Author Archives: admin

Huffington Post March 21, 2016 Immigration and free trade agreements remain potent issues in the primaries and no doubt will reemerge in full force in the November election.  But no one seems to be drawing the connection between the two. The Republican candidates have been competing with each other over who is toughest in keepingContinue reading “Free Trade and Immigration”

Huffington Post March 3, 2016 In a recent article, Helaine Olen found something good in Marco Rubio’s campaign: his advocacy that employees without workplace retirement plans be allowed to join the federal employees Thrift Savings Plan. A former financial advice columnist, Olen in her wonderful book Pound Foolish revealingly exposed the hucksters of the financialContinue reading “How Good is TSP–the Federal Employee Retirement Plan?”

Huffington Post, February 9, 2016 This is a story to make you weep. Several years ago a Portland, Oregon public schools retiree hired financial adviser Shayne Kniss to help him with retirement planning. The retiree would seem to have had no need for Mr. Kniss’s services. He already had a guaranteed life pension coming fromContinue reading “Targeting Pensions and Retirement Savings”

Huffington Post January 18, 2016   President Obama called for strengthening Social Security in his 2016 State of the Union address.  In choosing the verb “strengthen,” he dodged taking a position within the Democratic Party’s increasingly central debate over expansion of Social Security.  Had he chosen “expand” rather than “strengthen,” he would have sided withContinue reading “Strengthen or Expand Social Security?”

James W. Russell Huffington Post November 24, 2015 It sounds great, to be in control of your retirement plan. To make the investments you want to make when you want to make them. To be in control of a plan that has the flexibility to meet your particular retirement needs. And Americans now have moreContinue reading “Being in Control of Your Retirement Plan is a Bad Idea”

By James W. Russell Huffington Post, September 29, 2015 Responding to the retirement income crisis, half the states are in various stages of developing plans for employees without workplace plans beyond Social Security. Will these plans be a “game-changer” as claimed by Angela Antonelli, executive director of the Center for Retirement Initiatives at Georgetown University’sContinue reading “The New State Retirement Plans, Will They Be Enough to Resolve the Retirement Crisis?”

By James W. Russell Huffington Post, September 10, 2015 HOW GOOD IS TIAA-CREF? A year ago I posed that question in a blog entry for Beacon Press, the publisher of my Social Insecurity: 401(k)s and the Retirement Crisis.  I wrote that “TIAA-CREF, the retirement plan of many university professors and administrators as well as others,Continue reading “How Good is TIAA-CREF? (2)”

By James W. Russell Huffington Post, April 20,2015 As an author and speaker about 401(k)s and the retirement crisis, I often receive letters from readers who are relieved to find out that it wasn’t their fault that they came up short with these plans. One reader wrote:    “I read your book some months ago, andContinue reading “Blaming the Victims of the 401(k) Crisis”

By James W. Russell Huffington Post, April 7, 2015 With 401(k)-type plans, participants are supposed to build up savings through stock market investing during their working years that will then support them during their retirement years. Most people, as is well known by now, for multiple reasons including excessive financial service industry fees, have beenContinue reading “Nonprofit Annuities: A Fix for the 401(k)”