Economics forecasters on cable television seem to be of two minds ever since Standard and Poor’s downgraded the US debt rating from AAA to AA+. Some sound more like doomsday prophets, claiming the American economy is due to crash into a smoldering sea of ash and brimstone. Others, such as the stocks and investing specialists on Fox and MSNBC, come across as hype men for Wall Street, claiming that S&P are simply playing politics and that the US is still the champ and can take on all challengers.
Nobody is answering the question most Americans are asking:
How does this downgrade impact me now and in the near future?

REAL EFFECTS OF THE US DEBT DOWNGRADE

The hype men at Fox and MSNBC and the doomsdayers both look pretty wrong, as it turns out. The market has continued on as before, gaining a bit some days and losing others. Actually, this is exactly what several prominent academic and foreign economists expected.

The downgrade is largely misunderstood amongst the public, because people on television are trying to make sure you are not informed! Debt downgrades are not actually catalysts for economic change – they are symptoms. It’s just like a report card. You don’t do poorly in class because you got a bad grade. You get a bad grade because you were doing poorly in class. The United States was rated too highly, so S&P gave them a new report card.

In the short term, the real effect of the downgrade is small. Over the next few years, everything should continue as normal. However, if the US is not upgraded or is downgraded again, it will be a sign that the US economy is really ailing.

One sign of this is the continuing increase in the value of gold and silver, which are setting all-time highs right now. Because the trustworthiness of the US dollar has been falling, more banks are trading in gold and silver. The bank of South Korea has actually changed all its holdings from US dollars to gold and is storing them in the UK.

MORE PRESSING FEARS

You should be more worried about the trading value of US currency than our country’s debt rating. The US economy has largely been artificially stable because the dollar has a privileged status as trading currency. If that goes, then the US economy will come down to earth. But it won’t happen overnight.

We will probably see steady market decline, say the academic economists at leading institutions in the US. Derivatives are built with triggers tied to debt. If financial institutions are downgraded as well, banks will demand more collateral and the market will begin to decline with falling derivatives.

PROTECT YOURSELF

Life insurance companies invest your account in the market, so your investment may be vulnerable in the coming years.

It may be smart to convert your permanent life insurance policy to term, if possible. With term life insurance, you will pay the least for coverage and are not vulnerable to market fluctuations. If the situation changes, convert your term policy to permanent life. Even better, get a policy with a minimum payout guarantee. That way, if this crisis blows over, you will still make money; if the market collapses, you have guaranteed the money your family needs.

Presidential hopeful Governor Rick Perry of Texas is under attack from the left and the right for attempting to profit from the deaths of his state’s retired teachers.

WHAT IS DEATH SPECULATING?

The idea behind death speculating is that the policyholder will get a large death payout when the subject of the policy dies. The beneficiaries on the policy are investors.
Sometimes one person will take out the policy, then sell it to another party for a profit. By buying, selling, and trading policies on a third party’s life, people profit from death.

So how does it work in practice?

A person without insurance is offered a loan to purchase a policy. The company supplying the loan pays the premiums for a specified period. In exchange, the subject of the policy agrees to sign over the majority of their death benefit to the company.

For example, an investor might agree to provide funds for a $5 million policy. At some point, the death benefit is signed over to the investor, who will then give the subject of the policy some money in exchange. When the subject dies, the investors collect the $5 million.

Technically speaking, anybody can do this. However, most people doing death speculation are large companies, such as Goldman Sachs, Bear Sterns, and Walmart.
Right now this practice is not illegal, though state governments and the federal government may have to move towards regulating it, as they are pressured by concerned citizens and insurance companies (who stand to lose quite a bit of money).

Legal, however, is not necessarily ethical. Would you want someone out there holding the policy waiting to profit on your death? Insurance exists to make a family’s way of life more stable and secure, which is good for society as a whole. Of course, insurance companies already stand to profit, so you could ask what is wrong with another group getting in on the action?

IS RICK PERRY PROFITING FROM TEACHERS’ DEATHS?

In 2003, Governor Rick Perry’s office approached Texas’s retired teachers with an offer to go in on some death prospecting. The other partner in the deal was UBS, a collosus of a bank from Switzerland. UBS would compensate Texas for the trouble of convincing the state’s retired teachers to authorize UBS to buy life insurance policies on the retirees. The people on Wall Street would get paid big benefits when the retirees died and Texas would get a cut of the profit as well.

What would the families of the teachers get?

You guesssed it! Nothing.

There is no question that Rick Perry’s administration was actively involved. In fact, all the evidence suggests that it was their idea.
So was this illegal? Hardly. Maybe a bit dirty and unethical, and maybe it leaves a bad taste in the mouth, but Perry broke no laws.

However, the reality of the way Perry acted as governor might rub conservative supporters the wrong way. Perry campaigns on the idea of minimal government, and as president, he would have voters believe, he would keep the government out of their lives.

Maybe he would keep government out of their lives, but not life insurance. And he certainly put at least a finger in citizen’s deaths.

If you’ve gained a couple of pounds over the winter do not worry about your insurance rates going up. A small fluctuation in body weight won’t affect your health much so that the insurance rates to be changed. However, if you have gained a lot of weight and it has become stable then be prepared for the rates to go up. And it gets worse: you can keep your weight at the same level yet your insurance rates will still go up because there are more and more people with weight problems in the country and the medical costs go up year after year because of the weight related conditions. But why does weight impact insurance rates in the first place?

It really depends on how much weight you’ve gained and what group you belong to. You’ve probably heard about the Body Mass Index (BMI) which is used to determine the type of weight group a person belongs to. There are countless online calculators you can use to determine your BMI. If it’s under 25 then you can consider yourself a person with healthy weight. Problems start from 25 and onwards, as overweight persons belong to the range between 25 and 29.9 and obesity starts from 30 and higher. What this has to do with health, you may ask? It’s pretty simple. Excessive weight has been determined to cause a wide range of health problems such as diabetes, heart diseases, hypertension, hormonal imbalance and even certain types of cancer. And the risk of developing these condition increases with the increase of BMI. So if a person is considered to be clinically obese the cost of both health and life insurance will be higher because of the risks involved.

Let’s take a look at the figures to be more descriptive. If a 55 year old male non-smoker with a BMI would want to get life insurance with a coverage of $250,000 then his premiums would be around $4,300. However, if the BMI for the same person would be below 30 then the average yearly premium would be around $3,700. The same trends are true for health insurance, which is also strictly related to the health risks a person can face.

Is there any way to make life insurance lower? The most obvious and rational way of course is to loose weight. Yes, this is always a challenging process that not everyone can succeed in. However, the benefits you get from loosing excessive weight stretch far beyond the simple money saving with life and health insurance. It’s a matter of personal health and well-being that is more important than financial savings you get from overcoming obesity. You have to understand that with each pound lost you decrease the risk of suffering from serious health problems and increase your life expectancy. And this is of course far more important than saving some money on insurance. So if you’re thinking about it, make the step and start exercising and following a diet because there are only benefits resulting from this.

What is the most precious thing on Earth? No, that is not a diamond or any other precious stone. It is life, for sure. Life is diamond-like, precious and important to be looked well after. But unfortunately, life has one big disadvantage – it ends. So we have to take good care of ourselves if we want to live longer.

Being people with thoughts and feelings we can’t help but wonder what will happen in this or that case that may occur. We are afraid of death for many reasons. First of all being, of course, the end of life. But also when we think of death our relatives or family come to mind. They are important for us and we are not indifferent to their fate. We want to make sure they won’t experience any financial difficulties if some accident happens.

There are many companies that want to make you their client. They will usually put an accent on the necessity of the insurance plan and make you purchase the deal because you will feel you can’t exist without it, though you seemed to cope before.

There are two categories of insurance plans for those who are interested. The choice is not that difficult to make. You just have to concentrate on your major priorities. There are factors that can place accents on your priorities. Those are age, number on dependents from your side and financial situation. Once those are in correct order, everything will be perfect for you.

So as we previously mentioned, there are few types of insurance plans. To be precise, there is term insurance and cash value insurance.

Term insurance protects from a certain date to a certain date. It is temporary insurance that covers a specific period of time. If something happens to you during that time, your family or relatives (people that you’ve indicated in your application) will profit of the death benefit. This insurance is not as expensive as the cash value one. This insurance is very profitable for those who purchase it for specific reasons.

Cash value insurance will provide insurance for you all your life long if you wish for it to be so. It is like turning into an owner of some property. You build up cash value. This will be the amount that you will be able to spend on some emergency cases related to money and health problems. It will also pay income-tax-free death benefit if you die.

There different categories of people that buy these insurance plans. You have to set priorities to figure out what you need most. Life insurance is important to have.

It is not too complicated to get a good offer nowadays. Companies are willing to negotiate and attract you. There is also an element of competition that allows patients some variety in choice. Online companies are bombarding our e-mails with discounts that are very attractive and easy to fall for. But you have to remember that this is not a pair of sneakers that you can throw away if they don’t fit you well, this is your health we are talking about, that is why it is necessary to stay focused while making a decision.

Cheap life insurance will be good news for you especially when there are no disappointments later on. Get your life insurance quotes today and keep yourself safe starting from tomorrow!