Tag: Don McNay

Mar
28

The Person We Should Be Moving Our Money to

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The  Person We Should Be Moving Our Money to

Over 4 million people moved their money from Wall Street Banks in 2010, according to Sara Ackerman, project coordinator for Move Your Money.
I bought into the “Move Your Money” movement the day that Arianna Huffington and some associates founded the concept. I had already been doing it for years.
My money is in non-Wall Street banks that have branches, or headquartered, in my home city of Richmond, Kentucky.
Long ago, I learned the importance of having a personal relationship with my banker. I don’t want to call an 800 number and talk to a “customer service” representative in

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Mar
18

Keeneland The Book

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Keeneland The Book

Just give me one more crack at the ol’ race track
-The Mills Brothers
As the son of a professional gambler, I spent a lot of my childhood at race tracks. Not particularly nice race tracks.
Dad would take us to the aging River Downs facility in Cincinnati during the day and to the even more aging Latonia race track in Northern Kentucky at night.
Lots of broken down men (outside of Pete Rose’s first wife, I can’t remember any women) betting on broken down

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Mar
13

Are You Working Towards Your Dream

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Are You Working Towards Your Dream

“And she never had dreams, so they never came true”
-J. Giles Band
As a structured settlement consultant, I go to meditations and settlement conferences with people who anticipate receiving large sums of money. I ask every person the same question. “Forget about what is going on

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Mar
05

A Sensible Way to Deal with Addiction

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A Sensible Way to  Deal with Addiction

One Pill Makes You Larger
One Pill Makes You Small
And the ones that mother gives you
Don’t do anything at all
- Jefferson Airplane
My first exposure to “White Rabbit” when it was the theme song to a mid 1970′s television movie called “Go Ask Alice.”
The movie about a high school drug abuser was a haunting description of many of my friends. Some of experimented with drugs.
They needed treatment but treatment wasn’t a popular concept then.
I made it through college, graduate school and the rest of my life isolated from the drug culture. I’ve never seen cocaine or harder drugs and wouldn’t know how to find them. Drugs are not a part of my world.
I was

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Feb
25

Why We Are Fat

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Why We Are Fat

For my recent birthday, my daughter gave me a copy of Gary Taubes’ new book, Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It.
There are people who would be insulted to receive a book with that title. Not me.
I’ve spent most of my life in the “grossly obese” category, with occasional trips to the “morbidly obese” world.
I’ve made it 52 years without a heart attack, stroke or other bad things that come with

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Jan
31

The Season for Tax Refund Ripoffs

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The Season for Tax Refund Ripoffs

Tax refund loans (also called refund anticipation loans) are in a class of financial products marketed primarily to poor people.
Someone described tax refund loans as a payday loan guaranteed by your tax return. That hits the nail on the head.
Like payday loans, the fees and interest rates on tax refund loans are outrageous. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the annualized interest rate for tax loans is 40% to 500%.
According to IRS data, 8.7 million people took out a tax refund loan in

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Jan
11

Health Insurance for Children Under Age 19 in Kentucky

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Health Insurance for Children Under Age 19 in Kentucky

I’m doing research on a longer article about the first battles on implementing health care reform in Kentucky. A battle between well entrenched health insurance companies and a strong willed insurance commissioner.
While I am finishing the piece, I wanted to make sure that people in Kentucky, and in other states with similar situations, understand that during January, Kentuckians under age 19 can get individual health insurance and the companies cannot deny coverage due to a pre-existing health condition.
In the early 1990′s, Kentucky was one of the few states to offer health insurance without considering preexisting conditions. Like any responsible insurance agent, I went through all of my client files and signed as many people up for health insurance as I could, and tried to purchase the best coverage that I could find.
For example, I had an 8 year old quadriplegic client who was able to obtain a Cadillac plan of coverage for $80 a

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Jan
05

What to do if you win the Mega Million Jackpot

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What to do if you win the Mega Million Jackpot

As the Mega Million jackpot goes over $300 million, someone is going to win.
And need some serious advice.
You would think that after having overcome trillion-to-one odds, the idea of running through the money would seem silly to most winners. Studies shows that 90% of people do just that within five years of winning the jackpot.
I have helped, studied and written about many lottery winners. Here is the advice I give:
Never let anyone know you won.
Every lottery winner who goes public eventually tells stories about people harassing them.
Power Ball winner Jack Whittaker said, “There should be a book to tell you how to handle it when people get thrown into the limelight.”
You are asking for trouble if you have a news conference and tell the world that you have a bunch of money that you never planned on having.
The news conference turns out really well for the lottery officials promoting their product, and it provides a good story for the media. It will not, however, turn out so well for you.
Bowling Green, Kentucky attorney Steve Thornton announced that a few years ago that one of his clients had won the Kentucky lottery. Steve set up a corporation and protected the client’s identity.
If you win the lottery, find an attorney who can do the same thing for you. Your life will be much happier. If you decide later on that you want to be famous, you will have enough money to fund your own reality show.
Take the annual payments, not the lump sum.
Never take a lump sum. The annual payments are a better deal.
Lottery winners are totally unprepared for sudden wealth.
If you take the money as a lump sum, and become overcome by lust, drugs, sex, bad friends, bad family, bad investments or other factors, then the money will be gone, and there will be no way to get it back.
If you take annual payments and run through the first check, you have 29 more chances to get it right. It gives you time to organize a plan and take advantage of ways to save taxes and improve return.
Even though you ignored my advice and bought a lottery ticket, listen to me on this one.
Spend money on some good advice.
There are a ton of tax breaks for the wealthy. When you win the lottery, you need to find people who can get those tax breaks for you.
Asking for good advice does not mean calling the bookkeeper for your bowling league. You need someone who has dealt with big money and is not trying to learn while they earn.
Big-time advisers don’t advertise in the phone book under “Help for Lottery Winners,” but if you ask some well-respected attorneys, you will eventually get referred to the adviser you need.
There are people who are good at helping rich people become richer. Get one of them working for you.
Use your money for a purpose.
There was a great book written in the 1980′s by Ami Domini called The Challenges of Wealth. It was a groundbreaking study of sudden wealth written during a time when few studies were available on the subject.
Her research showed that rich people are happiest when they help a cause that they really believe in. The most joyful people were those who gave money for scholarships, helped their church and formed non-profit groups.
You can leave your children enough money to be comfortable without spoiling them. People who leave their families too much money wind up with children like Paris Hilton.
If you study history, you will find that most of the people who amassed great fortunes, like Carnegie and Rockefeller, gave substantial amounts of money to charity while they were still alive. Even more gave money to charity upon death.
You have an opportunity to take care of family and have plenty left over to make an impact on society. It will make you content and make the world a better place
One last thought:
Winning the lottery is a random event. It has nothing to do with skill, hard work or talent.
If you ever start feeling cocky about your brains and good fortune, remember that I told you not to buy the ticket in the first place.
Don McNay, CLU, ChFC, MSFS, CSSC of Richmond, Kentucky, is an award-winning columnist, structured settlement consultant and Huffington Post Contributor.
He is an expert on the topic of lottery winners.
He is the author of the book, Son of a Son of a Gambler: Winners, Losers and What to Do When You Win the Lottery.
You can read more about Don at www.donmcnay.com
McNay founded McNay Settlement Group, a structured settlement and financial consulting firm, in 1983, and Kentucky Guardianship Administrators LLC in 2000. You can read more about both at www.mcnay.com
McNay has Master’s Degrees from Vanderbilt and the American College and is in the Hall of Distinguished Alumni of Eastern Kentucky University.
McNay is a lifetime member of the Million Dollar Round Table and has four professional designations in the financial services field.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/01/04/eveningnews/main7213755.shtml

Enter caption for this slidehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/don-mcnay/video-of-what-to-do-when_b_411197.html

This Blogger’s Books from
Son of a Son of a Gambler: Winners, Losers and What to Do When You Win the Lottery
by Don McNay

Follow Don McNay on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/Donmcnay

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

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Dec
31

Bill Collectors communicating with the dead

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Bill Collectors communicating with the dead

The Wall Street Journal posted a story about Portfolio Recovery Associates, one of the nation’s largest debt collectors, using the signature of a woman named Martha Kunkle, who died in 1995.
Although she died in 1995, Kunkle’s signature has apparently shown up on thousands of affidavits submitted since his death by Portfolio.
You can read the entire article at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204204004576049902142690400.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTWhatsNewsCollection
I can do Portfolio Recovery Associates one better. As noted in a column that I wrote shortly after my mother’s death, MBNA claimed to have spoken to my dead mother about credit card, even though she had died months earlier.
I’m not sure what connection that bill collectors have with the unliving but it is obviously a strong one.
Here is the story about my mother:
MBNA claims to have talked to my dead mother
“I’ll be coming home, wait for me”
-Righteous Brothers, Unchained Melody , (theme from the movie, “Ghost”)
My mother allegedly died on April 2nd, 2006. I say allegedly because a
collector representing MBNA said he talked to her on June 21, 2006.
Until I saw a letter from Dale Lamb, I felt pretty certain my mother was dead.
I viewed her lifeless body at the hospital. A funeral director, who I
have known since the second grade, gave me an urn that supposedly
contained her ashes. I have a death certificate from the state of
Kentucky.
Despite all that, Lamb claims to have talked to her on June 21st. You
can find a copy of the letter from Lamb and my mother’s death
certificate at www.donmcnay.com.
Thanks to MBNA and their collector–the ironically named, True Logic
Financial Corporation–mom is now in a category with Elvis Presley,
Kurt Cobain, and Jim Morrison. She has been deemed alive despite
tremendous evidence to the contrary.
Mom would love being associated with Elvis but would not have been wild about being categorized with Kurt and Jim.
It seems almost comical, but I am really angry. My mother died without
warning, and I miss her. If MBNA’s collector is able to talk to her,
I wish he would give me her number.
The story of my mom and MBNA is an example why credit card companies need more regulation.
I was named administrator of mom’s estate after she supposedly died. I
then received a letter from a company called Mann Bracken, saying MBNA
had obtained an arbitration award against mom.
No one in my family knew anything about a debt to MBNA or seen notice of
an arbitration hearing. Mom was supposedly dead, so we could not ask
her.
I hired a lawyer to contact Mann Bracken to give us some verification of the alleged debt
and arbitration award. Two months went by with no response. The
attorney followed up again but Mann Bracken never got back to us.
Instead of responding to my attorney, MBNA shifted the alleged debt to True
Logic. The True Logic people didn’t claim that MBNA actually had an
arbitration award–only that they might get one.
Taking MBNA and True Logic at their word, I’m curious as to what mom said to
Mr. Lamb. I hope they have a tape recording. Mom was known to use
salty language, and I’m sure Mr. Lamb would have heard some.
I’m not as prone to foul language, but if MBNA calls me, I am going to make an exception.
After True Logic sent the letter for MBNA, I once again hired an attorney,
and once again he sent a letter denying the alleged debt. Once again,
we have not had a response.
If MBNA wants to sue, I am not sure if they will go after the estate or
have mom declared “un-dead” since they are having conversations with
her. I’m not sure how to proceed if mom orally agrees to a payment
plan. A judge will have to figure all that out.
The whole incident has made me wonder how often MBNA ignores the legal
right of creditors to verify a debt. They have one collector send a
letter, ignore the response and then have another collector try again.
I suspect that collectors can sometimes convince an unsuspecting family or estate to pay money.
The first letter from MBNA claiming that they had actually obtained an
arbitration award sounded serious. It was enough for me to hire a
lawyer. The only follow up I received from MBNA was the letter from
Mr. Lamb saying he spoke to a woman who is legally dead.
On the other hand, it could be that Lamb did talk to mom. One of her favorite movies was Ghost.
Mom may not be able to communicate with me, but Lamb might be a
real-life version of the psychic that Whoopi Goldberg portrayed in the
movie. By talking to Lamb, Mom may be sending a signal that she wants
MBNA put up or shut up.
Mom is one you never wanted to mess with. Allegedly dead or allegedly alive.
Don McNay, CLU, ChFC, MSFS, CSSC of Richmond Kentucky is an award winning columnist and Huffington Post contributor. He is the founder of McNay Settlement Group, a structured settlement consulting firm and author of two books, including Son of a Son of a Gambler: Winners Losers and What to Do When you Win the Lottery. McNay is a lifetime member of the Million Dollar Round Table.

This Blogger’s Books from
Son of a Son of a Gambler: Winners, Losers and What to Do When You Win the Lottery
by Don McNay
The Unbridled World Of Ernie Fletcher: Reflections on Kentucky’s Governor
by DON McNAY

Follow Don McNay on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/Donmcnay

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

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Dec
22

A 60 second explaination of immediate annuities

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A 60 second explaination of immediate annuities

This 60 second video produced by Mary Ashley Burton and featuring Don McNay, (author, columnist and Huffington Post contributor) gives a simple explanation as to how immediate annuities work.
You can learn more at www.donmcnay.com

This Blogger’s Books from
Son of a Son of a Gambler: Winners, Losers and What to Do When You Win the Lottery
by Don McNay
The Unbridled World Of Ernie Fletcher: Reflections on Kentucky’s Governor
by DON McNAY

Follow Don McNay on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/Donmcnay

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

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Dec
11

Wealth Without Wall Street Don McNays talk to Local First Lexington Ky

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Wealth Without Wall Street   Don McNays talk to Local First Lexington Ky

The four points of Wealth Without Wall Street.org are:
1. Move Your Money. Take the power away from Wall Street banks and give them to banks and credit unions in your community.
2. Don’t use credit cards. They are a tool that Wall Street uses to tie the average consumer in chains.
3. Give back to your community.
4. The point that I primarily want to focus on is creating and promoting a small businesss.
As a writer and businessman, I know firsthand the value of a well-written media story.
If you trace the history of almost any national company, you’ll find that somewhere along the way a story in a publication put that company in the spotlight.
It’s like winning the media lottery. You toil for many years in relative obscurity and suddenly you become an overnight sensation.
It happened to me.
I was 23 when I started my structured settlement and financial consulting business, McNay Settlement Group. For a few years, it grew only by word of mouth.
That all changed because of a story in the Lexington Herald Leader.
Business Editor Jim Jordan wrote a feature about my work with injury victims that explained it in a way that captivated the reader. It also grabbed the attention of many national publications.
We went from being a local business to a national business as a result of a few hundred well-written words.
Now the shoe is on the other foot. I’m a writer.
I know that comments in my newspaper column or in my blogs on The Huffington Post have tremendous power.
I want to scream when I see small businesses, with the potential to be “overnight sensations,” screw it up.
Journalists are not interested in being public relations or marketing people. They are interested in finding good stories. Some business people don’t seem to get that.
It helps if a business has an identifiable owner or spokesperson.
It’s more than just ego that made the late Dave Thomas, who started Wendy’s, or John Schnatter, who started Papa John’s, star in their company’s television commercials. It was a way to remind people that the fast food chains were not started by nameless, faceless corporations.
They were started by entrepreneurs chasing the American dream.
Faceless corporations do not make for a good story. Chasing the American dream does.
If you have some connection to the rich, famous, or powerful, make sure the world knows about it.
I watched Ted Gregory build his small Montgomery Inn, a rib joint outside of Cincinnati, into a national powerhouse. Whenever a Bob Hope or an Arnold Palmer or a well-known celebrity ate at the restaurant, Ted made sure that the world knew about it.
I watched another Cincinnati restaurant owner, Jeff Ruby, use the same celebrity strategy.
Not everyone has a celebrity clientele, but anyone who is successful in business knows how to sell.
Ironically, that selling skill often goes out the window when dealing with journalists.
Business owners who can be charming and customer friendly in business dealings can turn uncooperative, pushy or defensive when talking to the news media.
Business owners need to treat journalists just like any other clients they are talking to on a one-on-one basis. They just keep in mind that the world might be listening.
And as with any good client, once a media relationship is developed, the business owner needs to make sure to keep it up.
The same skills that will make you a business success, like following through on commitments and saying “Please” and “Thank you,” will make you successful in communicating with the media.
Don McNay speaks to Local First Lexington
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Don McNay spoke to a meeting of members of Local First Lexington about Wealth Without Wall Street and becoming an overnight business sensation.
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Don McNay, CLU, ChFC, MSFS, CSSC is the founder of McNay Settlement Group, a structured settlement firm based in Richmond Kentucky. He is also an award winning columnist and Huffington Post Contributor. McNay is a member of the Eastern Kentucky University Hall of Distinguished Alumni and has masters degrees from Vanderbilt University and the American College. He is a lifetime member of the Million Dollar Round Table.

This Blogger’s Books from
Son of a Son of a Gambler: Winners, Losers and What to Do When You Win the Lottery
by Don McNay
The Unbridled World Of Ernie Fletcher: Reflections on Kentucky’s Governor
by DON McNAY

Follow Don McNay on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/Donmcnay

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

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Nov
24

Have We Lost Our Common Sense

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Have We Lost Our Common Sense

I just ran away
But I knew I’d come back some day
to a small town
-Kenny Chesney
One of the reasons Andy Griffith had such a long run was that a big part of America was looking for the kind of balance, perspective and wisdom that comes from the Main Streets and back roads of small-town America.
Another man rooted in small-town wisdom is Corbin Kentucky’s Bob Terrell. Mr. Terrell waited 77 years to write his first book. His Have We Lost Our Common Sense is part autobiography and part questioning about the direction and future of America.
Terrell seemed to be blessed with befriending some fascinating sports figures early in his life. He was a high school teammate of former Los Angeles Laker basketball star Frank Selvy and of Roy Kidd, who racked-up over 300 wins as a Hall of Fame football coach at Eastern Kentucky University.
As a US Marine in 1958, Terrell developed a friendship with another Marine, former Pittsburgh Pirate Roberto Clemente, that lasted until Clemente’s tragic death in 1972. Although Terrell notes that Clemente was one of the greatest baseball players who ever lived, he focuses on Clemente’s humanitarian efforts and the impact Clemente had on society.
All of Terrell’s book ties back to the question of “Have We Lost Our Common Sense?” Terrell gives good examples of smart people with common sense who are living in places like small-town Kentucky.
It’s the type of common sense we need on Wall Street and in Washington.
Don McNay, CLU, ChFC, MSFS, CSSC of Richmond Kentucky is an award winning columnist and Huffington Post contributor. He is the founder of McNay Settlement Group, a structured settlement consulting firm and author of two books, including Son of a Son of a Gambler: Winners Losers and What to Do When you Win the Lottery. McNay is a lifetime member of the Million Dollar Round Table

http://www.amazon.com/Have-Lost-Our-Common-Sense/dp/1452024952/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1290634113&sr=1-4

This Blogger’s Books from
Son of a Son of a Gambler: Winners, Losers and What to Do When You Win the Lottery
by Don McNay
The Unbridled World Of Ernie Fletcher: Reflections on Kentucky’s Governor
by DON McNAY

Follow Don McNay on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/Donmcnay

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

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Nov
21

Byron Crawford Bard of The Backroads

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Byron Crawford Bard of The Backroads

Kentucky Rain keep pouring down,
and up ahead’s another town that I’ll be walking through.
-Elvis Presley
On the surface, Byron Crawford new book, Kentucky Footnotes appears to be anthology of some Crawford’s most interesting columns from his 29 years as an award winning columnist for the Louisville Courier Journal.
It’s more than that.
Crawford’s beat for the Courier Journal were the back roads and small towns of Kentucky.
A member of the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame, Crawford has a unique eye for finding, “the story within a story” that other journalists miss.
What has made Crawford a great writer is that his understanding that every individual has a great story. Byron might have been the only journalist to ever print their names in a newspaper but he found interesting people doing interesting things.
Sometime Byron’s stories sparked worldwide interest.
Byron’s son Eric Crawford, who is also an award winning columnist at the Courier Journal (covering sports ), noted that one of Byron’s stories about a blind trumpet player named Patrick Henry Hughes wound up with Hughes being featured on Oprah Winfrey and the television show Extreme Home Makeover redoing the Hughes house.
All because Crawford saw a story that the rest of missed.
Before he became a columnist, Byron was a disc jockey at the legendary WAKY-AM radio station in Louisville. A station that influenced a young listener named John Mellencamp, along with many others.
Byron includes a great story about a couple who owns one of Elvis’s cars and another about Elvis’ sound man.
Far more interesting than reflections on the King himself.
Byron’s writing style flows like an old friend sitting around a campfire, telling stories that you want to hear over and over. I’ve read his column for over half my life (and once was the subject of one of his columns) but his style leaves you hungry for more.
One of the reasons Andy Griffith had such a long run on television and in re runs is that a big part of America is looking for the kind of balance, perspective and wisdom that comes from the Main Streets and back roads of small towns
Crawford captures that same perspective and wisdom in Kentucky Footnotes.
Don McNay, CLU, ChFC, MSFS, CSSC of Richmond Kentucky is an award winning columnist and Huffington Post contributor. He is the founder of McNay Settlement Group, a structured settlement consulting firm and author of two books, including Son of a Son of a Gambler: Winners Losers and What to Do When you Win the Lottery. McNay is a lifetime member of the Million Dollar Round Table.

This Blogger’s Books from
Son of a Son of a Gambler: Winners, Losers and What to Do When You Win the Lottery
by Don McNay
The Unbridled World Of Ernie Fletcher: Reflections on Kentucky’s Governor
by DON McNAY

Follow Don McNay on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/Donmcnay

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

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Nov
11

Financial Fitness and Physical Fitness

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Financial Fitness and Physical Fitness

I’ve often compared being financially secure to being physically in shape – fiscally fit and physically fit.
Most of us want to be physically fit, but very few of us are. The same holds true with financial security.
Lots of people want to be rich, but don’t want to sacrifice as needed or develop good financial habits.
As my father (and many others) used to say, “A lot of people want to go to heaven but no one wants to die to get there.”
The root of any successful financial program is to value money.
If you study the life of any billionaire, most tend to be on the cheap side.
If a waiter is expecting a big tip Warren Buffett or Bill Gates, they going to go away disappointed. Those guys don’t throw their money around.
I tend to be a generous tipper. Most of my family is the same way. We have strong incomes, but no one has made it into the billionaire category yet.
If we are going to catch Warren and Bill, we will need some outside help.
Some overweight people use Weight Watchers. On money, I lean toward immediate annuities and cutting up the credit cards.
People are stunned when I say that 90% of all lottery winners will run through the money in five years or less, and 60% of all players in the NBA will be broke within three years after they get out the league.
Then I discuss people like Abraham Shakespeare, a lottery winner who was murdered for his money, or the recently bankrupt Antoine Walker, who grossed over $110 million as a basketball star.
Shakespeare and Walker should have dumped their entourage and hangers-on. They also should have thought long-term about their money.
One of my favorite financial vehicles is an immediate annuity. With an immediate annuity, a person pays a lump sum to a life insurance company and receives a monthly income that is guaranteed to last for their rest of his life. With two people, such as a husband and wife, the payments can be guaranteed to last for the rest of both lives
It’s similar to retirement pensions that some companies and government entities provide for their employees. It gives a solid foundation to a sound financial plan.
I keep running into people who thought they were going to die at age 70, but didn’t. They spent their retirement nest eggs and have nothing much left.
Unlike lottery winners, I rarely see average people blow all their money at once. They usually wind up spending a couple of hundred dollars a month more than they should.
Then, one day, they wind up broke.
One analogy is to compare financial success with weight loss.
If I go on a diet but all my favorite foods are still in the refrigerator, I’m going to fall off the wagon and start eating.
I need to get the food out of easy reach.
If someone can easily get to their money, like in a bank account, it’s like a dieter having a full refrigerator. Sooner or later, temptation is going to kick in.
All of this goes back to savings.
My view of savings is little bit different.
To me, it’s all about having the assets and financial security to live the life you want to life.
It’s not just having money in a bank account.
If you have money in an IRA mutual fund or have your house completely paid off, I consider that savings.
The reason to save is to eliminate risk. Doing anything to reduce the chance of winding up broke is “savings” in my way of thinking.
I have not had a credit card in several years. It eliminates a major possibility for me to get in trouble. I can’t buy something unless I have the money in the bank to pay for it.
One of the things we need to do as a nation is to develop a savings mindset.
It’s easier said than done.
A financial advisor disagreed with a recent column in which I wrote that Americans were not doing enough to save. He said that “Private savings have gone from a -3.8% of total GDP in 2006 to 7.7% in 2009.”
That’s like saying a person has gone from being morbidly obese to being grossly obese — It’s a step in the right direction but there is still a very long way to go.
We are in a global economy where people in many countries, such as China, are far better at saving than we are.
We live in a time when it’s easy to believe that government is going to cut back programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. We need to be able to provide for ourselves.
Moving your Money from a Wall Street bank to a local bank or credit union is an a great option. It helps your community and gives you the power to be dealing with people
The upheaval in the economy leads back to one question:
How serious are you about saving?
After all, it’s not the lottery. It’s your life.
Don McNay, CLU, ChFC, MSFS, CSSC is an award-winning financial columnist and Huffington Post Contributor.
You can read more about Don at www.donmcnay.com
McNay founded McNay Settlement Group, a structured settlement and financial consulting firm, in 1983, and Kentucky Guardianship Administrators LLC in 2000. You can read more about both at www.mcnay.com
McNay has Master’s Degrees from Vanderbilt and the American College and is in the Hall of Distinguished Alumni of Eastern Kentucky University.
McNay has written two books. Most recent is Son of a Son of a Gambler: Winners, Losers and What to Do When You Win The Lottery
McNay is a lifetime member of the Million Dollar Round Table and has four professional designations in the financial services field

This Blogger’s Books from
Son of a Son of a Gambler: Winners, Losers and What to Do When You Win the Lottery
by Don McNay
The Unbridled World Of Ernie Fletcher: Reflections on Kentucky’s Governor
by DON McNAY

Follow Don McNay on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/Donmcnay

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

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Nov
06

Will our new leaders encourage consumers to save

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Will our new leaders encourage consumers to save

After the recent election, are going to have a bunch of new people running the show.
I wonder if they will encourage consumers to focus on saving.
I once heard an economist say, Rich people accumulate wealth. Poor people accumulate things,” he said.
He had a trickle up theory of economics. He felt that money burns a hole in a poor person’s pocket while wealthy people will sock it away.
Poor people often spend all their income just to survive but there are some who are broke simply because they can’t handle money.
There is a financial dividing line that separates savers and spenders.
The savers wind up with wealth and the spenders wind up with debt. Debtors can only get bailed out if they are Wall Street banks who are “too big to fail.”
Working Americans aren’t deemed “too big to fail.”
The line between affluence and poor is getting bigger.
For years, poor people wanting to spend had plenty of help from credit card companies, payday lenders, “buy here, and pay here” car lots and subprime lenders.
Many people got in over their heads and couldn’t make payments. Companies like Citigroup bet that the fun would never stop and kept lending.
They were both wrong.
The economy tanked because companies and consumers put too much faith in a system of endless spending and borrowing.
People on their way to wealth usually have good savings habits. People on their way to a lifelong struggles blow money on stuff they don’t need.
Spending is an instant gratification, like snorting cocaine. One shopper told me that she got a high from shopping like a high from drugs.
When I was growing up, I used to think some people didn’t have good jobs. They lived in run down houses and often had their cars repossessed
I found out that they made as much money as my parents. The people who lived in run down houses spent money on things they didn’t use and motorboats that never made it in the water.
They lent money to “family and friends” even though they should have paying their own bills first. They had no sense of long term planning.
Ultimately, they had no money.
Spending beyond your means is an addiction. A spending addiction is probably as hard to cure as a drug addiction. It requires changing your lifestyle.
Money is a leading cause of divorce. The stress of debt pushes people to escape reality with booze or drugs.
When the economy slowed down, the addiction became a crisis. People keeping the balls in the air suddenly couldn’t. They had no backup systems.
I’ve frequently hired a casual laborer. He is good at his craft and for 20 years, he made really good money. None of which he saved. Whenever I saw him, he talked about skiing trips, his bass boat or his brand new trucks.
Now the economy has turned. His house is being foreclosed on and they repossessed his trucks. He has no savings or credit.
His focus was on accumulating possessions. Now he doesn’t have those possessions. Or any money either.
If our next set of leaders truly wants to make an impact, they need to get America focused on saving.

This Blogger’s Books from
Son of a Son of a Gambler: Winners, Losers and What to Do When You Win the Lottery
by Don McNay
The Unbridled World Of Ernie Fletcher: Reflections on Kentucky’s Governor
by DON McNAY

Follow Don McNay on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/Donmcnay

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

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Nov
02

Kentucky an Election Sneak Preview

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Kentucky an Election Sneak Preview

As Nate Silver and other election watchers have noted, the Kentucky Sixth Congressional District race between incumbent Democrat Ben Chandler and Republican challanger Andy Barr has been one of the tightest and most competitive Congressional races this year.
It also might be a glimpse of how the rest of the night might go for Democrats and Republicans.
Kentucky is one of the first states to post results. Barr winning would signal a huge Republican landslide while Chandler holding on to his seat mght signal a milder wave.
Ryan Alassi had a fascinating point in a post on his
CN2 Politics website.
In past 20 years, no one has won the 6th Congressional district without winning Madison County. It is the second larger county in the district, behind Fayette (Lexington.)
Chandler has always carried the much smaller Estill County, even though it is a strong Republican county. If Barr wins, or wins by a large margin in Estill, definitely an indicator of his having a chance to win.
Wallingford Broadcasting is doing election night radio coverage and will have live reports from the Madison County and Estill County courthouses. Thus they should have the very first results.

http://www.wcyofm.com/index.html

Don McNay of Richmond Kentucky is an award winning columnist and Huffington Post contributor. He will be providing election commentary on Wallingford Broadcasting.

This Blogger’s Books from
Son of a Son of a Gambler: Winners, Losers and What to Do When You Win the Lottery
by Don McNay
The Unbridled World Of Ernie Fletcher: Reflections on Kentucky’s Governor
by DON McNAY

Follow Don McNay on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/Donmcnay

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

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Oct
18

Is Living a Normal Life a Political Statement

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Is Living a Normal Life a Political Statement

All the fun that a man could need, I’ve got waiting at home for me.
-Paul Overstreet
I was in Louisville last week and saw Arianna Huffington and Howard Fineman tape a segment of the Kentucky Authors Series. Arianna was discussing her book, Third World America, and referred to her recent appearance on The Daily Show in which Jon Stewart asked her, “Isn’t living a normal, stable life a political statement?”
Her answer was that at this point in history, people need to take action.
Maybe Stewart put his finger on the problem.
There aren’t enough of us living normal, stable lives.
This summer, I attended the fiftieth wedding anniversary of Glen Kleine, my college journalism professor at Eastern Kentucky University and his wife, Joan. It was an incredible event and I had a certain degree of envy.
Like half of all Americans, my marriage ended in divorce. Unless I live to be over 100, I am never going to have the type of celebration that the Kleines had.
America is going through economic chaos. But a lot of other things are going on, too.
A huge number of adults are addicted to drugs or alcohol. An even larger number of us are obese or addicted to nicotine. All of us, (I’m in the obese category), are using at least one substance to deal with the stresses of daily life.
If we could reduce the number of addicts in this country, we would be on our way to eliminating Third World America.
Economic stress is a reason some Americans turn to substance abuse. According to the Census Bureau, 14.3% of Americans live in poverty. That’s the highest poverty number in decades.
Unemployment is around 10% and underemployment is much higher.
People who have maxed-out their credit cards live in fear of losing their jobs, and are not sure if they can ever retire.
It would be a political statement if those people could get economic stability in their lives.
A far better statement than attending a rally.
Abraham Maslow developed a famous hierarchy of needs.
Maslow believed that you couldn’t advance to self-actualization, which is the skill needed to lead a revolt against authority, until you had your physical, social, and safety needs met.
I’ve spent my life as a structured settlement consultant. I work with people who receive big money. People are stunned when I say that roughly 90% of lottery winners run through all their money in five years or less and 60% of NBA players will be broke within five years of retirement.
When people get big money, many freely hand out cash and expect love in return.
They get the love as long as they have the cash. Later, they wind up with no cash and no friends, either.
The Beatles had it right. Money can’t buy love. Love is something you have to develop over a lifetime.
If you want to make a political statement, you can start by being a good role model for your family, friends and neighbors.
If we focused on a society where productive lives are valued and celebrated, we wouldn’t be on the verge of Third World America.
If our celebrities were people who were stable and honest, instead of Hollywood train wrecks, we would have a vision of where society should go and the role models to help lead us there.
A lot of the economic crisis can be attributed to people trying to “keep up with the Joneses.”
People racked up credit card debts and sub-prime loans to buy houses and cars they couldn’t afford.
To quote Dave Ramsey, “They spent money they didn’t have to impress people they don’t know.”
Wall Street focused on short term profits and big time bonuses. That’s the same problem that individuals had but at a much more dangerous level.
I want our politicians to get out of the pocket of big money lobbyists and listen to the people who elected them. I want the power elites to recognize that the world on Main Street is a world they know little about.
It’s hard for an individual like me to get Washington and Wall Street to shape-up. I’m doing many of the things I can, like moving my money from Wall Street banks to community banks and credit unions (See moveyourmoney.info for more information) but it takes millions of us to implement real change.
It is possible for us to get ourselves to live normal, stable lives and to encourage our friends and family to do the same.
All it takes is to live each day with the idea of being a positive role model.
If all of us do that, there will be little chance we will become Third World America.
Don McNay, CLU, ChFC, MSFS, CSSC of Richmond, Kentucky, is an award-winning financial columnist and Huffington Post Contributor.
You can read more about Don at www.donmcnay.com
McNay founded McNay Settlement Group, a structured settlement and financial consulting firm, in 1983, and Kentucky Guardianship Administrators LLC in 2000. You can read more about both at www.mcnay.com
McNay has Master’s Degrees from Vanderbilt and the American College and is in the Hall of Distinguished Alumni of Eastern Kentucky University.
McNay has written two books. Most recent is Son of a Son of a Gambler: Winners, Losers and What to Do When You Win The Lottery
McNay is a lifetime member of the Million Dollar Round Table and has four professional designations in the financial services field.
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Follow Don McNay on Twitter:
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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

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Oct
11

Be first in your age group to embrace technology

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Be first in your age group to embrace technology

“Do you believe in rock and roll, can music save your mortal soul?”
-Don McLean
Daisy Werthan: You should have let me keep my old LaSalle. It never would’ve behaved this way and you know it.
Boolie Werthan: Mama, cars don’t behave. They are behaved upon. Fact is, you demolished that Chrysler all by yourself.
-Driving Miss Daisy
I believe in God, country and rock and roll. But the concept that gives me the most hope for the future is technology.
I’ve always been an “early adapter” in the technology world. I had a personal computer long before any of my friends did. Same with the cell phone, fax machine, email, website and PDA. I got an iPad the first day they hit the market, just like I did with the iPhone.
Spending money on technology has been some of my best moves. Sometimes I am too far ahead of the curve, (I had video-conferencing 15 years ago but no one to conference with) but generally it pays off.
When used properly, technology is a tool that makes us more productive. It can also be a distraction, stressor or time waster.
The technological principle I try to live by is that I want to the first in my age group to use the newest gadget.
One of my grad school classmates was a computer pioneer. He had an interesting insight.
He said that the best computer minds on the planet were always going to be high school and college students. They have the time and energy to learn new skills.
Even more importantly, they don’t have to “unlearn” anything.
One of the things that keeps me from learning a new technology is that I am tied to concepts that are outdated.
I still have a land-line phone. I can’t rationally explain why, but I feel like the land-line is more dependable. I rarely use my cell phone. I don’t like to text and I resist it fiercely. To contact me, I want people to email, call or send a Facebook message.
If I was coming out of high school today, I would probably be a texting fiend. But my tendency to be verbose is better suited to phone or email.
You can also understand why my friends try to push me to text messaging. Not everyone is up for my hour-long phone calls or 1000 word emails.
The key to embracing technology is figuring out what it can do to improve your current situation.
Which brings me to the Google Car. The New York Times recently had a fascinating article about a car that Google is working on that can drive itself.
I want one.
The article notes that it will be a few years before robot-driven cars become common place. If it all plays out correctly, that will be about the time when driving becomes more difficult for me.
The article says that automated cars could have as big an impact of on society as the Internet.
We won’t care about drunk drivers or people driving while they text. More than 37,000 people die in the U. S. each year in auto accidents. That number would be dramatically reduced with the Google Car.
Although it will be hip, new technology, the group where it will have the most immediate impact is senior citizens.
Several of my older friends have hit a stage of life where it difficult for them to drive themselves. It’s a horrible loss of independence and productivity. Not being able to drive can force them to move from long-established homes and cause them to feel dependent on people to drive them around.
That all changes with the Google Car.
I can see some resistance to turning the driving over to a computer. That’s one reason why I urge people to start being early adapters within their own demographic.
You don’t need to know how to program an automated car. You just need to know how to turn it on.
It’s been a rough time for the American economy and I don’t see it getting better anytime soon. We have too many years of bad decisions and bad leadership to wring out of the system.
But technology gives me hope. I’ve long been a fan of things like universal broadband. I can see how it can allow people to live in small towns but do big business.
Technology tends to crunch bureaucracies and eliminate current jobs, but it offers a creative person a chance to get ahead further and faster on his own.
It makes us less dependent upon big government and big businesses.
It’s all about giving it chance. You don’t have to keep up with the nerds at the college computer lab — you just need to stay ahead of your peer group.
Those who do are going to be happier and more productive in the long run.
And the envy of their neighbors.
Don McNay, CLU, ChFC, MSFS, CSSC of Richmond Kentucky is an award-winning financial columnist and Huffington Post Contributor.
You can read more about Don at www.donmcnay.com
McNay founded McNay Settlement Group, a structured settlement and financial consulting firm, in 1983, and Kentucky Guardianship Administrators LLC in 2000. You can read more about both at www.mcnay.com
McNay has Master’s Degrees from Vanderbilt and the American College and is in the Hall of Distinguished Alumni of Eastern Kentucky University.
McNay has written two books. Most recent is Son of a Son of a Gambler: Winners, Losers and What to Do When You Win The Lottery
McNay is a lifetime member of the Million Dollar Round Table and has four professional designations in the financial services field.

Follow Don McNay on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/Donmcnay

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

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Oct
03

Eat Pray Love and the Economic Crisis

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Eat Pray Love and the Economic Crisis

When the moon hits you eye like a big pizza pie
that’s Amore
-Dean Martin
I could be the last person in America to read Eat, Pray, Love but the movie got me interested in the book.
There is a segment in the book that keep running through my mind.
The author, Elizabeth Gilbert, references Luigi Barzini’s book, The Italians, in explaining why a country that has “produced the greatest artistic, political and scientific minds of the ages” has not become a world power.
Barzini’s conclusion is that after hundreds of years of corruption and exploitation by foreign domination, Italians don’t trust political leaders or big institutions.
Gilbert said the prevailing thought is that “because the world is so corrupted, misspoken, unstable, exaggerated and unfair, one should only trust what one can experience with one’s own senses.”
She added, “In a world of disorder and disaster and fraud, only artistic excellence is incorruptible. Pleasure cannot be bargained down.”
I have pondered Gilbert’s insight for weeks. I keep asking myself the essential question.
Is the United States headed the way of Italy?
Survey after survey shows that Americans do not trust their elected officials and don’t trust the people on Wall Street.
My parents grew up in a society where people trusted big companies to provide secure, long term jobs, excellent benefits and solid retirement plans.
They trusted Wall Street to invest in those big companies and fuel America’s economy growth.
They trusted political leaders to pass legislation that made the nation better, like the Civil Rights Act, even when the vote wasn’t politically expedient.
We trusted our leaders to do the right thing.
My children are growing up in a society where none of that is happening. Corporations dump loyal employees, cut benefits and wiggle out of paying for pensions. Wall Street rewards them for it.
Wall Street has been based on a system of paying employees huge bonuses for gambling in silly trading games, rather than helping the economy produce growth.
Washington seems more focused on the latest opinion poll or their lobbyist buddies than what is good for the average citizen.
Long term thinking seems to occur around the “24 hour news cycle.”
If the American people are following the path of the Italians, you can’t really blame them.
On the other hand, I don’t want to see the United States become the next Italy.
Three recently released books, Arianna Huffington’s Third World Nation, Charlie Gasperino’s Bought and Paid For, and Zac Bissonnette’s Debt Free U are different in philosophy but trace back to a central theme.
You can’t trust what the powerful are telling us.
Arianna writes that politicians have sold out the middle class. Zac punctures the myth that people have to rack up big student debt and Charlie makes the case that President Obama is in the pocket of Wall Street.
I’ve been developing my own set of ideas on creating Wealth Without Wall Street and most of them stem from self preservation. Turning money and my life over to Washington and Wall Street seems to be a road to the poor house.
Arianna has been pushing the concept of Move Your Money, http://moveyourmoney.info, where you stop doing business with Wall Street banks and start doing business with community banks and credit unions.
Zac pushes the principals of no debt, just as I have been doing for a long time. Younger Americans are coping with an insane amount of debt in student loans that will l be the flash point for our next economic crisis.
I want to trust big institutions but that trust has to be earned.
I trust many life insurance companies because they are heavily regulated oriented towards safety. I’ve been associated industry for all my adult life, know the people who run the companies and believe in the concepts they sell. The culture is very different from Goldman Sachs.
I want to trust government. I voted for President Obama in 2008 because I thought he would bring change to the economic system. Instead he gave us Geithner, Bernanke, Dr. Lawrence Summers and all the people who got us in this mess to begin with.
Gasperino makes a well documented claim that there was never a plan to bring change and that Obama was in Wall Street’s pocket before he took office. I pray that Charlie is wrong but suspect he is not.
There is a way to turn things around but the window is short. Arianna promotes public financing for elections. I’d like to see economic incentives for people who save and invest as opposed to bailouts for those who lack self control.
America could completely become the Italian model, where we retreat to our own worlds and focus on immediate pleasure.
Although there are a lot of downfalls, as Gilbert notes, the Italians can make one heck of a pizza.
In the big scheme of life, that’s Amore.
Don McNay, CLU, ChFC, MSFS, CSSC of Richmond Kentucky is an award-winning financial columnist and Huffington Post Contributor.
You can read more about Don at www.donmcnay.com
McNay founded McNay Settlement Group, a structured settlement and financial consulting firm, in 1983, and Kentucky Guardianship Administrators LLC in 2000. You can read more about both at www.mcnay.com
McNay has Master’s Degrees from Vanderbilt and the American College and is in the Hall of Distinguished Alumni of Eastern Kentucky University.
McNay has written two books. Most recent is Son of a Son of a Gambler: Winners, Losers and What to Do When You Win The Lottery
McNay is a lifetime member of the Million Dollar Round Table and has four professional designations in the financial services field.

Follow Don McNay on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/Donmcnay

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

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Sep
14

What Does the Recovery that Washington envisions looks like

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What Does the Recovery that Washington envisions looks like

There is no “there” there.
Gertrude Stein
I went back to Ohio but my city was gone
-The Pretenders
Since the collapse of the economy in 2008, economists and politicians keep talking in term of “recovery.” One television commentator kept bleating about “mustard shoots”. He was inventing positive signs in his head.
He wasn’t commentating, he was cheerleading. So far, the team he is rooting for has not been winning.
Washington has been throwing out gimmicks right and left. It’s been hard for Main Street businesses to make long term plans since we have no idea where Washington is going.
McNay Settlement Group, the structured settlement company that I founded, recently made a major investment in technology. We met with computer consultants for nearly a year and installed the system on September 1.
The next week, President Obama announced a major tax proposal for businesses to buy equipment. You can get it if you purchase after September 8.
Any of my competitors who waited at least 8 days longer than we did can get a huge tax break. We can’t. That’s the second time something like that has happened this year. We also lost out on a tax credit for hiring new employees. We hired someone a week before that tax gimmick was announced.
Normally, tax breaks start some significant period of time after the initial legislation. That gives businesses a chance to do long term planning and develop a strategy.
Not now. You never know what kind of new gimmick they are going to throw out there.
It’s not just crying about missing a potential break. It’s that it makes the playing field un-level.
It rewards people who failed to plan over those who do.
Suddenly, we have two competitors. One is the other people in my industry that I have always competed with. The new competitor is the United States government. Using my tax dollars, it is rewarding my competitors for not being as proactive as I have been.
Businesses need to make changes on a well thought-out basis, rather than getting “the deal of the week.”
This knee jerk, grab ass, immediate reaction style of economic planning is the result of no one in Washington thinking past the next news cycle. Everyone is looking for “quick fix” to get us back to “normal.”
My question is: What will “normal” look like?” When we were in our mid-decade “economic boom” that Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve Board were touting, individuals were living on borrowed money they didn’t have.
Now the government is running on borrowed money it doesn’t have. It’s also pushing interest rates low and hurting senior citizens. People who were encouraged to be savers are getting almost nothing in return. People who bought homes they shouldn’t have qualified for are getting bailed out.
So what is the “recovery” that Washington envisions going to look like? Are we going to have a new wave of people getting low down payment and no down payment mortgages? Are there going to be more floods of people running up their credit cards, buying stuff they really don’t need and can’t afford? Is unemployment going to go away? If so, how? Are we going to stop the flow of jobs to other countries? Are we all of a sudden going to start manufacturing goods again, after years and years of shipping those jobs overseas?
Too many in Washington pretend we are going to go back to the good old days. We won’t. Those days are gone. A number of new concepts, designed to create wealth without relying on Wall Street are materializing. The idea that Arianna Huffington started, Move Your Money, (see more at http://moveyourmoney.info/) is catching on.
People are learning to dine at home, cut up their credit cards and avoid going back to the out-of-control behaviors that got us in this mess to begin with.
Washington needs to be looking at hard economic realities instead of gimmicks. We have too many debts, too many people with their hands in the pies and too many wars. We have looming problems, like social security and health care, which need to be addressed and paid for.
To paraphrase Gertrude Stein, we need to have an idea of what “there” is going to be like when the recovery begins.
We won’t get “there” by using short term gimmicks.
Don McNay, CLU, ChFC, MSFS, CSSC of Richmond Kentucky is an award-winning financial columnist and Huffington Post Contributor.
You can read more about Don at www.donmcnay.com
McNay founded McNay Settlement Group, a structured settlement and financial consulting firm, in 1983, and Kentucky Guardianship Administrators LLC in 2000. You can read more about both at www.mcnay.com
McNay has Master’s Degrees from Vanderbilt and the American College and is in the Hall of Distinguished Alumni of Eastern Kentucky University.
McNay has written two books. Most recent is Son of a Son of a Gambler: Winners, Losers and What to Do When You Win The Lottery
McNay is a lifetime member of the Million Dollar Round Table and has four professional designations in the financial services field.

Follow Don McNay on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/Donmcnay

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

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Sep
06

The Hangover from Americas Bailout Party Video

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The Hangover from Americas Bailout Party Video

“Flounder: You _______ up — you trusted us.”
-Otter in the movie Animal House.
Let’s face it, we screwed up.
In the decade before 2008, the financial world was like a presidential inauguration ball.
On Inauguration day, there is a ball where only the closest insiders and Washington power players get invited.
There are also a lot of parties around town, so just about everybody in Washington feels like they were part of the event.
For a decade, Wall Street was playing funny money games. They were allowed to grant themselves multi-million dollar bonuses, and many Americans also felt like they were invited to the celebration.
Real estate prices were soaring. People were flipping houses and condos. People with lousy credit and no income were living in nice houses. Almost anyone could get a loan for anything.
Stock prices were going up and pension plans were getting fatter. State and local governments had lot of money to throw around and could cut taxes without anyone really noticing.
We had easy money and reaped many benefits without hard work or sacrifice.
We were living in fantasy land.
The fantasy is over. We woke up to a nightmare.
A nightmare that our nation has not yet dealt with.
People with addictions go through a process called “bottoming out.” They reach a point where they realize their actions are hurting themselves or others. They get help and dramatically change their lives.
Because of the Wall Street bailouts, America never got the chance to “bottom out.”
Like a drunk who keeps “having a drink or two,” America has not really dealt with the problems that got us in the mess.
Like an addict who keeps using, we are setting ourselves up for repeat failure.
I’ve been reading Maria Bartiromo’s new book, The Weekend That Changed Wall Street. A better title might have been “The Weekend that Changed the World.”
It was America’s chance to bottom out. We didn’t. To paraphrase Otter in Animal House, we screwed up. We mortgaged the future to make Wall Street happy today.
I liked Bartiromo’s book. One of her insights jumped out at me.
In talking about the fall from grace that some Wall Street insiders felt, she noted “When the wealthy falter, there is a deep shame that the average person cannot grasp. In that world, you are either in or you’re out.”
That line explains everything. Wall Street was in. They had the right lobbyists and had an alumni association from Goldman Sachs, including Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, doing their bidding in Washington.
Those who came from Wall Street looked out for their own. They made sure their Wall Street cronies were paid back, 100 cents on the dollar.
The rest of us were out. And we have stayed there.
Unemployment remains around 10% and underemployment is even more chronic. Sales of existing homes are at a 15-year low, despite some of the lowest mortgage rates in history. It’s almost impossible for a Main Street business to get financing and state and local government entities are looking at severe cuts in revenues and services.
We’ve spent trillions in bailout money and all we got was “One day older and deeper in debt.”
Although it sounds gloomy, I’m not a gloomy person by nature. With focus, hard work and resiliency, people can overcome any obstacle.
Including what Wall Street and Washington did to us.
People can solve problems by taking a hard look at themselves and making changes.
Washington is afraid to take that hard look or make real changes. Our political “leaders” won’t do anything that cuts off the campaign contributions and lobbying money that Wall Street provides.
My next column will give a concrete plan for creating wealth without Wall Street. You can see signs of it. Concepts like Move Your Money, http://moveyourmoney.info/ are catching on. People are starting to pay down debt and look at creating their own businesses.
We weren’t really invited to the big Wall Street party. But we sure wound up paying for it.
Now it is time to recover from the hangover.
Don McNay, CLU, ChFC, MSFS, CSSC of Richmond Kentucky is an award-winning financial columnist and Huffington Post Contributor.
You can read more about Don at www.donmcnay.com
McNay founded McNay Settlement Group, a structured settlement and consulting firm, in 1983, and Kentucky Guardianship Administrators LLC in 2000. You can read more about both at www.mcnay.com
McNay has Master’s Degrees from Vanderbilt and the American College and is in the Hall of Distinguished Alumni of Eastern Kentucky University.
McNay has written two books. Most recent is Son of a Son of a Gambler: Winners, Losers and What to Do When You Win The Lottery
McNay is a lifetime member of the Million Dollar Round Table and has four professional designations in the financial services field.

Follow Don McNay on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/Donmcnay

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

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