Articles & Books

Teach Your Children Well: Allow(ance)ing Meaningful Experiences with Money It’s Saturday morning. Breakfast is over and the soccer game is still an hour away. Before everyone in the family disperses to the four winds of weekend activities, it’s time to hand out the weekly allowance. As a parent, you’ve got a choice to make.
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Teach Your Children Well: Allow(anc)ing Your Children to Learn About Money Did you get an allowance growing up? Do you remember how much it was? Do you remember the thrill of coins and bills being transferred over to eager little hands? Do you remember dreaming about all the things you’d buy? Were you shocked to learn what things cost?
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Teach Your Children Well One of the most important jobs for a parent in today’s world is to teach your children how to interact with money in a healthy way. Money is the most powerful secular force in our society and understanding money is a basic survival skill. As traditional cultures and family structures break down, money assumes even greater importance.
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ObamaCare: The Big Picture In 2010, Congress passed and President Obama signed a new law called The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, intended to be a comprehensive reform of the American health care system. For better or worse, the new system has been popularly and irreversibly labeled “Obamacare.” Although the law was challenged by several states, it was upheld by the Supreme Court, so it looks like it’s here to stay.
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The Fiscal Cliff Deal: What Happened and What is Yet to Come The Fiscal Cliff deal merely gave Congress and the President two more months to agree on comprehensive spending reform before the automatic spending cuts begin.
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Emotions Can Often Cloud Your Judgment When Investing—Working with a Financial Professional could be the Answer Behavioral biases and the emotions that feed them can often cloud our judgment, and when it comes to the world of investing the implications of these biases can prove costly. Our investment decisions are highly influenced by several emotional and psychological factors.
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Newly Passed Proposition 30 Comes With a “Surprise Inside”
for High Income Californians
Like the old snack Cracker Jack, Proposition 30, recently approved by the voters of the State of California, comes with a “Surprise Inside” for California taxpayers with high incomes. In addition to a o.25% increase in the state sales tax, Proposition 30 creates three new income tax brackets that raise the maximum state income tax rates by as much as 3% over the current maximum rate of 9.3%.
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Child of Privilege—Child of Responsibility How Does a Child of Privilege Become a Child of Responsibility? This question troubles wealthy parents. Indeed, money is one of the most powerful forces shaping today’s society. In a nation formed in large part by capitalist ideals, teaching children to manage and understand money as a means of achieving values is one of the most important jobs a parent can perform.
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The California Municipal Bond Crisis: Is your portfolio safe? In July 2012 Stockton, California made history as the biggest city to file for bankruptcy protection. A week later, San Bernardino became the second largest city to file for bankruptcy protection. Then Mammoth Lakes was added to the list when it filed after losing a $40 million judgment brought on by a developer.
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Preparing for Higher Taxes in 2013 New Years Day 2013 marks the beginning of an automatic tax increase for all American taxpayers, so large and unprecedented that The Washington Post nicknamed it “Taxmageddon”. The tax increase will automatically commence at the end of 2012, unless Congress and President Obama can reach a compromise in the midst of an election year. What does this mean for you?
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The Complete Guide to Estate & Financial Planning in Turbulent Times The Complete Guide to Estate & Financial Planning in Turbulent Times answers the questions consumers are asking.
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A New Way to Work with Your Advisors: Delegating vs. Delegating Effectively As people become wealthier, they anticipate increased freedom. They imagine that once they have money enough to meet their worldly needs, life will be simpler. Ironically, established families often find that increased wealth brings greater complexity.
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Find Me a Specialist “This is one of the most important areas of our life and I don’t know who to hire. Frankly, I don’t even know what I should be looking for in an advisor. Can you help me?” lamented Mr. Reston, a very well known and successful business owner, after one of my recent seminars.
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