Annuity News

The Center for Retirement Research at Boston College maintains a national retirement index that measures the percentage of Americans who are at risk of being unable to maintain their standard of living in retirement. The most recent index results, which incorporate the impact of the financial crisis, reveal that 51 percent of Americans are at risk of being unable to maintain their standard of living in retirement. This is a 7 percent increase from the previous index results. Factors attributing...

In a very interesting piece of investigative journalism, Bloomberg is exploring the link between decisions made by the New York Fed under Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and billions of taxpayer dollars directed to select investment banks--including Goldman Sachs--at the height of the financial crisis in November 2008. Under Geithner's leadership, the New York Fed made a decision to reimburse several banks in full for counterparty positions in credit-default swaps with AIG. Bloomberg...

Barron's reports that U.S. investors have filed more securities arbitration claims in 2009 than in all of 2008. 4,991 claims have been filed thus far in 2009. Mandatory arbitration--which prevents a case from going straight to court--is essentially the sole recourse for investors who feel they have been harmed by a broker or advisor. The arbitration system is run by Finra , which serves as the self-regulation arm of the securities industry. The overall success rate of securities arbitration...

50 million Social Security recipients will have to live without a cost of living adjustment in 2010. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs has set aside $16.7 billion for employee bonuses--an average of $526,814 per employee. And this is just a start for Goldman. The company is on pace to set aside a total of $21 billion for 2009 bonuses, and amount in the range of records set in 2007. Take a look at both of the articles below for a stark reminder of how skewed and hypocritical the administration's...