In the past, Moshe Milevsky has been an outspoken critic of variable annuities. He's singing a different tune now. What changes in VAs do you think changed his mind, and is he right?
From
----------------- If today's variable annuities looked like the product of the same name
10 years ago, I'd still be opposed to them. They used to promise to make up losses only if you died while the market was down.
But the new ones deliver benefits you can claim while you're still alive. And the protection they provide against market losses would be very expensive if you tried to buy it some other way - say, in the options market.
So I used to be something of a crusader against variable annuities, but now I fall back on what the economist John Maynard Keynes said when someone challenged him for supposedly flip-flopping. "When the facts change," he said, "I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"
------------------
-Will
william dot trice at ngc dot com
-------------------------------------- Misc.invest.financial-plan is a moderated newsgroup where Moderators strive to keep the conversations on-topic for financial planning. Other posting guidelines include a request for brevity and another for trimming posts to which we respond. For all of the other tips and suggestions, see "FROM THE MODERATORS: Posting to misc.invest.financial-plan", a weekly post now on the Newsgroup.