Today our firm and Mike Cavanaugh and Tim Webb, Registered Investment Advisors at Know Your Options, Inc., sponsored a special briefing for corporate attorneys on the new fee disclosure regulations impacting their clients. Our briefing at the University of Chicago Gleacher Center was provided to help them provide their clients with the guidance and strategies … Continue Reading
On October 8 and 9, 2010, I participated in a seminar at the John Marshall Law School, "New Rules for Non-Traditional Retirement Plans", as part of the Law School’s LLM Program in Employee Benefits. The seminar was led by attorney Bob Toth with whom I collaborated in our 403(b) Crunch Time Series. Bob is considered one of the leading experts on … Continue Reading
Today I presented a “Lunch and Learn” about 403(b) and 457 retirement plan for the students at John Marshall Law School. It was a preview to the two day seminar on October 8 and 9, 2010 in which I will be participating. It’s called “New Rules for Non-Traditional Retirement Plans”, as part of the Law School’s LLM Program … Continue Reading
Earlier this week, over 125 brokers, consultants, advisers attended the 5th Annual Employee Benefit Adviser Summit in Boca Raton, Florida. Looking Into The Future: What You and Your Clients Will Look Like. Here’s a link to Employee Benefit Adviser’s report, Advisers Find Opportunities in Change at EBA Summit. My own presentation at one of the … Continue Reading
Those are the great Isely Brothers pictured off to the left whose music I grew up with. Memories of which were brought back to me by an article written by a kindred pop culture soul. And with no disrespect intended, in of all places, a big Washington, D.C. law firm. It’s David Fuller, a Partner in Morgan Lewis’s … Continue Reading
Our friend Roger Wohlner, a fee-only financial planner, who blogs at Chicago Financial Planner, sent me an email after reading the Marshall McLuhan reference in yesterday’s post, Communicating 401(k): Is the Medium the Message? Roger reminded me about McLuhan’s cameo in Woody Allen’s classic 1977 firm, Annie Hall. Thanks, Roger. The rest of you may … Continue Reading
If you’re not of my generation, then let me introduce you to Marshall McLuhan by way of this YouTube video. McLuhan, one of the visionary thinkers in the momentous decade of the 1960s, coined the expression "the medium is the message" which he introduced in his most widely known book, Understanding Media: The Extensions of … Continue Reading
It’s that season of the year. No, not the obvious holiday season, but the award show season. And I’ve got my own called, The Retirement Plan Year in Review: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. The reference is, of course, to Sergio Leone’s classic 1966 movie, considered the greatest of the Italian … Continue Reading
Our blogging buddy, attorney Bob Toth, blogging from a ski slope in Quebec province, discussed the demise of defined benefit pension plans, Continuing the DB Demise Discussion. He notes that there are only 19,000 defined benefit plans now being covered by the PBGC. The context in which Bob writes is what is generally perceived to … Continue Reading
On October 31 and November 1, I participated in a seminar at the John Marshall Law School, “New Rules for Non-Traditional Retirement Plans”, as part of the Law School’s LLM Program in Employee Benefits. The seminar was led by attorney Bob Toth with whom I collaborated in our 403(b) Crunch Time Series. Bob is considered one of the … Continue Reading
Common Craft has just released their new video, Saving for Retirement In Plan English. They are superbly talented producers of videos for training and education, whose product they say is "explanation". The video can be licensed for use by any organization that has the goal of increasing awareness and adoption of a retirement savings … Continue Reading
For today’s visual metaphor, I could have used artwork for Simple Minds’ 1984 hit, Don’t You (Forget About Me), from the soundtrack of Breakfast Club, the movie by the recently deceased John Hughes. Instead, I’m using a picture that caught my attention photographed by artist Jeannette Sheehy inspired by the song. In the context of … Continue Reading
That’s The Police, circa 1983, pictured above. 1983 as the year when Sting was the King of Pain. That was the title, of course, of the hit song he wrote, one of the tracks on the album Synchronicity – the last and greatest Police album. The story goes that King of Pain was a very … Continue Reading
I was flipping – or rather, clicking – through my album collection yesterday, and landed on The Well’s On Fire, Procul Harum’s 2003 studio album. If you’re not a child of the ’60s or are too young, they’re the 1960s British rock group best known for their 1967 hit single, A Whiter Shade of Pale, … Continue Reading
That’s Bloc Party, a British indie rock block pictured above. And If it can be broken then it can be fixed is the opening line from Pioneers, one of the tracks on Silent Alarm, their 2005 debut album. The album was crafted by chief lyricist Kele Okereke to examine the feelings and hopes of young … Continue Reading
You may be familiar with the PBS TV series, Antique Road Show. It’s that show that visits various cities in the U.S., and invites people to bring their unusual antiques and collectibles to be valued by appraisers. But sometimes, things go awry in these situations as shown in the video below – actually an advert … Continue Reading
See larger image. Inspired by today’s DOL-SEC Joint Hearing on Target Date Funds and Envestnet survey of employee understanding of target funds. … Continue Reading
Remember the classic “Greed is good” speech by Gordon Gekko as played by Michael Douglas in the 1987 Oliver Stone classic, Wall Street. Here’s Douglas in his 1988 Academy Award winning role telling us why "greed is good": Fast forward to today at a time when greed is viewed quite differently. It’s one those psychological elements behind … Continue Reading
If you’re one of the estimated 6 million people on Twitter as I am, you’re familiar with the question in the headline. If you’re not quite sure about exactly what Twitter is, then take a look at the video explanation by the extremely creative video producers at Common Craft called Twitter in Plain English. Much … Continue Reading
Hardship distribution provisions in 401(k) used to be one of those retirement plan matters on which plan sponsors didn’t spend a whole lot of time. Lately, however, that’s not the case. From our vantage point, we’re seeing more requests for hardship distributions than ever before. That being the case, I’m going to take a few … Continue Reading
Making complex ideas easy to understand is a topic I’ve blogged about before. Last month, I blogged, I asked you what time it is, not how to make a watch, which included Jonathan Jarvis’ excellent video The Crisis of Credit Visualized. Here’s another example. It’s the video, Investing Money in Plain English. It was created by Common Craft, superbly talented producers … Continue Reading
