Tag Archive for 'Economy'

The Answer: Improve benefits communications and invest in employee wellness

What’s the question? Have you read the recent headlines?

Surely there are more options for proactive organizations than just waiting for the US Congress to work together to uncover ways to reduce both the country’s budget deficit and soaring health care costs. At the recent 24th Annual Benefits Forum and Expo in Dallas, two industry experts highlighted some key ways to reverse these trends.

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Published by Barbara Navarro on October 7, 2011

Financial Wellness for 2010 & Beyond – Plastic Revisited

Using credit for money

Just last week, the Senate approved legislation increasing the federal government’s borrowing limit by $1.9 trillion.  When signed into law the federal government will be able to borrow more money than at any time in our country’s history, making our total national debt a mind numbing $14.3 trillion.  And this will only allow us to pay our bills through 2010!

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Published by JS Wolff on February 2, 2010

What’s in Your Financial Constitution?

Voters in the state of California spoke loudly and angrily last Tuesday. After years of convoluted budget fixes, exotic borrowing schemes and skirting tough issues, Californians just said “no” to another series of band-aid fiscal ballot measures that just seemed like more of the same. Voter frustration has risen to such new levels that now there is even a movement to completely rewrite the State’s constitution to prevent the politicians from operating like credit drunk consumers.

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Published by JS Wolff on May 25, 2009

Historical Worst Case Financial Planning

I’ve talked to some pretty nervous investors recently…even with this latest uptick they’re not sure if they can ever trust the stock market again. With their fears being totally understandable, I decided to research an historical worst case scenario to help them evaluate the length of time they needed to be in the market to be reasonably assured that they wouldn’t  lose money.

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Published by JS Wolff on May 12, 2009

The Data Invasion and Financial Health

Seems like a repeat question that keeps coming up in my financial wellness sessions is, “what was different about the Great Depression than what we are experiencing now?” How about for a start…communication and data!

On January 27th, 1927, two years before the US economy fell off a cliff, inventor Philo T. Farnsworth applied for a patent that is now considered the official birth date of the television. Because this medium was still in its infancy in 1929, radio and newspapers were the only tools with the ability to reach the masses. But as we know, all of these mediums are only good for moving information one way.

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Published by JS Wolff on March 30, 2009

Financial Health and Toxicity – Mutually Exclusive

This week the government announced a new plan to rid the financial system of so-called “toxic assets”, a general term for assets that have exposed their holders to large losses. It is these assets that have paralyzed both the credit markets and the investor community from moving forward because, to date, no one has been able to determine the extent of their poisonous reach. So to restore some semblance of confidence, the government is proposing to build an entity to capture, hold and somehow try to sell these blemished instruments.

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Published by JS Wolff on March 23, 2009

Facing the Fear Factor

In all my years of being hanging around with professionals that consider themselves to be financial experts, I’ve never found anyone who could provide a logical explanation for how and why markets move in one direction or another? But it seems that either a general climate of confidence or fear are certainly leading indicators.

For example, it is interesting that the markets pay close attention to a concept that is anything but logical or analytical. It’s called “consumer confidence.” Webster’s dictionary tells us that confidence is “a state of confident hopefulness that events will be favorable.”

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Published by JS Wolff on January 23, 2009