How the Minimum Wage Earner is Like a Big Bank ?

On the Sunday Morning Show recently there was a piece regarding the minimum wage and a story about a divorced mother of two who has worked for McDonalds for 10 years and is still paid the minimum wage with no benefits.  She indicated that she has decided not to take promotions and that she gets assistance for child care.  I wondered about what the real implications are from a couple of points of view.

Health Care Priorities

I have heard that 65% of statistics are made up on the fly; but Bill Frist, Senator from Tennessee, said he thinks 1/3 of our health care spending is due to waste and fraud.  He goes on to say that the 3 major points of healthcare reform should be:

     1)  Get the uninsured into the system;
     2)  Lower the costs of healthcare; and
     3)  Eliminate fraud and waste.

Practical Dreaming

Sometimes financial planning conversations can go places one might not expect.  Take for example the following inspiring story of one business owner's dream to live in California.

I get an email asking if I would be willing to meet and discuss financial planning issues.  I replied by saying--"Don't you work with another CFP(r)?"  To which she replied--"I'm not working with her anymore and I have been working with another CFP(r) guy but they don't really do what you do." 

Anyway we agreed to meet and see where it goes.  Well in a little over an hour

Small Business Health Insurance Update

I just returned from a meeting sponsored by the OKC Chamber of Commerce regarding the health insurance plan with Blue Cross that our company has used for the past many years.  Here are a few points of significance which came up for me as an employer and a consumer:

1)  The Chamber Choice Plans as we have known them since 2001 are not available as of January 2014.
2)  Insure Oklahoma Plans are still in place through 2014 and not part of the general state budget.
3)  There were two large firm lawyers and a couple of Blue Cross people fielding questions.  The lawyers seemed to get the most action I am sorry to say. 
4)  EVERY EMPLOYER'S SITUATION IS VERY DETAIL SPECIFIC AND THERE IS NO RULE OF THUMB OR EASY ONE-OFF ANSWERS.

Nobel Prize in Economics

Here are pictures of the 3 guys who shared the Nobel Prize in Economics this year.  Just to remind us of how fuzzy economics is the two guys on the left and right disagree with one another and the guy in the middle has math programs to explain the theories but no one really talks about him much since he doesn't disagree with the others.