Individual plans have traditionally had higher deductibles/co-pays, but nothing like what we're seeing under ACA. That, and narrow networks, are some of the main ways that ACA premiums are being kept lower.
Trying to figure out the best plan becomes intractable, especially when more than one person is involved. You've identified a key difference between HSA plans and some non-HSA plans - the latter often allow doctor visits for co-pays, without requiring that you meet the deductible. The more people you're insuring the more important that becomes, as it becomes more likely that someone will be going to the doctor.
One other difference between HSA and non-HSA plans - with the HSA plans, the deductible is a single family deductible (e.g. $12,000). For a non-HSA plan, the deductible is an individual deductible (e.g. $6,000 per person and $12,000 for the family).
So in an HSA plan, no one escapes the deductible until the family pays the combined deductible. In a non-HSA plan, once someone reaches the individual cap (e.g. $6K), that person doesn't have to pay more deductibles. But the other family members do.
That can work out better if one person is incurring most of the expenses. Then, instead of meeting a family $12K deductible, that person starts getting real coverage after $6K.

I like Faber and find him highly amusing (who else has responded to the question on CNBC of how you should allocate assets with "it depends on how many girlfriends you have"?)
I hope that there is not another 2008.
That said, this is my honest view:
That if it looks like we may be heading in that direction, the Fed will bail out Radio Shack (after the fact), Shake Shack and even Shaq.
They will try every voodoo economic BS tactic left. You will see QE4, you will see NIRP. Heck, a ban on physical cash so that no one can escape NIRP wouldn't surprise me. Every trick in the book will be used - you think that what's going on in Shanghai in terms of banning short selling and other "rules" can't be put into place here, at least to some degree?
They will bail out, print and nationalize like there's no tomorrow - if it comes to that, because the alternative if we have another 2008 and go back to square one is this:
All of the attitude by the Fed of "don't audit us, don't question us and no we aren't going to respond to an investigation about the Fed leaking information" will be ignored in a bleeping hurry.
If we have had QE1, 2 and 3 and operation twist and all other manner of financial engineering BS and we find ourselves back at square one after another 2008-style situation, Janet and company will have a lot of 'splaining to do (and they don't seem fond of that) because the anger will be immense and Congress will ab-so-lutely point the finger at them.
You think people were mad at Wall Street after 2008? LOL, at the very least twice as bad if it happens again.
If we have another 2008, in some ways it'll be game over. There will be tumbleweeds hosting CNBC because no one will be watching. The rejection of stocks by the public will be extraordinary - you're not going to get anyone back in and probably for years. The Fed will be too busy in hearings to do much. Attempts to push the public back into risk assets after that will be likely met with legitimate anger (or at least a collective middle finger.)
So yeah, I believe that there is a sense of "reflate or bust" desperation with governments around the world who don't want another 2008 because of all of the many things that would imply.
Perhaps I'll be wrong but I continue to fear that this time around if there's a crisis you will want to own assets instead of sitting in cash or bonds.
We'll see.
---
Someone posted this at ZH in the comments section years ago and I don't disagree with the gist of it, although I'm not as negative and think the how/why (I don't think they'd print like there's no tomorrow because this is the end, but because they believe another 2008 would be some degree of "game over") is different. I don't think another 2008 would be "the end", but I perhaps can see where it would be the end of the global economy as we know it today. Perhaps this is "the ultimate bubble" for use of a better term and what we look like as a global economy on the other side of it will be very different.
"Hope you didn't put much money on that bet, Dawg. These fuckers are going to print hard enough to wake the dead. They'll print like mo'fos, print like mad men, print like fly pimps. Print until their eyes bleed.
They will print via the swaps, via bank bailouts and mergers, via fixed Treasury yields, via real honest-to-God negative interest rates, via loans to banks on no collateral, via payroll tax reductions, and in the end via actual fiat paper instruments which they might very well drop in bails from actual mutherfucking helicopters.
They will not give two figs what anyone thinks.
Here is why.
Because this is the Goddamned end of it my friend. There is no accounting beyond this point. There will be no history of it. No one to take notes of rates of exchange, or of the graft and violence, nobody to worry about the deficit or the GDP or the national debt of any nation large or small under the blazing Goddamned sun.
End. Of. It. Does anyone bitch about how Rome totally debased their coinage at the end? Hell no. But whoever did it had enough to hand and grabbed some land with a nice vineyard and sat back and waited for the Middle Ages to start 700 years further on.
And that's what a singularity is about. Anything that passes through is striped of all meaning. Nothing we think is important now will remain so beyond the event horizon. Nobody will remember, nobody will write about it, nobody will be held to any standard. Ever for ever."

Hi Dex,
Your interpretation of BobC’s 50/50 market odds is very naïve. Formally, your reading might be called a Probit (PROBibility unIT) statistical measure. That form of measurement reduces the stats to an overly simplistic either/or positive/negative final judgment. Based on your post, you are satisfied with an equally weighted outcomes probability. The historical data does not support that weighting.
Either/or results need not be equally weighted. When a baseball hitter makes an official plate appearance, he can register either a hit or make an out. Extending your assessment, he has a 50/50 likelihood of either outcome, batting averages notwithstanding. You will surely go bankrupt if you accept the hit side of that wager.
Allow me to recite another extreme example of the problems assigning an equal probability to a bifurcation event for the mistaken reason that there are merely two possible happenings. Weather serves as a terrific illustration.
In my part of the Southern California landscape, any weather forecaster would lose his license to practice if he assigned a 50/50 odds for rain or clear on any given day. The proper odds likely hover at the 2/98 level against rain. Bifurcation does not typically translate into equally probable events.
From a Franklin Templeton market summary, over the past 88 years, the S&P 500 recorded 64 Up and 24 Down years. That is a 73% likelihood of a positive annual return. For the 64 positive return years, the annual average return was slightly North of 22%. For the 24 negative return years, the annual average loss was just South of -13% . So, not only do the odds favor a positive annual year, the returns for the positive years swamp the less likely negative years. That’s a double positive.
These favorable equity return stats are the basis for investing in stocks. The historical data shows that fixed income investments (like Bonds) have a higher likelihood of a positive annual return than stocks, but the payoffs are more muted. That’s why most portfolios that seek growth emphasize its stock components.
I’m sure you are familiar with these commonplace statistics. Given that familiarity, I’m puzzled by your submittal. You are just plain wrongheaded if you really believe that, without further mitigating circumstances, the odds are 50/50 that equities will deliver a positive or a negative reward/penalty in any given year.
Of course you’re free to assign whatever probabilities you like to the markets, but that’s being more than naïve; that’s completely ignoring the available database at your investment peril.
Good luck, and you will certainly need all of it if that’s your understanding and use of market statistics. I hope you were just joking or that I misread your post.
Best Wishes.

Given today’s market conditions and the S&P 500 CAPE valuation, I anticipate an equity annual real return of 1.0%, and a bond return of 2.5% (mix of treasury and corporate holdings) over the next 10-year time horizon.
Add another 2.5% for inflation. I presently expect a 60/40 equity/bond mixed portfolio to generate an actual return of 0.6 X 1.0 + 0.4 X 2.5 + 2..5 (inflation) = 4.1% annual average actual return for the next 10 years. Given the crudeness of the analyses, the projection is 4% annually. Quoting anything more accurate is misleading.

On a macro level I agree. When you look at stagnating wages, labor participation rate, retiring baby boomer, increase of people on food stamps, cost of Obamacare it point to a economic malaise. Also, at some point we will get a VAT which should put an additional damper on things.

You are welcome @MJG.
I wonder if anyone has ever thought of starting up a global CAPE fund? There is DSENX for the U.S. markets but I could not find anything for international other than the ETF example above which would be time consuming for most investors.
I don't have any positions in DSENX but have it in my watchlist.

@ JohnChisum,
Thanks for this link. From this article:
"...the (Faber CAPE) strategy all hinges on your definition of worst. Mr Faber argues that the worst places to invest in are not the cheap markets belonging to troubled economies, but the investors’ darlings that have been chased to heady valuations."
The Schiller CAPE index points out that one of these worst markets are US markets.
The hard question is when will expensive markets crash and will they remain out of favor for long periods of time (a lost decade) and conversely when will cheap market rebound and how long will they remain in favor? Both trends can go on for longer than one is willing to wait.
Waiting for cheap assets to rebound can be more easily tolerated if the cheap asset pays a solid growing dividend. If the dividend payment can resemble an income stream the waiting might be very tolerable.
theres-a-new-kid-on-the-global-dividend-block-mebane-fabers-cambria-foreign-shareholder-yield-etf

Here is a link to a Daily Mail article dated Sept. 2014, that shows an example of a global CAPE strategy using single country ETFs. Meb Faber has done a lot of work on this principle.
It is probably too complicated for most investors.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/investing/article-2738966/How-use-CAPE-beat-market-global-CAPE-values.html

Hi Bee,
Thank you for reading and replying to my post.
Our family portfolio does indeed have many more components than are reflected in the simplified forecasting tool that I proposed. The portfolio includes Foreign Developed Equities, Emerging Market units, REITs, Commodity holdings, and government TIP positions. It is much more diversified than my simple model might suggest.
To respond to a second question that you asked, if a foreign equivalent to Shiller’s CAPE formulation exists, I am not familiar with it. Sorry, I can’t help in that area.
The issue you raised with regard to the inclusion of more investment categories to complete the forecasting tool is very pertinent. That’s why I started and ended my submittal by referencing Einstein’s simplicity caution. The utility of the forecasting tool can be corrupted by over simplification. That danger is real.
Probably no final answer exists. Much depends on the accuracy, the load that the simplified tool is expected to carry. My target goal was dominated by simplicity considerations, and I was prepared to sacrifice some accuracy. Although I did not do a formal analysis, I did scan the historical returns for other sub-group categories. Yes, they depart from US Equities and Bonds, but not that dramatically over the long haul.
For my purposes, I concluded that ignoring these other categories would not compromise the model too drastically. Also, finding simple ways to project returns for these categories (if they exist) is a daunting challenge that I was not prepared to accept. Complexity would quickly multiply. So I punted.
I’m in the diversified marketplace regardless of the model projections. I’ve mostly used it as a tool to dampen the overly optimistic expectations of bushytailed new investors. I try to balance expectations with real world likelihoods.
Although US Equities are likely to deliver muted returns over the next few years, I am not convinced that non-US positions will do much better. In many ways, global problems are as complex, interactive, and deep as those we face. A butterfly flaps its wings in New York, and the world feels its amplified effects. That’s just me talking glittering generalities. I surely am not an expert on the prospects of the global marketplace.
Best Wishes.

@MJG,
Do you invest only in US-centric (CAPE) investments? I would think a diversified portfolio should also have a good slug of non - US investments. A globally diversified portfolio might fair quite well over the next ten years.
Maybe the next ten years will be less about US - CAPE weightings and more about being diversified globally.
Is there Global CAPE data available to compare Schiller's CAPE?
Thanks for your thread.

Hi Guys,
The saying that “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler” is often but not universally attributed to Albert Einstein.
Regardless of who actually made that pithy proclamation, it is especially applicable when making investment forecasts. Uncertainty dominates any forecasting, and complexity only increases the odds of introducing extraneous and erroneous factors.
I particularly favor a short and simple set of rules when forecasting longer-term market returns. I am not in any way motivated to travel to Chicago to attend a Morningstar convention where invited experts offer no more illuminating projections than I can painlessly glean from these simple rules.
What is my simple rule set? For the equity portion of my portfolio, I use a 10-year equity returns correlation that deploys the Bob Shiller Cyclically Adjusted Price to Earnings ratio (CAPE) as the entry parameter. Its current value is about 26; its historical mean value is roughly 17. So, today, the equity marketplace has a cautionary higher than normal risk level.
Future equity returns are negatively correlated with CAPE. A correlation that I like projects the following 10-year annual real returns (inflation subtracted) of 11%, 8%, 5%, 3%, and 1% as CAPE groupings increase from below10, 10 to 15, 15 to 20, 20 to 25, and greater than 25, respectively. These 5 groupings project a sad story for the current CAPE level. Please take note: This table is the primary insight and tool.
Above a CAPE of 30, equity returns have been historically negative for the upcoming 10 year period. One reason I like the above correlation is the timeframe balance of its components. Both CAPE and the equity market returns forecast are for a 10-year time horizon.
Projecting the next 10-year bond return likelihood is an even easier task. Simply use the current yield of the 10-year treasury bond. If you are a more aggressive corporate bond holder, you might consider adding 0.8% to the government value.
Given today’s market conditions and the S&P 500 CAPE valuation, I anticipate an equity annual real return of 1.0%, and a bond return of 2.5% (mix of treasury and corporate holdings) over the next 10-year time horizon.
Add another 2.5% for inflation. I presently expect a 60/40 equity/bond mixed portfolio to generate an actual return of 0.6 X 1.0 + 0.4 X 2.5 + 2..5 (inflation) = 4.1% annual average actual return for the next 10 years. Given the crudeness of the analyses, the projection is 4% annually. Quoting anything more accurate is misleading.
If you are a neophyte investor and expecting a portfolio return that is north of 8% annually over the upcoming 10 years, forget-about-it. It is not now in the cards given the present high value of CAPE. Naturally, these forecasts change as the input parameters get revised.
Well, this forecast is not rocket science and it did not need a visit to the Morningstar clambake. It has taken a complex forecasting problem and has simplified to allow a rapid and respectable estimate that does not depart too radically from those made by the professionals with their complex computer models. That complexity adds little.
Returning to the Einstein quote, I hope my approach has not crossed the overly simplified boundary. I also hope that a few MFO members find this simple forecasting tool useful. I realize that many MFO members use similar simplified methods in making their own projections. I thank these members for their patience with this submittal.
Best Regards.

Okay, I admit it, I skimmed the rest of the article. I think Gross has got ETFs all wrong when he writes:

That an ETF can satisfy redemption with underlying bonds or shares, only raises the nightmare possibility of a disillusioned and uninformed public throwing in the towel once again after they receive thousands of individual odd lot pieces under such circumstances.

That may aptly describe the "escape valve" for mutual funds, but not for ETFs. The "disillusioned and uninformed public" can sell their ETF shares only on the open market. They can't redeem their shares like Authorized Participants (AP) can. And APs know that they will get a gazillion pieces; that's what they get when they redeem ETF shares under all market conditions. That's the way ETFs are designed to work.
If the market went into free fall, I suspect there would be no telling whether market prices would lag NAV (i.e. fall less slowly, which would normally cause APs to buy, not redeem ETF blocks from the sponsor), or whether the market prices would be falling faster than the underlying NAVs.
My uninformed speculation is that even in the latter case, APs would not be redeeming shares. Normally, when market price is below ETF NAV, an AP will buy the "discount" ETF, redeem it for its components, sell those components on the open market, and pocket the spread. But if those components are falling rapidly in price, the AP might not be able to unload them before they dropped below even the discount price at which the AP obtained them. So the APs might just sit on their hands.
Maybe there are regulations requiring participation. Or maybe APs really do try to catch falling knives. I'm interested in any other facts or thoughts on how ETFs might function in a market meltdown.

Likely for 18-24 months.
Grantham's argument is two-fold: asset class bubbles occur when valuations exceed their historic norms by two standard deviations but high valuations alone don't cause bubbles to pop; you need a trigger. Right now, US stocks are about 1.6 standard deviations high, measured by either Tobin's Q or Schiller CAPE. If you chart the rising valuations, the inflation is pretty steady. It likely won't cross over the "two sigma" line until around the time of the Presidential election. At that point, we'd be set up for a 60% repricing of stocks. In the interim, don't discount your run-of-the-mill 10-15% hiccups.
He is not, he argues, pessimistic. It's just that the rest of us are irrationally optimistic.
The most interesting element of his talk centered on the distortions introduced by the Fed. Publicly traded corporations are posting record profit margins; rather than reinvesting that cash (capital expenditures / capex are at historic low levels), they're buying back overpriced company shares to reward current shareholders. The buybacks are also being funded by low interest debt issuance. Private firms are continuing to commit large amounts of money to capex. That's contributing to the high profit margins, since firms aren't trying to arbitrage their competitors' high profits away by competing for business in those sectors (which would require capex). They're luxuriating in their own cash flows and distributing it straight to executives and other shareholders. The fund managers who are heavily exposed to the energy sector point to a collapsing E&P infrastructure as old rigs retire but few new ones (and few new ships and pipelines and refineries) are funded.
David

Yeah, a lot of great fund people escaped mention. Mary Jo White cannot get her own team on the same page, let alone stop campaign coffers from influencing how politicians in Washington vote on fiduciary matters. Their comment that "requiring bank, insurance, and brokerage houses to accept fiduciary responsibility for clients would hurt individual investors" is laughable. But somehow this position will carry the day.

What a joke. How can you take this list seriously when Professor Snowball doesn't even get an honorable mention.

But he's in good company. T. Rowe Price escaped mention too.

@kevindow- I can see your point, but I have to wonder about the general landscape now out there. When my wife and I were young, we were predisposed to be savers, which is probably one of the most important factors in the whole puzzle. But there was a great dearth of resources from which to "continuously increase ... knowledge of everything financial." Lou Rukeyser's Wall Street Week was one of the few resources available, but even they could not cover the entire financial landscape, nor did they attempt to.
After a few abortive attempts to try stuff on our own, we came across an adviser who, of course, steered us into front loaded American funds. I made it quite clear to the adviser that I didn't like that load, but he justified it on the grounds that he was providing a service, would be available for help and consultation, and also needed to make a living.
He also pointed out that the ongoing American Fund ERs were significantly lower than competing products, and over time, would thus amortize the load. I grudgingly agreed, and used the American Funds exposure to ask lots and lots of questions, and the adviser was very good at explaining the realities of various financial products. An important part of my discussion here is that there were not nearly as many such products available at that time, so things were a lot simpler.
In summary, with a dearth of educational opportunity, an adviser turned out to be a good thing for us. Using that as a stepping stone, we eventually buttressed our American Funds exposure with lots of other no-load stuff from different sources.
Now, of course, it's a completely different situation, as you observe: "Watch WSW, On the Money and NBR on TV. Read Money, Kiplinger, and the WSJ. Take advantage of the M* Classroom." Certainly good advice there (although you might also have mentioned MFO!). But I do wonder if with the huge number of different types of investment vehicles now available it might not still be advisable to have an initial setup with a financial adviser just to get started, and begin the learning process from there. As we discuss here on a regular basis, there are so many financial products out there which are of questionable merit that it might well be difficult for a young person to avoid some of those traps on their own, especially as they are getting started. Once they get their feet wet with something reasonable, and are able to see how that performs (or doesn't), they will have a good platform to begin their own education, as you have noted. Of course a problem with this approach would be finding an appropriate financial adviser, but then that issue is forever with us.

Hi Guys,
Returns are intimately tied to when you leave the investment starting gate. Nobody can consistently predict returns for the next few years. Both GMO and John Hussman have launched signals warning that the Shiller cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings (CAPE) ratio is uncomfortably high. They imply the likelihood of a near-term downturn.
Indeed if that is the case, the question is how to prepare? I sure don’t have a definite answer. Any answer is likely to be closely coupled to an individual’s specific timeframe, his wealth, his risk profile, and his short-term/long-term need tradeoffs. But history can provide some guidelines to help scope the problem.
Here is a Link to a nice chart from the Wrapmanager site that displays the S&P 500 pricing history since 1900:
http://www.wrapmanager.com/wealth-management-blog/did-the-sp-500-reach-all-time-highs-is-there-a-cause-for-concern
Note that the chart also marks off P/E ratios at critical turning points in the S&P’s storied history.
As LewisBraham suggests with his post, when the investment battle is exactly joined directly influences annual returns. Some starting dates are especially disastrous. But over time, the historical record demonstrates that even poor starts have been integrated away by the rising tide. Over the very long haul, the precise starting date is not all that significant.
Here is a Link to a nifty calculator that yields S&P 500 returns with and without dividends reinvested for any input starting and end date. The calculator is from a “Don’t Quit Your Day Job” website:
http://dqydj.net/sp-500-return-calculator/
The calculations can be easily completed both with and without inflation adjustments.
For example, if an investor had the misfortune to invest immediately before the 1929 Crash, his annual return to this month would have been 9.69% with dividends reinvested. If he had been prescient enough to have delayed that initial entry date until April of 1932, his annual return would be at the 11.37% level.
For those of us old enough to have initiated our investment program immediately after WW II, our annual return would have been 11.01%, again with dividends reinvested. If we have been in the S&P 500 Index over the last 30 years, our reward would have been 10.99%. When you leave the starting gate matters a little, but the returns are impressive regardless of the precise timing.
I hope you visit the websites that I referenced, and that you find them helpful.
Best Wishes.

FYI: The definition of floccinaucinihilipilification is the estimation of something as valueless. It is rarely
used (for obvious reasons) and encountered primarily as an example of one of the longest words in
the English language. I have been waiting for just the right occasion to employ this word, and I finally
found it: Little deserves my use of floccinaucinihilipilification so much as relying on the historical
average of the Shiller CAPE 10 to determine whether stocks are undervalued or overvalued. It can’t
be used to time the market, despite the advice of the gurus who rely on this metric.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.advisorperspectives.com/newsletters15/25-are-grantham-and-hussman-correct-about-valuations.php

@chip Thanks for the clarification. I looked more carefully today and found that I can drag the Great Owl tables to scroll through them. However, there's no way to scroll through the MM tables - even when I switch to landscape, the table gets cut off at the start of the 20 year return column.

Just IMO & confirm the following with any Firm you inquire to want to Hire:
First of all as for buying any Ins. Products? Get at least a 2nd and 3rd Opinon, preferably from your own Ins. Agent and be very skeptical .. They are the #2 most Profitable Sales Item for Businesses. many pay 10% Commission to the Agent selling them.. and another 1% yr thereafter.. Thus why they push them so much ! I tell them, If I want an Insurance agent I'll use the one I have for over 20+ yrs thank you..
After Serving the Financial Industry ( and Several Firms , Including RJ ) thru my Limo business in Both Chicao and Boston for over 30 yrs and now Retired..
1- Understand, if they are a Franchise Business that like other Franchises, are Controlled and guided by the Franchisor ( Corp Office) and while may give individual Offices/Franchises some leaway, so that Your Investing your $ into Individual running is, at best 33% True, the other 66% is Controled by what Corp. Says they have to follow..
2- They are no Different in running their franchise type Office any Differently that a Mutual Fund store or EJ, etc.. They all have guidelines to adhear too by " Corporate".. and Depending on your account size, you may get a new Apprentice to one of the Senior Partners running that Office/Franchise.. but, all being Supervised by The Owenrs & Corporate..
3-Your 'Assigned Advisor Will Come and Go , Don't expect them to be with you ForeverMore.. and depending on your Account Size, their Replacement can be one of the Senior to New staff taking your account over, but again, Under the Guidence of the Franchise Owner(s) and 'Corporate'..
4- and you would be wise to be Frank with them, upfront and in informing them, while you have to disclose All your Assets to Determine your Investing plans, your only going to give them either (a) Their Min. Amt. Required to Open an Account or (b) a max of 25%, whichever is less for at least the 1st 3-5 yrs and/or until They Prove themselves Worthy to trust them with More of your hard Earned $.. " Talk is cheap, actions tell you who they really are and only time will prove that, right? "
5- As for these Message Board, always expect that at least 75% or more advisors have good intentions and are very Experienced and Manage their Own $ and don't use WMF's and thus have No Knowledge of what they could have Been & having one do at least 50% of their Decisions..
And , Like you do when evaluating Mutual Funds & Investment Mgmtn. Firms, unless they are willing to Share where their $ has been for the past 7,10 & 15 yrs to back themselves Up?
I'd be very skeptical of following their Suggestions and Advice where to Put your $..
DYOR and then Get In Person Advice from people you Know that have been as or more Successfull doing what you have and want to do , then wait at least 3 mos., before Investing or making any changes with your $ .
6-Personally? I WOULD Recommend RJ if at least 1 of the Min of 3 WMF you want to Ck into and be honest with them all upfront .. of what your doing, ( Comparison Shopping)
and if you have Portfolio's? Bring or send them copies of their history and performance to Let them Know your not Some Rookie at this investing Game.. as well as Informing them your Law Firm that does Family ( & Co.) Business and a CPA firm that does your Taxes and other things will also have to sign off using them as well..
Do you have a Law Firm and CPA firm ? If not? Why not? my CPA firm I've used for over 20+ yrs ( and Now in Retirement ) ave about $500 yr to do my taxes..= Chump change and never been Audited and to me, that is my #1 Priority doing taxes..( I've Been audited in my early yrs in my business and its a Nightmare! )
If the CPA Firm you use has a Good Reputation with IRS? It can make a Big Difference..
Inclosing> I've Owned some of RJ Stock for yrs now and Only because, they were ( and still are) the Financial firm of the Owners of the Limo Co. I was with .. Then again, they Opened up an account with them to get them as a Co. Client to serve them and other Wealthy Clients & Co.'s they have.. And that stock has been Free $ to me for yrs and the only reason I kept it and let it ride on its own.. I think its about 5% of my Tot Assets as of last yr.. And Opptimistically? Will also be Passed Onto my Heirs and up to them wether to Cash it in or keep it ..They, all being Richer than I ever was at their age and their nice Over paid Jobs and Pensions, don't need the $.. Both Living in the "Beverly Hills of the Midwest" ( NorthShore or Chicago).. and R Yuppies as well ! ( and their Neighborhoods/Assoc. Don't allow owners to Mow their own lawns, it all is done by the Assoc. Landscapers ! Its Disgusting ! ;-)
Hope that helps! ;-0)

Hi Old Joe,
Thank you for commenting on Davidrmoran’s submittal. It would have completely escaped my notice since I had mentally closed this MFO Discussion exchange.
The request to identify my investment lessons learned and from whom over six decades of financial accumulation is simply not a doable task, even if I wanted to accept the assignment. Sorry, I have no intention to reply to this unrealistic and unnecessary request.
I learn and unlearn every single day; it’s a continuous process. I learn daily from my wife, and from our friends and neighbors. I learn from MFOers, and that even includes Davidrmoran. In his last post, he endorsed John Waggoner as a financial writer, and then noted that Waggoner is retiring from his USA Today job. I did not know that he was leaving his USA engagement.
I too like John Waggoner’s financial wisdom. I have read his material for decades and will continue to do so with his new career adjustment. I believe that both Tom Lauricella and John Waggoner generate splendid columns and have an admirable work ethic. I trust both of them, and do not hesitate recommending them to both neophyte and seasoned investors.
I wish both them well in the next phase of their illustrious careers.
As an aside, I really liked your posting on the Unions topic. It is extremely well written and thoughtful. Nice work!
Best Wishes.