Submitted by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,
It’s that time of year again. It’s open enrollment for health plans at my employer. They are biggest employer in Philly and have the most leverage possible with the insurance companies. They have such good leverage that my premiums are going up “only” 9.8% this year for a basic HMO plan. Based on what I hear from others, I should be thankful for just a 9.8% increase.
'Exceptional' America is no longer the home of the world's most expensive city in which to live and work. As the latest report from the World Economic Forum finds, the honor of the priciest place to reside is the United Kingdom's capital - London. At £80,777 (~$120,000) per person per year, "The Big Smoke" is twice as costly as Los Angeles or Sydney...
London has topped the list since June 2014...
However, all is not lost for USA, USA, USA!
For every dollar that you have in the bank there is actually 0.00061 dollars available...in other words, there's 6 cents for every $100 dollars of deposits that you have at the bank.
As Mike Maloney explains in this brief clip, we live in an economic system that is made complicated by design. Basically, it’s set up so most people don’t even try to understand it.
Got Gold?
As a natural consequence of the Manhattan luxury real-estate slowdown that we've documented previously (here and here), REIT's that have exposure to the Big Apple are starting to feel the impact to their bottom line.
When one month ago, Italy was scrambling to unveil a "last resort" bad bank bailout fund (which eventually received the name Atlante, or Atlas, for the Titan god who was condemned to hold up the sky for eternity, only in this case he is holding up Italy's €360 billion in bad loans), many wondered why the rush?