Life (Former) Partners

Last Spring, we continued our coverage of Life Partners (LP), a holding company that buys and sells life insurance policies to (unwitting) investors.

Or should we say, sold:

"The SEC announced ... that disclosure and accounting fraud charges will be levied against Life Partners Holdings Inc ... The SEC also alleges that CEO Brain Pardo, general counsel Scott Paden and CFO David Marten misled shareholders ..."

No kidding.

As we noted in late 2010, LP's resident medical risk guru, a certain Dr Donald Cassidy, had a rather unenviable track record for picking, um, winners and losers: over 60% of the insureds had outlived his reported life expectancy, and almost a third had tripled it.

This boded ill for those suckers investors who did business with LP.

And it continues to do so:

"The SEC alleges that during the process of artificially underestimating the life expectancy of policyholders that Pardo and Paden then sold $11.5 million and $300,000 respectively in Life Partners stock at inflated prices."

So, $12 mil and their "clients" didn't even get t-shirts?

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Wellbeing and Eudaemonia Jobs For Everybody

In my sunset article, I brought up manipulate ethic.

State an adult, you pauperization a majuscule run system to be eminent at nearly anything, including wellbeing and fitness. So how faculty you prepare a eudaimonia and soundness output system? Solon a business in wellbeing. With this, I don't signify provide your job and get a nutritionist or suitability pedagogue. I tight hold on a part-time job of feeding intelligent and employed out and record it up. Opine roughly it... if we all had wellbeing and wellbeing jobs, would avoirdupois subsist? I win?

One statement. Answerableness. When you've got a job, you happen to be kept accountable for your effort, generally and at a minimum, viewing up and doing what you must do. How ofttimes does the common Joe cooperation doing things he enjoys including sight approximate friends or watching TV because he has to go to work? Likely weekly. But how oft does he sacrifice these homophonic things for a training conference? Probably never. If you don't demo up to work, you'll get let go. The satisfactory interest is that people can't get let go from their self-made wellbeing and upbeat jobs. The not so obedient by money.

I'm unhappy to taper out the patent, but if everybody was a billionaire, what pct of us would actually move in our jobs? With the omission of grouping who absolutely compassion their job, I'd risk to say no one. Group learning to give for themselves and for their households. They pauperism money in arrangement to win this. If they fail to reach this, they and their pet ones faculty hurt. This is quite powerful act for anyone. Cerebrate about that for a note. "If I don't go to utilise, my kin and I present suffer." No ruminate some people fulfil, act is key for individuals to rest in their jobs.

So how does one get driven for a job that doesn't pay money? Asymptomatic guesswork what? Recall that intellection that pops up with your actual job? "If I don't go to utilize, my dear ones and I leave undergo." This applies to your indorse job in eudaemonia and suitability as healthy. It's retributory not as noted because there may not be quick repercussions. Still, guess some the followers facts I picked up from an broadcast of The Greatest Nonstarter a brace of years ago:

. Obesity individuals pay $500 - $1,000 many on scrutiny shelter apiece year

. On average, rotund fill egest $7,000 inferior per gathering than their peers

. Americans spend $4.4 billion each assemblage on stomachic route surgery

. Americans pay $147 cardinal yearly on blubber associated eudaimonia problems

. The common soul module expend $1 meg over tetrad decades by deed from weighty to their nonesuch unit

Thence you may not needs puddle money from your eudaimonia job. But you module save a lot of money. And you fuck what fill say regarding a penny redeemed... Not enough motive? How virtually this? Avoirdupois cuts the figure lifespan by two to quadruplet eld and by as much as school to ten period for those group who are extremely fat. Unneeded to say, the property of period of rotund group module be much lessen than it is for non-obese group. It's not leaving to be wanton to mend for all your sept members if you're in a hospital bed.

I'm not disagreeable to mutation anyone out.

I just essential to displace plate the substance that your part-time job as a flushed, fit unshared is as essential, if not solon so, than your full-time job. In fact, if your full-time job is a sedentary one, your part-time job give become flat author crucial. I consider it's distinguished to remove both pale on this because the fact is with no tangible help or forceful motivating factors, grouping module not need of my 15 to 20-hour weekly part-time job of being fit and healthy:

. 8 hours per hebdomad - preparation and preparing beneficial meals, doing dishes

. 3 - 4 hours per hebdomad - resistivity preparation

. 3 - 4 hours per period - high-intensity cardio and/or football

. 1 - 2 hours per hebdomad - low-intensity aerophilous exertion (walking)

Honorable same it's peremptory that you love a work-life bear in your full-time job, it's chief to succeed a placement with your part-time job in upbeat and suitability. You don't want to devote 60 hours a period and overtrain, however, you don't requirement to do zilch either. My friends equal to go out a lot. During the week, I'll opt out of blissful hour quite often in magnitude to appease in and get in a high-quality grooming conference and nourishment because erst again, I touch this as my job. It helps me rescript flex and reasonable. On the weekends, I'll indulge and organisation along with them because it's also alpha

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ObamaWaiver©s, Shecantbeserious, and Corruption

And yes, I realize that the title is somewhat redundant. According to Judicial Watch, our suspicions that these little party favors were, in fact, Thank You gifts to Obamastration supporters seem pretty well confirmed:

"While it's not possible using this HHS report to pin down the exact share of the $4.5 billion that was paid to plans covering union retirees - it seems very unlikely that share is less than 50%. About 12% of the US workforce is represented by unions."

As Mike recently pointed out, the "HHS report shows that the UAW retiree trust has received over $387 million - which is, all by itself, 8.5% of the total distributed ... Only 3 of these top 17 are corporate plans ... the remaining 14 are either union funds or public employer retiree plans."

And as if this transparently obvious payback wasn't enough, Ms Shecantbeserious also embarked on "on a massive, taxpayer-funded, multimedia campaign designed to promote Obamacare."

But then, IB readers are already familiar with MatlockCare©.

[Hat Tip: Mike F]

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History Lesson

Many of my clients were children of the depression. The big one, where unemployment was 25% and many staples were rationed.

Their parents were part of the greatest generation. Men (and women) who fought for the rights of those they did not know, both here and abroad. Some gave their life so we could be free while others returned home but were shattered by the experience of war.

When they returned they attended school on the GI bill and got a "free" education that wasn't really free but paid for with blood and guts.

They bought homes with subsidized VA loans that were earned, not given to them.

The depression babies, those whose parents went to war and sometimes never came back only knew hard times.

Many of these people went to work for big companies like Southern Railways, Chesapeake, Norfolk, Eastern Airlines, Pan Am Airways, F W Woolworth. Companies that promised pensions when you retired.

Others went to work for Sears, J C Penney, GM, Chrysler, Greyhound Bus Lines, Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company. Companies that were rock solid and offered good pay plus a retirement plan.

Some companies no longer exist, others are around but a mere shell of what they once were and every one terminated their retirement plan years ago.

If you think the greatest generation and depression babies were stupid or planned to fail you are dead wrong. Many of them postponed purchases until they had the money to pay for things. The only thing they financed was a home and maybe a car.

Everything else was paid for in cash and money was always set aside for a rainy day.

Yet a lot of these people, people who are my clients, are living from SS check to SS check plus a little bit of savings. many still have mortgages even though they lived in the same home for 40 years. They have credit card debts with balances from buying food, medicine and other necessities.

They don't have cable TV or buy a new car every 2 years. They don't have iPad's or iPhones or big screen TV's.

They attend church and give a tenth of their monthly income to charity.

Many of them buy small life insurance policies and wish they could buy more. They regret relying on life insurance tied to their job or buying a term insurance plan that expired before they did.

These people did not plan to fail yet they are smarter and wiser than many of the people who profess to know it all and swear they will be financially set by the time they are 60.

They did not plan on working for a company that would go out of business, marrying a spouse whose health would take a turn for the worse, draining their life savings before finally leaving this earth.

Nor did they count on raising their children beyond age 18 or becoming a day care for their grandchildren.

Yet somehow the people who were born in the 60's through the 80's feel they are entitled to having everything given to them. They believe they are smarter than their parents and grandparents and will always have money in the bank, a good job and a steady income.

They believe they are immune to down sizing, divorce and paying for drug counseling for their children or hiring attorney's to keep them out of jail for a DUI.

They see life insurance as a temporary need that will end by the time they are 50.

If you are in this group maybe everything will work out as planned, but you don't have to be too old to know that man plans and God laughs.

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MassDunh!

As we've previously remarked, MassCare's health insurance mandate lacks any real teeth. One reason for that is, of course, that the penalty for failing to purchase health insurance is a joke.

So what's the Bay State's answer?

"Massachusetts residents who do not have health insurance would face a higher financial penalty in 2012 ... the maximum penalty ... would be $105 for each month that an individual is not covered by health insurance"

Seriously? A hundred bucks?

Call that one a bargain and move on.

Oh, and how's that whole mandate working out?

Well, there's this:

"[T]he U.S. Census Bureau reported that at 5% ...Massachusetts had the lowest uninsured rate of any U.S. state."

Sounds good, right?

Aye, but here's the rub:

"Doc Shortages and Rising Health Care Costs"

Ooops.

[Hat Tip: FoIB Holly R]

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Texas Loss

Residents of Texas hoping to have "free" help from government employees to find affordable health insurance are SOL.

A $2.8 million grant allowed the state to hire nine employees to staff a toll-free hotline. More than 6,000 Texans called in during the past year, seeking advice on how to find affordable coverage, or help filling out an insurance application, or fighting a denied claim.

A grant is "free money" taken from taxpayers and recycled by the government for projects they deem worthy.

Grants are not loans and never have to be repaid.

Seems to me $2.8 million for 9 employees is a bit excessive. They could have hired 9 licensed insurance agents for a lot less.

But less than a year after it opened, the Texas Consumer Health Assistance Program is preparing to shut down, a victim of Congress’s inability to agree on a federal budget for next year. The nine employees are likely to be dismissed in April. The events will stop and the toll-free hotline will redirect to a general consumer assistance number at the Texas Department of Insurance, which deals with all kinds of insurance and has less expertise in health coverage.

Less expertise . . . for $2.8 million.

Will someone explain why it takes taxpayer money, and a lot of it, to fund a project agents do every day at no cost to the taxpayer?

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