Consumers bewildered by a rash of resetting rates on loans and various outstanding credit lines now have the same tools banks have to aggregate all their debt in one place, after free online personal finance tool Credit Sesame launched a beta version today to help users get a complete financial snapshot all in one place.
Previously only available to banks or brokers, Credit Sesame uses an in-house loan analytics engine to help users instantly view their credit and debt in one place, while monitoring and tracking often baffling financial information like their credit score, home value and debt-to-income ratio simultaneously.
The news that they can now take their finances fully into their own hands is part of a continuing trend of consumers sick of commercial banks pushing their own complementary loan products on them — or who may just be sick of their bank or broker all together.
Under the company’s system, users are first asked to register their portfolios using the same security technology and encryption methods as banks and financial institutions use, and then Credit Sesame automatically retrieves users’ relevant data like debt, credit, and mortgages so that they don’t have to enter their information manually.
They can then fiddle with Credit Sesame’s tools to set personal goal parameters; see and apply for a wide variety of loans that may fit their restructuring needs; and even create a “what if” scenario that allows them to view multiple scenarios for potential savings or loans based on changes to a user’s financial situation such as a divorce or a job loss.
By using complex algorithms and portfolio “depth” testing, the new beta site will now create 5,000 scenarios with thousands of lending products to help each user find the three best pre-qualified solutions—saving an average user hundreds of dollars a month as they streamline their finances via the web ecosphere.
“We find homeowners as much as $600 a month in savings through restructuring, refinancing and new pre-qualified low-interest loan offers,” said Adrian Nazari, CEO and founder of Credit Sesame. “That’s $7,200 of yearly savings. If that money was put toward debt repayment, imagine how much faster that loan would be paid off and how much money would be saved. The opportunities are out there.”
Since launching to private testers in September, Credit Sesame currently manages $250 million in loans and has generated more than $18 million in lifetime savings for its users.
Once registered, the site will continue delivering a free monthly credit score and instant alerts when more optimal savings opportunities become available.
Next Story: Hulu Plus officially launches at $7.99 a month, now on Roku boxes Previous Story: The many definitions of a VC’s no – Part Two
While
the financial crisis has forced Canadians to come to grips with the
idea that a pension may not be a promise, employee benefits are
similarly in peril.
"I find it almost incomprehensible that Nortel
LTD (long-term disability) claimants could lose their benefits, but
this is possible; let alone losing their health care and a portion of
their pensions," said Kevin Dougherty, president of Sun Life Financial
Canada, speaking at the Canadian Pension and Benefits Institute
conference.
"We saw how benefits and pensions can literally disappear in an instant."
Now people nearing retirement face a new twist.
"Millions
of people asked the questions, what if I have to leave the workforce
five or 10 years early, or what if I have to stay in the workforce five
or 10 years more."
The leading edge of baby boomers will hit age 65 next year, when each day a thousand people in Canada will retire.
"Today
with boomers age 50 to 65, with kids grown and many through school,
the question they're asking isn't 'what if I die,' it's 'what if I
live?' That saps my income and retirement savings. What if I have to
live through another financial crisis?"
Dougherty joins federal
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney
in worrying about the growing debt Canadians are piling up.
"How
can we be the only place in the developed world where real estate
prices continued to increase for the last two-and-a-half years? What
does that mean? - more and more debt for Canadians."
While
Canadians who can't resist a bargain stock up on moulding empty homes
in the United States, there is fear that the Home Equity Line Of Credit
or HELOC could do in Canada what subprime mortgages did in the U.S.
Of course, retirement won't affect all people the same.
"Women
who are widowed early in retirement actually live three years longer
(than those who aren't), and men widowed early in retirement live three
years less."
While more and more companies with underfunded
pension plans have been reducing benefits and commuted value payouts,
the malaise has spread to employment benefits. Many firms offer minimal
health-care coverage in retirement or have eliminated it, while more
and more current employees find themselves on the hook to find vision
and dental insurance.
Meanwhile, the average number of days lost annually to sickness per worker has risen from eight in 1989 to 13 in 2009.
Dougherty's
conclusion is that neither government nor lawyers will take care of an
aging workforce, "and the next generation of children is not going to
want to take care of us."
He said
there is more onus on people in the pension and benefits and human
resources areas to devise products and provide advice.
"Our
industry needs to be much more than just helping to attract and retain
employees. The financial security of millions of Canadians depends on
the work we do."
One such move is encouraging government to establish a new personal health- savings account.
"We've
been advocating something called the registered health savings plan,
where people can save money on a pre-tax basis to be used for their
health-care costs in retirement. There are other examples like critical
illness insurance. But we've got to step up to this. I think this is
going to be one of the big areas of the future."
Even
with defined contribution pension plans, where investment risk lies
with the individual, the employers can provide advice through plan
sponsors.
"Narrowing the field from 4,000 fund managers to 12 is
providing advice. Overseeing and switching out of managers is providing
advice. Setting a level of contribution and matching is providing
advice. Providing tools that ask questions and lead people to
recommendations is providing advice."
But there is need to help
educate people about financial literacy, abetting the federal
government's task force on the issue that has been touring Canadians for
submissions and will issue a report in December.
"The most
striking finding is the degree of the challenge that we have, the
surprising lack of financial literacy in the general population is
really, really striking," Dougherty said.
"There's a challenge in
literacy - reading and writing in English, because we have such large
immigration; a challenge in numeracy, lots of people don't like working
with numbers; and you layer on top of that the knowledge and skills of
financial consequences."
All this is set against a backdrop in
which the financial crisis produced severe stock market downturns that
scared individuals from investing personally, while corporations were
similarly spooked and didn't invest in technology to improve
productivity and grow their workforces.
"There
was a two-year period in which we didn't invest, and that's going to
hurt us for two to five years," said Glen Hodgson, chief economist of
the Conference Board of Canada. "Health care will soon emerge as a top
concern for Canadians. Aging is going to suck the life out of our
economy slowly."
But just as baby boomers were told 40 years ago
that the investment of the future would be "plastics," Hodgson has his
own tip: "India will be the next China, it will keep growing at eight
per cent for a number of years."
You can bet your hip replacement on it.
Finally, my favorite deflationist, Gary Shilling was interviewed on Yahoo's Teck Ticker on Monday warning us that the age of deleveraging is upon us:
bench craft company rip offPiers Morgan On Facing Off Against Fox <b>News</b>: Part of Rupert <b>...</b>
Larry King's successor talks about CNN's chances against Fox News.
Lujiazui Breakfast: <b>News</b> & Views About China Stocks (Dec. 6 <b>...</b>
Investors and traders in China's main financial district are talking about the following before the start of trade today: With expectations about inflation and monetary policy becoming clearer, investors are taking cues from overseas ...
Congo Siasa: <b>News</b> we missed last week
News I failed to blog on last week: The newly ordained cardinal of Kinshasa, Laurent Monsegwo, arrived in Kinshasa from Rome on Wednesday to huge acclaim. Monsengwo is usually considered to be opposed to Kabila, but rarely takes public ...
bench craft company rip offPiers Morgan On Facing Off Against Fox <b>News</b>: Part of Rupert <b>...</b>
Larry King's successor talks about CNN's chances against Fox News.
Lujiazui Breakfast: <b>News</b> & Views About China Stocks (Dec. 6 <b>...</b>
Investors and traders in China's main financial district are talking about the following before the start of trade today: With expectations about inflation and monetary policy becoming clearer, investors are taking cues from overseas ...
Congo Siasa: <b>News</b> we missed last week
News I failed to blog on last week: The newly ordained cardinal of Kinshasa, Laurent Monsegwo, arrived in Kinshasa from Rome on Wednesday to huge acclaim. Monsengwo is usually considered to be opposed to Kabila, but rarely takes public ...
bench craft company rip offPiers Morgan On Facing Off Against Fox <b>News</b>: Part of Rupert <b>...</b>
Larry King's successor talks about CNN's chances against Fox News.
Lujiazui Breakfast: <b>News</b> & Views About China Stocks (Dec. 6 <b>...</b>
Investors and traders in China's main financial district are talking about the following before the start of trade today: With expectations about inflation and monetary policy becoming clearer, investors are taking cues from overseas ...
Congo Siasa: <b>News</b> we missed last week
News I failed to blog on last week: The newly ordained cardinal of Kinshasa, Laurent Monsegwo, arrived in Kinshasa from Rome on Wednesday to huge acclaim. Monsengwo is usually considered to be opposed to Kabila, but rarely takes public ...
bench craft company rip off
Piers Morgan El frente a frente contra Fox <b> Noticias </ b>: Parte de Rupert <b> ...</ b conversaciones sucesor> Larry King de CNN sobre las posibilidades en contra de Fox News.
Habitaciones Lujiazui: <b> Noticias </ b> & puntos de vista sobre las existencias de China (06 de diciembre <b> ...</ b> Inversores y comerciantes en el principal distrito financiero de China se trata de la siguiente antes del inicio del día de hoy el comercio: Con las expectativas sobre la inflación y la política monetaria cada vez más claro, los inversores están tomando las señales desde el extranjero ...
Siasa Congo: <b> Noticias </ b> que nos perdimos weekNews último que no blog sobre la semana pasada:. El recién ordenado cardenal de Kinshasa, Laurent Monsegwo, llegó a Kinshasa desde Roma el miércoles con gran éxito enorme Monsengwo es generalmente considerado como oposición a Kabila, pero rara vez se toma pública ...
bench craft company rip offPiers Morgan On Facing Off Against Fox <b>News</b>: Part of Rupert <b>...</b>
Larry King's successor talks about CNN's chances against Fox News.
Lujiazui Breakfast: <b>News</b> & Views About China Stocks (Dec. 6 <b>...</b>
Investors and traders in China's main financial district are talking about the following before the start of trade today: With expectations about inflation and monetary policy becoming clearer, investors are taking cues from overseas ...
Congo Siasa: <b>News</b> we missed last week
News I failed to blog on last week: The newly ordained cardinal of Kinshasa, Laurent Monsegwo, arrived in Kinshasa from Rome on Wednesday to huge acclaim. Monsengwo is usually considered to be opposed to Kabila, but rarely takes public ...
bench craft company rip off
Consumers bewildered by a rash of resetting rates on loans and various outstanding credit lines now have the same tools banks have to aggregate all their debt in one place, after free online personal finance tool Credit Sesame launched a beta version today to help users get a complete financial snapshot all in one place.
Previously only available to banks or brokers, Credit Sesame uses an in-house loan analytics engine to help users instantly view their credit and debt in one place, while monitoring and tracking often baffling financial information like their credit score, home value and debt-to-income ratio simultaneously.
The news that they can now take their finances fully into their own hands is part of a continuing trend of consumers sick of commercial banks pushing their own complementary loan products on them — or who may just be sick of their bank or broker all together.
Under the company’s system, users are first asked to register their portfolios using the same security technology and encryption methods as banks and financial institutions use, and then Credit Sesame automatically retrieves users’ relevant data like debt, credit, and mortgages so that they don’t have to enter their information manually.
They can then fiddle with Credit Sesame’s tools to set personal goal parameters; see and apply for a wide variety of loans that may fit their restructuring needs; and even create a “what if” scenario that allows them to view multiple scenarios for potential savings or loans based on changes to a user’s financial situation such as a divorce or a job loss.
By using complex algorithms and portfolio “depth” testing, the new beta site will now create 5,000 scenarios with thousands of lending products to help each user find the three best pre-qualified solutions—saving an average user hundreds of dollars a month as they streamline their finances via the web ecosphere.
“We find homeowners as much as $600 a month in savings through restructuring, refinancing and new pre-qualified low-interest loan offers,” said Adrian Nazari, CEO and founder of Credit Sesame. “That’s $7,200 of yearly savings. If that money was put toward debt repayment, imagine how much faster that loan would be paid off and how much money would be saved. The opportunities are out there.”
Since launching to private testers in September, Credit Sesame currently manages $250 million in loans and has generated more than $18 million in lifetime savings for its users.
Once registered, the site will continue delivering a free monthly credit score and instant alerts when more optimal savings opportunities become available.
Next Story: Hulu Plus officially launches at $7.99 a month, now on Roku boxes Previous Story: The many definitions of a VC’s no – Part Two
While
the financial crisis has forced Canadians to come to grips with the
idea that a pension may not be a promise, employee benefits are
similarly in peril.
"I find it almost incomprehensible that Nortel
LTD (long-term disability) claimants could lose their benefits, but
this is possible; let alone losing their health care and a portion of
their pensions," said Kevin Dougherty, president of Sun Life Financial
Canada, speaking at the Canadian Pension and Benefits Institute
conference.
"We saw how benefits and pensions can literally disappear in an instant."
Now people nearing retirement face a new twist.
"Millions
of people asked the questions, what if I have to leave the workforce
five or 10 years early, or what if I have to stay in the workforce five
or 10 years more."
The leading edge of baby boomers will hit age 65 next year, when each day a thousand people in Canada will retire.
"Today
with boomers age 50 to 65, with kids grown and many through school,
the question they're asking isn't 'what if I die,' it's 'what if I
live?' That saps my income and retirement savings. What if I have to
live through another financial crisis?"
Dougherty joins federal
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney
in worrying about the growing debt Canadians are piling up.
"How
can we be the only place in the developed world where real estate
prices continued to increase for the last two-and-a-half years? What
does that mean? - more and more debt for Canadians."
While
Canadians who can't resist a bargain stock up on moulding empty homes
in the United States, there is fear that the Home Equity Line Of Credit
or HELOC could do in Canada what subprime mortgages did in the U.S.
Of course, retirement won't affect all people the same.
"Women
who are widowed early in retirement actually live three years longer
(than those who aren't), and men widowed early in retirement live three
years less."
While more and more companies with underfunded
pension plans have been reducing benefits and commuted value payouts,
the malaise has spread to employment benefits. Many firms offer minimal
health-care coverage in retirement or have eliminated it, while more
and more current employees find themselves on the hook to find vision
and dental insurance.
Meanwhile, the average number of days lost annually to sickness per worker has risen from eight in 1989 to 13 in 2009.
Dougherty's
conclusion is that neither government nor lawyers will take care of an
aging workforce, "and the next generation of children is not going to
want to take care of us."
He said
there is more onus on people in the pension and benefits and human
resources areas to devise products and provide advice.
"Our
industry needs to be much more than just helping to attract and retain
employees. The financial security of millions of Canadians depends on
the work we do."
One such move is encouraging government to establish a new personal health- savings account.
"We've
been advocating something called the registered health savings plan,
where people can save money on a pre-tax basis to be used for their
health-care costs in retirement. There are other examples like critical
illness insurance. But we've got to step up to this. I think this is
going to be one of the big areas of the future."
Even
with defined contribution pension plans, where investment risk lies
with the individual, the employers can provide advice through plan
sponsors.
"Narrowing the field from 4,000 fund managers to 12 is
providing advice. Overseeing and switching out of managers is providing
advice. Setting a level of contribution and matching is providing
advice. Providing tools that ask questions and lead people to
recommendations is providing advice."
But there is need to help
educate people about financial literacy, abetting the federal
government's task force on the issue that has been touring Canadians for
submissions and will issue a report in December.
"The most
striking finding is the degree of the challenge that we have, the
surprising lack of financial literacy in the general population is
really, really striking," Dougherty said.
"There's a challenge in
literacy - reading and writing in English, because we have such large
immigration; a challenge in numeracy, lots of people don't like working
with numbers; and you layer on top of that the knowledge and skills of
financial consequences."
All this is set against a backdrop in
which the financial crisis produced severe stock market downturns that
scared individuals from investing personally, while corporations were
similarly spooked and didn't invest in technology to improve
productivity and grow their workforces.
"There
was a two-year period in which we didn't invest, and that's going to
hurt us for two to five years," said Glen Hodgson, chief economist of
the Conference Board of Canada. "Health care will soon emerge as a top
concern for Canadians. Aging is going to suck the life out of our
economy slowly."
But just as baby boomers were told 40 years ago
that the investment of the future would be "plastics," Hodgson has his
own tip: "India will be the next China, it will keep growing at eight
per cent for a number of years."You can bet your hip replacement on it.
Finally, my favorite deflationist, Gary Shilling was interviewed on Yahoo's Teck Ticker on Monday warning us that the age of deleveraging is upon us:
bench craft company rip offPiers Morgan On Facing Off Against Fox <b>News</b>: Part of Rupert <b>...</b>
Larry King's successor talks about CNN's chances against Fox News.
Lujiazui Breakfast: <b>News</b> & Views About China Stocks (Dec. 6 <b>...</b>
Investors and traders in China's main financial district are talking about the following before the start of trade today: With expectations about inflation and monetary policy becoming clearer, investors are taking cues from overseas ...
Congo Siasa: <b>News</b> we missed last week
News I failed to blog on last week: The newly ordained cardinal of Kinshasa, Laurent Monsegwo, arrived in Kinshasa from Rome on Wednesday to huge acclaim. Monsengwo is usually considered to be opposed to Kabila, but rarely takes public ...
bench craft company rip offPiers Morgan On Facing Off Against Fox <b>News</b>: Part of Rupert <b>...</b>
Larry King's successor talks about CNN's chances against Fox News.
Lujiazui Breakfast: <b>News</b> & Views About China Stocks (Dec. 6 <b>...</b>
Investors and traders in China's main financial district are talking about the following before the start of trade today: With expectations about inflation and monetary policy becoming clearer, investors are taking cues from overseas ...
Congo Siasa: <b>News</b> we missed last week
News I failed to blog on last week: The newly ordained cardinal of Kinshasa, Laurent Monsegwo, arrived in Kinshasa from Rome on Wednesday to huge acclaim. Monsengwo is usually considered to be opposed to Kabila, but rarely takes public ...
bench craft company rip offPiers Morgan On Facing Off Against Fox <b>News</b>: Part of Rupert <b>...</b>
Larry King's successor talks about CNN's chances against Fox News.
Lujiazui Breakfast: <b>News</b> & Views About China Stocks (Dec. 6 <b>...</b>
Investors and traders in China's main financial district are talking about the following before the start of trade today: With expectations about inflation and monetary policy becoming clearer, investors are taking cues from overseas ...
Congo Siasa: <b>News</b> we missed last week
News I failed to blog on last week: The newly ordained cardinal of Kinshasa, Laurent Monsegwo, arrived in Kinshasa from Rome on Wednesday to huge acclaim. Monsengwo is usually considered to be opposed to Kabila, but rarely takes public ...
bench craft company rip offPiers Morgan On Facing Off Against Fox <b>News</b>: Part of Rupert <b>...</b>
Larry King's successor talks about CNN's chances against Fox News.
Lujiazui Breakfast: <b>News</b> & Views About China Stocks (Dec. 6 <b>...</b>
Investors and traders in China's main financial district are talking about the following before the start of trade today: With expectations about inflation and monetary policy becoming clearer, investors are taking cues from overseas ...
Congo Siasa: <b>News</b> we missed last week
News I failed to blog on last week: The newly ordained cardinal of Kinshasa, Laurent Monsegwo, arrived in Kinshasa from Rome on Wednesday to huge acclaim. Monsengwo is usually considered to be opposed to Kabila, but rarely takes public ...
bench craft company rip offPiers Morgan On Facing Off Against Fox <b>News</b>: Part of Rupert <b>...</b>
Larry King's successor talks about CNN's chances against Fox News.
Lujiazui Breakfast: <b>News</b> & Views About China Stocks (Dec. 6 <b>...</b>
Investors and traders in China's main financial district are talking about the following before the start of trade today: With expectations about inflation and monetary policy becoming clearer, investors are taking cues from overseas ...
Congo Siasa: <b>News</b> we missed last week
News I failed to blog on last week: The newly ordained cardinal of Kinshasa, Laurent Monsegwo, arrived in Kinshasa from Rome on Wednesday to huge acclaim. Monsengwo is usually considered to be opposed to Kabila, but rarely takes public ...
bench craft company rip offPiers Morgan On Facing Off Against Fox <b>News</b>: Part of Rupert <b>...</b>
Larry King's successor talks about CNN's chances against Fox News.
Lujiazui Breakfast: <b>News</b> & Views About China Stocks (Dec. 6 <b>...</b>
Investors and traders in China's main financial district are talking about the following before the start of trade today: With expectations about inflation and monetary policy becoming clearer, investors are taking cues from overseas ...
Congo Siasa: <b>News</b> we missed last week
News I failed to blog on last week: The newly ordained cardinal of Kinshasa, Laurent Monsegwo, arrived in Kinshasa from Rome on Wednesday to huge acclaim. Monsengwo is usually considered to be opposed to Kabila, but rarely takes public ...
bench craft company rip off
Consumers bewildered by a rash of resetting rates on loans and various outstanding credit lines now have the same tools banks have to aggregate all their debt in one place, after free online personal finance tool Credit Sesame launched a beta version today to help users get a complete financial snapshot all in one place.
Previously only available to banks or brokers, Credit Sesame uses an in-house loan analytics engine to help users instantly view their credit and debt in one place, while monitoring and tracking often baffling financial information like their credit score, home value and debt-to-income ratio simultaneously.
The news that they can now take their finances fully into their own hands is part of a continuing trend of consumers sick of commercial banks pushing their own complementary loan products on them — or who may just be sick of their bank or broker all together.
Under the company’s system, users are first asked to register their portfolios using the same security technology and encryption methods as banks and financial institutions use, and then Credit Sesame automatically retrieves users’ relevant data like debt, credit, and mortgages so that they don’t have to enter their information manually.
They can then fiddle with Credit Sesame’s tools to set personal goal parameters; see and apply for a wide variety of loans that may fit their restructuring needs; and even create a “what if” scenario that allows them to view multiple scenarios for potential savings or loans based on changes to a user’s financial situation such as a divorce or a job loss.
By using complex algorithms and portfolio “depth” testing, the new beta site will now create 5,000 scenarios with thousands of lending products to help each user find the three best pre-qualified solutions—saving an average user hundreds of dollars a month as they streamline their finances via the web ecosphere.
“We find homeowners as much as $600 a month in savings through restructuring, refinancing and new pre-qualified low-interest loan offers,” said Adrian Nazari, CEO and founder of Credit Sesame. “That’s $7,200 of yearly savings. If that money was put toward debt repayment, imagine how much faster that loan would be paid off and how much money would be saved. The opportunities are out there.”
Since launching to private testers in September, Credit Sesame currently manages $250 million in loans and has generated more than $18 million in lifetime savings for its users.
Once registered, the site will continue delivering a free monthly credit score and instant alerts when more optimal savings opportunities become available.
Next Story: Hulu Plus officially launches at $7.99 a month, now on Roku boxes Previous Story: The many definitions of a VC’s no – Part Two
While
the financial crisis has forced Canadians to come to grips with the
idea that a pension may not be a promise, employee benefits are
similarly in peril.
"I find it almost incomprehensible that Nortel
LTD (long-term disability) claimants could lose their benefits, but
this is possible; let alone losing their health care and a portion of
their pensions," said Kevin Dougherty, president of Sun Life Financial
Canada, speaking at the Canadian Pension and Benefits Institute
conference.
"We saw how benefits and pensions can literally disappear in an instant."
Now people nearing retirement face a new twist.
"Millions
of people asked the questions, what if I have to leave the workforce
five or 10 years early, or what if I have to stay in the workforce five
or 10 years more."
The leading edge of baby boomers will hit age 65 next year, when each day a thousand people in Canada will retire.
"Today
with boomers age 50 to 65, with kids grown and many through school,
the question they're asking isn't 'what if I die,' it's 'what if I
live?' That saps my income and retirement savings. What if I have to
live through another financial crisis?"
Dougherty joins federal
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney
in worrying about the growing debt Canadians are piling up.
"How
can we be the only place in the developed world where real estate
prices continued to increase for the last two-and-a-half years? What
does that mean? - more and more debt for Canadians."
While
Canadians who can't resist a bargain stock up on moulding empty homes
in the United States, there is fear that the Home Equity Line Of Credit
or HELOC could do in Canada what subprime mortgages did in the U.S.
Of course, retirement won't affect all people the same.
"Women
who are widowed early in retirement actually live three years longer
(than those who aren't), and men widowed early in retirement live three
years less."
While more and more companies with underfunded
pension plans have been reducing benefits and commuted value payouts,
the malaise has spread to employment benefits. Many firms offer minimal
health-care coverage in retirement or have eliminated it, while more
and more current employees find themselves on the hook to find vision
and dental insurance.
Meanwhile, the average number of days lost annually to sickness per worker has risen from eight in 1989 to 13 in 2009.
Dougherty's
conclusion is that neither government nor lawyers will take care of an
aging workforce, "and the next generation of children is not going to
want to take care of us."
He said
there is more onus on people in the pension and benefits and human
resources areas to devise products and provide advice.
"Our
industry needs to be much more than just helping to attract and retain
employees. The financial security of millions of Canadians depends on
the work we do."
One such move is encouraging government to establish a new personal health- savings account.
"We've
been advocating something called the registered health savings plan,
where people can save money on a pre-tax basis to be used for their
health-care costs in retirement. There are other examples like critical
illness insurance. But we've got to step up to this. I think this is
going to be one of the big areas of the future."
Even
with defined contribution pension plans, where investment risk lies
with the individual, the employers can provide advice through plan
sponsors.
"Narrowing the field from 4,000 fund managers to 12 is
providing advice. Overseeing and switching out of managers is providing
advice. Setting a level of contribution and matching is providing
advice. Providing tools that ask questions and lead people to
recommendations is providing advice."
But there is need to help
educate people about financial literacy, abetting the federal
government's task force on the issue that has been touring Canadians for
submissions and will issue a report in December.
"The most
striking finding is the degree of the challenge that we have, the
surprising lack of financial literacy in the general population is
really, really striking," Dougherty said.
"There's a challenge in
literacy - reading and writing in English, because we have such large
immigration; a challenge in numeracy, lots of people don't like working
with numbers; and you layer on top of that the knowledge and skills of
financial consequences."
All this is set against a backdrop in
which the financial crisis produced severe stock market downturns that
scared individuals from investing personally, while corporations were
similarly spooked and didn't invest in technology to improve
productivity and grow their workforces.
"There
was a two-year period in which we didn't invest, and that's going to
hurt us for two to five years," said Glen Hodgson, chief economist of
the Conference Board of Canada. "Health care will soon emerge as a top
concern for Canadians. Aging is going to suck the life out of our
economy slowly."
But just as baby boomers were told 40 years ago
that the investment of the future would be "plastics," Hodgson has his
own tip: "India will be the next China, it will keep growing at eight
per cent for a number of years."You can bet your hip replacement on it.
Finally, my favorite deflationist, Gary Shilling was interviewed on Yahoo's Teck Ticker on Monday warning us that the age of deleveraging is upon us:
bench craft company rip offPiers Morgan On Facing Off Against Fox <b>News</b>: Part of Rupert <b>...</b>
Larry King's successor talks about CNN's chances against Fox News.
Lujiazui Breakfast: <b>News</b> & Views About China Stocks (Dec. 6 <b>...</b>
Investors and traders in China's main financial district are talking about the following before the start of trade today: With expectations about inflation and monetary policy becoming clearer, investors are taking cues from overseas ...
Congo Siasa: <b>News</b> we missed last week
News I failed to blog on last week: The newly ordained cardinal of Kinshasa, Laurent Monsegwo, arrived in Kinshasa from Rome on Wednesday to huge acclaim. Monsengwo is usually considered to be opposed to Kabila, but rarely takes public ...
bench craft company rip offPiers Morgan On Facing Off Against Fox <b>News</b>: Part of Rupert <b>...</b>
Larry King's successor talks about CNN's chances against Fox News.
Lujiazui Breakfast: <b>News</b> & Views About China Stocks (Dec. 6 <b>...</b>
Investors and traders in China's main financial district are talking about the following before the start of trade today: With expectations about inflation and monetary policy becoming clearer, investors are taking cues from overseas ...
Congo Siasa: <b>News</b> we missed last week
News I failed to blog on last week: The newly ordained cardinal of Kinshasa, Laurent Monsegwo, arrived in Kinshasa from Rome on Wednesday to huge acclaim. Monsengwo is usually considered to be opposed to Kabila, but rarely takes public ...
bench craft company rip offPiers Morgan On Facing Off Against Fox <b>News</b>: Part of Rupert <b>...</b>
Larry King's successor talks about CNN's chances against Fox News.
Lujiazui Breakfast: <b>News</b> & Views About China Stocks (Dec. 6 <b>...</b>
Investors and traders in China's main financial district are talking about the following before the start of trade today: With expectations about inflation and monetary policy becoming clearer, investors are taking cues from overseas ...
Congo Siasa: <b>News</b> we missed last week
News I failed to blog on last week: The newly ordained cardinal of Kinshasa, Laurent Monsegwo, arrived in Kinshasa from Rome on Wednesday to huge acclaim. Monsengwo is usually considered to be opposed to Kabila, but rarely takes public ...
bench craft company rip offPiers Morgan On Facing Off Against Fox <b>News</b>: Part of Rupert <b>...</b>
Larry King's successor talks about CNN's chances against Fox News.
Lujiazui Breakfast: <b>News</b> & Views About China Stocks (Dec. 6 <b>...</b>
Investors and traders in China's main financial district are talking about the following before the start of trade today: With expectations about inflation and monetary policy becoming clearer, investors are taking cues from overseas ...
Congo Siasa: <b>News</b> we missed last week
News I failed to blog on last week: The newly ordained cardinal of Kinshasa, Laurent Monsegwo, arrived in Kinshasa from Rome on Wednesday to huge acclaim. Monsengwo is usually considered to be opposed to Kabila, but rarely takes public ...
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