brazil and Kenya favored broader scorecards of progress beyond money-based GDP. Indicators included health, education and environment. Real wealth and progress can never be solely quantified with money. In the financial planning profession, there are a number of planners who are having conversations about wealth and assets that are about more than money. Increasingly, there are conversations about the use of money. Leveraging debt and economic growth dependant on consumption has become evident.
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Written by Martin Siesta
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Monday, 12 January 2009 09:10 |
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 The gross domestic product (GDP) or gross domestic income (GDI) is one of the measures of national income and output. GDP is defined as the total market value of all final goods and services produced within a country in a given period of time. GDP is often used to define the wealth of a country.
There are a number of limitations to this approach. Simon Kuznets, the inventor of the GDP, said in his very first report to the US Congress in 1934, "..the welfare of a nation [can] scarcely be inferred from a measure of national income." What we are seeing in the markets today may be an indication of the limitations of this measurement.
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Written by Gary Shunk and Megan Wells
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Saturday, 18 October 2008 05:53 |
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 According to Robert Frank's September 30th entry in the Wall Street Journal Wealth Blog, a Prince and Associates Survey reports "81% of investors with $1 million or more investible assets plan to take money away from their current advisor. An even larger number - 86% -- plan to tell other investors to avoid their advisor." What's going on?
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