Gary Duell

Having never quite grown up, doomed, I suppose, to being a perpetual dreamer, I’m a great one for “what ifs”. This is one of my favorites, what I call “The CD Killer”. In terms of safe money, what if:1. You could earn double the rate your current CD is paying.2. Defer taxes on the interest […]

OK. I know. I’m playing with fire. But this blog is intended to be controversial and challenging. And what could be more controversial and challenging than scrutinizing religion and money?I especially love “Christian financial planning”, because Christ was quite clear on His financial plan: sell everything and give it to the poor. (But then do

I hate to even go here because it sounds so crazy. 81 banks have failed so far this year (see Failed Banks). To put that number in perspective, it’s almost 1/3 of bank failures since 2000 according to investinganswers.com. But here’s the crazy part: Although the FDIC will tell us how many banks are on

One of the best online discussions of this issue that I’ve found is at: michaelbluejay.com But the most common catch-phrase (which Parnassus Investments has branded) is “Doing well by doing good”. For long-term investors, SRI & sustainable investing should pay off better than short-term attempts to game all the systems in which business is done,

The Oregon Insurance Division has several excellent publications, including this one on annuities: http://www.cbs.state.or.us/ins/publications/consumer/3494.pdfHere is one page of it, to save you the trouble. See my remarks interspersed: Annuity sales to senior citizens haveincreased significantly in recent years.However, as annuity sales have risen, so has asense of confusion among consumers. This isdue, in part, to

Yes, Glenn Beck, the one you see and hear on TV is himself a myth, an apparition, a fabrication. As he so aptly put it in a recent issue of FORBES, Beck doesn’t “give a flying crap about the political process [hence, our country] . . . we are an entertainment company”. Got that? Entertainment.

Any time Glenn Beck promotes a book, I get very curious, especially when written by vastly overrated, disturbed people like Ayn Rand. I read two of her books, “The Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged” while working toward my bachelors degree in philosophy. At the time I likened these ponderous works to pounding a raw egg with

This bill stinks because the Democrats could have easily included some important essentials, including:(1)A National insurance exchange, including a public option(2)Repeal of the anti-trust exemption for health insurers(3)Allowing Medicare to bargain for lower drug prices.Ideally, a national, single-payer system (Medicare for all) would have saved us the most money and left no one uninsured. This