MEDICARE: About 63 percent of people with Medicare have two or more chronic conditions, such as diabetes, heart disease and arthritis. The 20 percent of people with Medicare with five or more chronic conditions make up two-thirds of Medicare spending

ARBITRATION- In 2006, 7,212 cases were decided in arbitration, down from a peak in 2004 of 9,209. Forty-two percent of cases in 2006 resulted in monetary awards for the customer. Five years earlier, that figure was 54 percent.

Lots and lots of talk about how it is cheaper, takes less time. But it is more like court now but with three people on the panel that really don't know that much.

LIFE SETTLEMENTS- estimates for 2005 are from $5 to $9 billion in face amounts. Estimates for 2006 are for up to $14 billion in face amounts. The average policy size is $1.5 to $2 million. The average age is 74 to 80 with 6 to 10 years of life expectancy. Universal life is the typical life insurance product sold in a life settlement. The average settlement price is between 16% to 22% of the face amount. The trend may be to lower face amounts and insureds with fewer health impairments. A life settlement company reports that its average face amount is now below $1 million.

1,500+ (STUPID) PEOPLE- “Hendricks and others promised that for every $5,859 invested, PAI would return $9,720 within one to three weeks, and that investors could earn more than $1 million per month.

Based on those false promises, investors transferred more than $13 million into PAI bank accounts in Oregon, Washington state and Florida, which were controlled by Hendricks and another individual.”

There is nothing you can do to help those 1,500. they simply have the I of a salamander. No one of any intelligence could believe that you were going to double your money in a week or two. Or three. Or four........

Absolutely none of this should have happened with even a modicum of effort- it’s called reading. Admittedly some of the losses were sustained by people with limited IQs, but the bulk were lost by others who were greedy and stupid. Nobody who reads my material would let this happen- but just be aware that a loved one of yours might be tempted.

MILLIONS UPON MILLIONS- the number of U.S. households with a net worth of $5 million or more, not including primary residence, rose to a record 1.4 million in 2006, surpassing 1 million for the first time. The data represent a 23% increase over 930,000 households in the category in 2005, and a quadrupling of the 250,000 ultra-high-net-worth households in 1996.

Early retirement remains a goal for many people. It's a chance to walk away from the grind of the office and perhaps reinvent yourself.

But early retirement carries significant risks, as well. Your nest egg will have to support you for a longer period of time. And your eagerness to start the next chapter of your life could leave you susceptible to bad advice -- especially when it comes to decisions about pensions and payouts from savings.

"It's a particularly vulnerable moment," says the NASD. “Your entire life savings is at risk."

(Then why allow it? Don't you think brokers have to know the fundamentals of investing? No, the NASD does not), .

Hundreds of employees at BellSouth found this out the hard way. Between 1994 and 2002, brokers from the Citigroup Global Markets held more than 40 seminars and hundreds of individual meetings with BellSouth workers to show them how they could take early retirement. Central to the brokers' pitch was that the employees could expect to earn 12% a year from their investments and could withdraw about 9% a year from their accounts, according to the NASD complaint.

"You should be able to expect 12%," one broker told a couple, according to the NASD. "That is not guaranteed....We may do 15, may do 18 or 20. But good times, bad times, I think that we would do 12%."

What the workers were not told about was the risk they were taking by cashing out of their pensions, which provided guaranteed payouts, and putting the money in the stock market, where returns would fluctuate. The brokers' materials didn't mention that 12% returns were above the stock market's average returns over the long term -- 10.7% a year over the last 50 years, according to Standard & Poor's.

In addition, NASD said brokers didn't adequately disclose that customers would pay annual fees of 2% to 3% -- and as a result, workers would actually have to earn 14% to 15% on their investments to hit the promises made by the brokers. (Impossible!!!)

When the stock market turned south, the brokers held a series of conference calls to try to hold onto accounts opened by BellSouth early retirees, the NASD said. During these calls, the brokers made various predictions that the markets would soon rebound. One prediction: the Dow Jones Industrial Average would rise to 20000 or 21000 by 2006. (The Dow is now around 13400.) In the end, more than 200 BellSouth employees saw their original investments decline by about $12.2 million, according to the NASD.

(Hundreds of Bell South employees- the bulk with a college education- and all with a brain- got duped by marketing, greed, and some downright stupidity. Anyone knows the market had not done more than about 10% historically. Why would Citigroup do better? Ouija board?)

These actions resulted in Citigroup agreeing to pay more than $15 million to settle NASD charges related to the brokers' activities, while neither admitting nor denying wrongdoing. "We take this matter very seriously," Citigroup said. "The firm is also working on all fronts to prevent a similar situation from occurring again." (So why did it happen in the first place? Greed?)

HOW BAD IS THE ECONOMY?: Goldman Sachs REALLY has a bad commentary on the economy- ”The housing slump has increased the chance of a U.S. recession and will further weaken home prices, Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS: Charts, News, Offers) said on Tuesday, cutting its stock recommendations on a slew of companies vulnerable to sluggish growth. In a grim assessment of the U.S. economy's health, the investment bank said the Federal Reserve will have to cut its lending rate to banks by 1-1/2 percentage points to 3 percent in the next six to nine months to avert a recession. Weakness in construction and consumption will likely shave 2 percentage points from real U.S. economic growth in 2008, and will likely increase the unemployment rate to 5.5 percent from the current 4.7 percent.”

I mean, you really have to think things are black when you state the FED will have to drop rates that much. If they have to do that, kiss much of the U.S. economy good bye. It will kill the dollar. That will make oil go higher. More jobs lost. And on and on.

Your friends and I wanted to do something special for your birthday.

So we're having you put to sleep.

ANNUITY "BENEFITS" (WSJ) There are three basic types of living-benefits riders. The guaranteed-minimum-income benefit, as its name suggests, assures future income at a minimum level. The guaranteed minimum withdrawal benefit provides assurance that you can withdraw a certain percentage of your investment annually, in some cases for life. And the guaranteed-accumulation benefit ensures that your nest egg won't lose value if markets turn down.

Each insurer tweaks the benefits in various ways and at varying costs. Some insurers, such as Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co., offer no riders. The company says a well-structured financial plan can provide the same benefits that riders do. (True but it begs the issue of who is a good planner and what is good plan).

One of the most popular choices among consumers is the guaranteed-minimum-income benefit. This benefit is for savers who are certain they'll annuitize their contract once it reaches the payout phase -- instead of withdrawing the cash -- to create a pension-like income stream. If you know you won't annuitize, paying for this benefit is wasted spending.

This benefit guarantees that at a predefined point, usually 10 years out, you can "know with absolute precision exactly what your annuity will minimally provide" for the rest of your life. That can help with long-range retirement planning, and shields against a steep market decline just before you retire.

If your investments excel, then you can annuitize the larger amount to create an even bigger stream of income, though you'll have paid hundreds or thousands of dollars in fees for a benefit you never needed. If your investments flounder, you can exercise the benefit to your advantage.

The rider most commonly offered by insurers is the guaranteed-minimum-withdrawal benefit. This is generally for people who don't expect to annuitize their contract because they want to retain access to their assets in retirement, but still want a guaranteed level of income.

Two versions of this benefit exist: one provides guaranteed withdrawals over a set period, the other over your remaining life. With either version, the payout is generally pegged to your initial investment, not the future account value.

The lifetime version limits withdrawals to about 4% or 5% of your initial investment, and the payments continue until your death. This is best for people who fear outliving their cash but still want access to a lump sum if they need it.

The version with a set payout period provides for a withdrawal rate of about 7% annually, but once the initial investment is depleted, the payments stop. Depending on investment performance, however, your account could still hold cash. If so, you either reclaim that money as a lump sum or annuitize it. Or, you could opt not to exercise the withdrawal benefit in the first place and, instead, take the larger account value and withdraw it, or annuitize it for a larger payment.

Did you understand all that? Not even close. It’s even more convoluted when you read the actual contract.

1. Ask your friends and business associates for the names of stockbrokers, financial planners, registered investment advisers that they successfully use.

EFM- Referrals are one of the worst way to pick an adviser. Friends, associates et al. None know the fundamentals of investing and are therefore clueless to what may be going on. I know I beat this to death, but if you do not know diversification by the numbers, you don't know crap about investing.

2. Interview prospective brokers and firms. Do not be tempted to go with the first broker you interview. Remember, the broker will be working for you and you will be paying the broker for services.

Maybe O.K. But interviewing someone with no fundamental background and you are dealing with emotion. That is not acceptable. A broker has never been taught the fundamentals of investing.

3. Check out the broker and the firm. How long has the firm been in business? What is the background of the broker? How about complaints against the firm and broker? Ask these questions and also get the official report on the broker and the firm at www.nasd.com - for free, or from your state securities office.

You can check the background but if you do not know that none of the fundamentals have been taught in the Series 7 exam, just exactly what do you think you are looking for?

4. Interview the broker’s branch manager or supervisor. Ask him or her the same questions you’ve asked the broker. If the manager is “too busy” to speak with you, go someplace else. If the manager is “too busy” now, what would happen if you have a complaint later?

Managers and supervisors have no additional securities training than brokers. So asking one does what?? Waste of time.

5. References are important. Ask the broker for the names of 10 current clients. Call them all. Ask a lot of questions. Good brokers will provide references on your promise not to ask references the particulars of their own finances.

If you have a really knowledgeable broker, that's fine. But do you know what diversification is?? They don't. And their clients don't.

6. Broker product knowledge is critical. Does the broker want to sell you one certain type of product or will the broker propose, in writing, a comprehensive strategy tailored to your specific needs, now and in the future? How about a 3, 5, 10 year written PLAN OF ACTION? Ask for it and get it.

A plan is not broker knowledge. Having one tell you about standard deviation with risk is simply fraud. Literally all the financial plans are cookie cutters where everyone is treated effectively the same.

7. Commissions and fees count. You are entitled to know, before you invest in anything, the total fees and commissions you will be paying. Don’t be embarrassed. Ask!

8. Contact your broker regularly. At least once every two weeks by phone, in-person once a month, if possible. Do a “status” check on your account often, particularly when a major change in your life circumstances takes place. Don’t delay in informing the broker of a job loss, a family illness, or other significant change in your situation. Life is not static; change is the only constant.

Fine, but what is it that you expect. How can they change asset allocation when they don't know what it is. Or it came from the back of a Cheerios box.

9. Statements can be difficult to read. Go over your statement each month. If you do not understand it, call the broker. If you still don’t understand it or you see something that appears out of line, call the branch manager.

10. Take responsibility for your money. Be involved in all phases of your investments. Keep informed. Trust the pros but verified trust is best. Make investment changes as the changing world and your life circumstances warrant.

Verify is fine. But note how none of these simplistic guides every tell you what to verify or how to do it. YOU are going to have to do a lot of reading and research before you can ever verify.

CRAMER'S CRAP- Jim Cramer's stock picks on his nightly CNBC show "Mad Money" haven't beaten the market over the past two years, according to an article in the August 20 edition of Barron's. Over that period, Cramer's stocks rose 12 percent, compared with a 22 percent rise in the Dow Jones industrial average and a 16 percent rise in the Standard & Poor's 500 index.

CHARLIE MUNGER (Buffet’s partner) He once asked a surgeon why he still did an outdated procedure. “Because it’s so easy to teach!” There’s more of that in (university) finance departments than you’d believe. That stuff has no utility at all, but they keep on teaching it.

Me- That's the same thing a Morningstar journalist said to me regarding the fact of simply teaching that risk and standard deviation/volatility were the same thing. He said it was better to teach something wrong than not teach anything at all. It was too hard to teach the right thing!! God's honest truth.

CERTIFIED SENIOR ADVISER- (NY Times) "He paid $1,095 for a correspondence course, then took a multiple-choice exam with questions like, “Marketing can best be described as:” (The answer: “The process or technique of promoting the sale or distribution of a product or service.”) Like more than 18,700 other applicants since 1997, he passed"

Insurance companies, eager for sales representatives, embraced Mr. DelMonico, as they have thousands of other newly credentialed advisers. The following year, insurers paid him commissions worth $720,000 as his business with retirees soared. But many of those sales came from steering older Americans into unwise investments. DelMonico is one of tens of thousands of financial advisers working hand-in-hand with insurance companies to market themselves to older Americans using impressive-sounding credentials like “certified elder planning specialist,” “registered financial gerontologist,” “certified retirement financial adviser” and “certified senior adviser.”

Many of these titles can be earned in just a few days from for-profit businesses, and sound similar to established credentials, like certified financial planner, that require years of study, difficult tests and extensive background checks."

EFM- but therein lies the fallacy. You can get the CFP designation in as little as six months. It is the same as one semester in money. It is not a degree nor anywhere close. That's why a lot of people get screwed by CFPs as well.

The number of certified senior advisers has increased by 78 percent in the last five years. More than two dozen such programs now exist, and have enrolled more than 39,000 people over the last decade. The insurers Allianz, Old Mutual and American Equity have been listed as sponsors at seminars with names like the Million Dollar Academy, where thousands of sales representatives were advised to scare retirees by saying, “I am all that stands between you and potential catastrophic loss.” Other seminars instructed agents to “drive a wedge” between retirees and their established advisers.

In interviews, sales agents who have been accused of wrongdoing said they followed the guidance of insurance companies. “I did what I was told,” said Mr. DelMonico, before declining to discuss the lawsuit against him. “If it was so wrong, why did everyone let me do it for so many years?” (Could it be money???)

The Society of Certified Senior Advisers, which gave Mr. DelMonico his credentials, is a for-profit company that has trained 24,000 enrollees since it was started in 1997. Its founder, is a former mutual fund executive who was twice suspended by the Securities and Exchange Commission. He declined to return phone calls, though a representative said all regulatory actions were settled without admission of wrongdoing. (they all do that)

EFM- how did he get to the seniors to sell all this stuff. He offered free chicken dinners. Nothing like a free food to get the seniors to do your bidding. Not very bright at all. But as long as the seminar is not conducted by Attilla the Hun, many people start to trust the adviser. Again, not bright at all. But that is what people do. It will not change.

LIFE SETTLEMENTS (Katt) The life settlement industry and their solicitors have created the image that many policy owners often come to the rational conclusion they want to sell their life insurance policies and then contact an agent. This is a false picture. Almost always it is the agent soliciting policy owners to sell their policies because of the very high commissions they are paid.

"The market for the buying and selling of life insurance policies for investment purposes had a rational basis in the beginning - but appears to have evolved too often into transactions where the main purpose is to procure obscenely high fees and commissions."

INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT- (Rick Ferri) “My issue with the financial planning community is that there are a lot of people who are a financial planner by certification because they have a CFP certificate, but they are not financial planners by occupation. Too many CFPs are running a bait and switch business. They are hooking clients by saying they are "financial planners", but in reality, they are commission salespeople or investment advisors whose only interest is collecting investment management fees.

The CFPs that make a significant portion of their income from asset management fees (AUM) become very offensive when I suggest they are misrepresenting their services as financial planners. Even the National Association of Personal Financial Advisers (NAPFA) does not want to ruffle feathers. When I brought up the issue at the NAPFA national conference in Chicago earlier this month, I was told point-blank that "this is not something we talk about".

And......"If a person goes to a financial planner with the idea that they are going to get financial planning, but the CFPs primary intent is to manage money, that CFP is going to be completely bias as to who should manage the person's money. The planner, of course!

There may be far better firms to manage that person's money at much lower cost, but the CFP will never tell a client a about those solutions if the CFP is compensated for money management, i.e. AUM fees. As such, there is a huge conflict of interest when a "financial planner" is primarily an asset manager, which is a growing segment of CFP certificate holders.

I could not have said it better. Well, maybe better with a couple word changes. But not with as much emphasis. Well, maybe with as much emphasis if I swore. And, well, never mind.....................

ALZHEIMERS STUDY- the researchers assessed the occurrence of mild cognitive impairment in 1445 subjects and the progression to dementia in 121 patients with mild cognitive impairment.

The participants were between 65 and 84 years of age at the start of the study, and they were followed for 3.5 years. Alcohol use was assessed starting the year before the survey.

Drinking was not associated the development of mild cognitive impairment, according to the report. However, once mild impairment occurred, subjects who had up to one drink per day of alcohol had an 85 percent reduced risk of dementia compared with those who abstained.

Having more than one drink a day, however, offered no protection against dementia compared with abstaining,

The Alzheimer's Association reports that an estimated 5.1 million Americans have Alzheimer's disease and predicts that there will be 454,000 new cases of Alzheimer's by 2010. "The number of Americans surviving into their 80s and 90s is expected to grow because of national demographics as well as advances in medicine, medical technology and other social and environmental improvements. "Since the incidence and prevalence of Alzheimer's disease increase with advancing age, the number of persons with the disease is expected to grow as a proportion of this larger older population."

DERIVATIVES (Buffet) “Derivatives are not evil—we have some 60 derivatives—but use of derivatives introduces more and more leverage into the system. And it’s invisible leverage. Leverage contributed to the crash of ’29—like pouring gasoline on fire. The government introduced margin reform and empowered the Federal Reserve to regulate margin. For decades afterward, it was a source of real attention and taken very seriously. The introduction of derivatives and index futures has made regulation of margin requirements a joke, an anachronism. We think it [leverage] will go on and will increase until some very unpleasant things happen in markets. Look at the history of “portfolio insurance.” It was a joke. It was just a bunch of fancy stop loss orders. Only weeks earlier, [people] had talked about how great these things were. It was a doomsday machine—a dead hand [computerized program trading] hitting [the market] after each level [of stock prices] is reached. The same thing [is happening] now, coupled with extreme leverage. It’s a crowded trade, but managers don’t know it. Something will happen.”

ALTERNATIVE MINIMUM TAX: 3.6 million taxpayers now pay the tax, since the calculated AMT is greater than their regular tax. Over 25,000 persons with adjusted gross incomes below $20,000 also paid the tax. More people with incomes below $100,000 are paying AMT than the number of AMT taxpayers with incomes over $1 million

CHARACTERISTICS AND HEALTH OF CAREGIVERS AND CARE RECIPIENTS (2005) Approximately 53.4 million caregivers in the United States provide an estimated $257--$389 billion worth of unpaid care annually to persons of all ages with disabilities and chronic illness. The health of caregivers and their ability to continue their contributions have emerged as public health concerns. A 2004 study indicated that those persons who provided the most intense caregiving reported substantially poorer health than noncaregivers or those with modest caregiving responsibilities.

Data were analyzed from a caregiver module that was piloted in North Carolina in the 2005 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) survey. This report summarizes the results of that analysis, which determined that caregivers provided an average of 20.1 hours of care per week, and 72.2% of caregivers lived in the same household as (24.9%) or within 20 minutes of (47.3%) the care recipient. Caregivers were more likely to be women (59.5%) than men and averaged more days when their mental health was not good when compared with noncaregivers (4.3 days versus 3.0 days, of the preceding 30 days).

Among the 5,859 survey respondents interviewed during May--August 2005, a total of 895 indicated they were caregivers. A greater percentage of caregivers (59.5%) were women than men (40.5%) (Table 1). A greater percentage of caregivers (21.2%) than noncaregivers (15.8%) were non-Hispanic blacks, but a smaller percentage of caregivers (2.3%) than noncaregivers (10.3%) were Hispanic. On average, caregivers reported more days (4.3 days out of 30 days) that their mental health was not good than noncaregivers (3.0 days), although the number of days that physical health was reported not good was similar for caregivers (3.2 days) and noncaregivers (3.5 days).

Most care recipients (67.2%) were female and older than the general population; 64.3% of care recipients were aged >65 years, and 82.8% were cared for by a relative. The major diagnoses of care recipients specified by caregivers were heart disease (12.8%), cancer (11.7%), stroke (9.1%), diabetes (9.0%), dementia (8.8%), arthritis/rheumatism (5.1%), lung disease/emphysema (3.0%), cerebral palsy (2.6%), and hypertension (2.4%). When asked to identify the functional limitations of their care recipients that required the most help, caregivers named moving around (41.7%); self-care (e.g., eating, dressing, bathing, and toileting) (41.0%); learning, memory, and confusion (17.0%); and anxiety or depression (16.4%). On average, caregivers had provided care for 42.5 months, with 26.4% providing care for >5 years. Although caregivers averaged 20.1 hours per week of care, 13.6% provided >40 hours per week. When asked to name the one or two greatest difficulties they experienced from caregiving, 29.9% of caregivers cited stress, 27.9% cited not enough time for themselves or their families, and 12.0% indicated that caregiving had created a financial burden In addition, 3.5% of caregivers said caregiving created or aggravated health problems. In response to a separate question, reported sustaining an injury while caregiving. Nearly half (47.3%) of caregivers lived within 20 minutes of the care recipient; 24.9% resided in the same household

Buffett: No opinion—seldom would we have an opinion on commodities. We buy only when it’s a good business. We never think about future commodity prices. [Our] owning the company does not reflect thoughts on the industry or the price of the product. We like businesses best [that require] low capital investment. You can’t have a business that requires lots of capital and then earn high returns on capital. We do not have a bias for businesses in commodities. If anything, we have a bias against them.

Comment: The nature of commodities is that they are largely undifferentiated, and that’s typically not conducive to earning high returns. Further, as an indication of commodity price variability, although gold might ultimately keep pace with inflation, the price of gold is lower now than it was in 1980—despite 27 years of inflation. Given the significant variability of commodity valuations, fewer useful commodity valuation standards, and the lack of long-term real (after-inflation) price growth, it’s harder for most investors to make money in commodity investing than stock investing. As Buffett and Munger have mentioned before, investing is not like an Olympic diving competition—you don’t get points for attempting something difficult. Investors should seek to make investments that have the greatest likelihood of success. And for most investors, that isn’t commodities.

QUESTION FROM OWS MAGAZINE TO JOE BORG, PRESIDENT OF THE NORTH AMERICAN SECURITIES ADMINISTRATORS ASSOCIATION AND DIRECTOR OF THE ALABAMA SECURITIES COMMISSION: What's your feeling about the state of investment expertise for the average registered representative at the major full-service firms?

A: There is a good level of expertise among most financial professionals. Yet the average Main Street investor does not know that in one part of the conversation, he can count on the representative for the fiduciary standard for advice--but not when he's being recommended a stock. The "Merrill Lynch rule" (that a broker did not have to be registered as a Registered Investment Advisor) was very confusing. There should be just one standard: the highest standard. It can be done by the SEC or NASD rules, in conjunction with state regulators, without congressional action. The SEC should do a study and have a frank discussion on how the public makes investment choices in the real world. [It should] recognize that the average investor is not going to differentiate between an investment advisor and a broker-dealer.”

My comment- Joe, you are just plain wrong about expertise. I know I have said it before but I need to do it again just for the record. Until such time as the powers to be- yourself included- demand knowledge of brokers, the expertise is almost forfeit. I had to review several manuals again for the Series 7 and 24 for an upcoming case. There is not a person alive that can state that a broker has ever been taught the fundamentals of investing- simply because it is not a requirement of the test. Not a person alive. All anyone has to do is simply go to Dearborn or STC and look at them. No beta, alpha, standard deviation, correlation and so on. So where is the expertise?

Admittedly it is true that certain individual have taken additional classes. But by the same token, there are no classes directing the element of risk truthfully. You cannot request a fiduciary standard for advice when either or both of the broker or firm (primarily the firm in many cases) are bereft of the fundamentals of investing. If you do not know diversification, you cannot determine risk. If you cannot determine risk, you cannot determine suitability.

MARY SHAPIRO- HEAD OF THE NASD- IS WRONG AS WELL- "In the past, products being offered to investors were far less complex than they are today. Stocks looked like stocks, bonds like bonds, and insurance products like insurance. And there were clear lines governing the regulation of each product.

In a simpler world, that approach was appropriate. But the world is growing more complex, not less, and regulators need to appreciate this.

Right now, the burden is placed squarely on the shoulders of the investor. Within an individual's financial plan, there will be a number of different products regulated by as many different regulators.

We have the SEC, CFTC, NASD, MSRB, 50 state insurance regulators, multiple banking authorities - all looking at specific products within their own jurisdiction, but rarely working in concert. For the investor, that's a recipe for confusion.

I really can't say it enough - the focus shouldn't only be on the product, the focus should be on the investor. You might remember the old debates about "functional regulation" - the predominant view was that we must have different agencies regulating different products and markets because those products and markets served different functions. For example, the CFTC regulated risk shifting markets and the SEC regulated investment markets and hence we needed two agencies.

I would suggest that functional regulation today is something quite different and must be viewed from the perspective of the investor for whom each product may be serving multiple purposes: insurance and investment, as in variable annuities; risk shifting and investment as in hedge funds or credit default swaps.

Today's markets offer so many different kinds of investment products and vehicles that I would be surprised if even the most sophisticated investor could distinguish which products are regulated by whom."

So, tell me who a sophisticated investor is? The amount of money they have? * “Psychologically, I think the rich, because of their egos, think they know everything. Well, they don’t, and many of them repeatedly make horrible investments — because they can.”

You rarely can find a sophisticated investor. You rarely can find a sophisticated broker. If you do not know diversification, you cannot determine risk. If you cannot determine risk, you cannot determine suitability. Brokers have never been taught the fundamentals of investing.

WHEN DEPRESSED HUSBANDS REFUSE HELP (Beverly Wax) To the outside world, Emme lived a charmed life. She was a successful model, creative director of her own clothing line, a television host, lecturer, and mother of a beautiful baby girl. Only her family and closest friends knew she was actually dealing with a devastating situation that is all too familiar to wives across the country: a husband who has depression but won’t get help.

Phillip Aronson, the wonderful man she married, found himself in a downward spiral of depression, even attempting suicide at one point to escape his pain. Phil was always an energetic partner, excited to go to work each morning either to the showroom to check on the latest graphic designs for the Emme line or to attend meetings about some new project. He was a caring and loving father. But as depression enveloped him, Phil “had no energy, no appetite, no drive…and this was in sharp contrast to how he usually was. He was depriving himself of everything, and when you don’t nourish yourself —physically, intellectually, or emotionally—your body tends to shut down.”

In their recently released book written in both their voices, Morning Has Broken, A Couple’s Journey Through Depression, Emme says, “No one knew what it was like, to be caught up in it like we were…it’s a lonely thing to be married to a man in the depths of a depression with an infant daughter at home…it was all about getting through each day. I never felt more alone.” Soon, Emme realized he could not even watch their daughter, Toby, and everything changed: the logistics of running the household and her ability to work. Emme writes that every day they lost a little piece of Phil, and during the worst period, somebody needed to be with Phil at all times, “and that somebody needed to be me.”

U.S. statistics state that women experience depression much more frequently than men: 1 out of every 4 to 5 women, compared to 1 out of every 8 to 10 men. However, many experts feel these statistics are simply wrong. “Men experience depression probably just as much as women, but they aren’t diagnosed,” explains Julie Totten, President and Founder of Families for Depression Awareness, a non-profit national organization. “Depressed men often get angry at others and abuse alcohol or drugs. Depressed women on the other hand may blame themselves, but then they ask their doctor for help.”

The consequences of untreated depression are serious and sometimes fatal. Depression is a leading cause of disability so many men can’t work. Depression also puts men at a high risk for suicide; they are four times more likely to take their lives than women.

When husbands have depression, it can tear apart their marriage and family. Wives may take over and hope the problem will go away, or on the opposite end, withdraw, feeling betrayed and angry. More often, they alternate back and forth between these behaviors and emotions. Fifty percent of wives caring for a depressed husband will develop depression themselves.

The good news is that depression is highly treatable. Once diagnosed, most people who get help report substantial relief.

The problem is that many men deny they are depressed and resist treatment (usually medication and/or talk therapy). Their belief: depression is a woman’s disease.

Dealing with a depressed husband who is in denial is not easy. But, by not addressing the issue, your husband continues to be ill or get worse, even suicidal, and you lose out as well. Depression makes men feel like they are worthless and hopeless. They can’t change how they feel without treatment. “Depression isn’t just your husband’s problem; it’s your problem and your children’s too. Luckily, there are ways to address the issue,” Totten explains. “The top priority is to get your husband into treatment. You have to ask yourself, ‘What have I got to lose?’ You simply need to take action for everyone’s sake.”