| How Retirement Programs Vary Worldwide and The Most Tax-Friendly Places to Retire Abroad |
| News - Financial News |
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In 1988, British alternative rock outfit, The Godfathers, came up with one of the best and bleakest album titles in history: "Birth, School, Work, Death." It's only in the last few generations that humankind has thought to add an intermediate step between those last two.Originally, retirement meant having enough money to exist on during your few remaining years, without having to hit your children up. Today, as we enjoy far longer lives than our forebears did, on a far more rich planet with a lot of distractions, retirement is a goal unto itself. In fact, it's hard for us to conceive of it as anything else.Retirement means freedom. It means getting discounts from merchants, which is ironic, seeing as retirees have spent more years building wealth than the rest of us have. Primarily, retirement means the ecstasy of not having a regimented schedule to follow, that latitude ideally supplemented by a fixed income stream. [Read the full article] FILE - In this Dec. 12, 2005, file photo, Marilyn Tavenner is seen at a news conference in Richmond, Va. Picking a specialist for a risky medical procedure could soon get easier. The government announces that Medicare will finally allow its extensive claims database to be used by employers, consumer groups and insurance companies to produce reports on local doctors and hospitals. (AP Photo/Steve Helber, File)WASHINGTON (AP) -- Picking a specialist for a delicate medical procedure like a heart bypass could get a lot easier in the not-too-distant future. The government announced Monday that Medicare will finally allow its extensive claims database to be used by employers, insurance companies and consumer groups to produce report cards on local doctors " and improve current ratings of hospitals. [Read the full article] One way to boost your income in retirement is to let the bank send you a monthly check. With a reverse mortgage, you borrow against the equity in your home (receiving funds each month, in a lump sum, or with a line of credit) and don't repay the loan until you die, sell, or move out for good. A new breed of reverse mortgage might be especially appealing for certain seniors.Reverse mortgages have had plenty of critics, because they can be expensive and complicated--and if you change your mind, you might have to sell to repay the loan. With the federally insured Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM), for example, borrowers must pay 2 percent of their home's value upfront as a mortgage insurance premium and 1.25 percent annually on the loan balance to protect lenders against losses and borrowers against a drop in home value or bank failure, for example. [Read the full article] 
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