Income Annuity Quotes

Solving problems and settling issues is good lawmaking, but it’s not lucrative. It is gridlock, confusion, and rehashing fights that create streams of income—like an annuity—for the Permanent Political Class.

The first people to get the new money are the counterfeiters, which they use to buy various goods and services. The second receivers of the new money are the retailers who sell those goods to the counterfeiters. And on and on the new money ripples out through the system, going from one pocket or till to another. As it does so, there is an immediate redistribution effect. For first the counterfeiters, then the retailers, etc. have new money and monetary income they use to bid up goods and services, increasing their demand and raising the prices of the goods that they purchase. But as prices of goods begin to rise in response to the higher quantity of money, those who haven't yet received the new money find the prices of the goods they buy have gone up, while their own selling prices or incomes have not risen. In short, the early receivers of the new money in this market chain of events gain at the expense of those who receive the money toward the end of the chain, and still worse losers are the people (e.g., those on fixed incomes such as annuities, interest, or pensions) who never receive the new money at all.

The illusions of childhood had vanished, so also had the ideas he brought with him from the provinces; he had returned thither with an intelligence developed, with loftier ambitions, and saw things as they were at home in the old manor house. His father and mother, his two brothers and two sisters, with an aged aunt, whose whole fortune consisted in annuities, lived on the little estate of Rastignac. The whole property brought in about three thousand francs; and though the amount varied with the season (as must always be the case in a vine-growing district), they were obliged to spare an unvarying twelve hundred francs out of their income for him. He saw how constantly the poverty, which they had generously hidden from him, weighed upon them; he could not help comparing the sisters, who had seemed so beautiful to his boyish eyes, with women in Paris, who had realized the beauty of his dreams. The uncertain future of the whole family depended upon him. It did not escape his eyes that not a crumb was wasted in the house, nor that the wine they drank was made from the second pressing; a multitude of small things, which it is useless to speak of in detail here, made him burn to distinguish himself, and his ambition to succeed increased tenfold.

To understand what that means in commonsense terms, consider a person who plans to live off the income from $1 million invested in T-bills. Suppose he retires in a given year and converts his investments into an inflation-protected annuity with a return of 4% to 5%. He will receive an annual income of $40,000 to $50,000. But now suppose he retires a few years later, when the return on the annuity has dropped to 0.5%. His annual income will now be only $5,000. Yes, the $1 million principal amount was fully insured and protected, but you can see that he cannot possibly live on the amount he will now receive. T-bills preserve principal at all times, but the income received on them can vary enormously as return on the annuity goes up or down. Had the retiree bought instead a long-maturity U.S. Treasury bond with his $1 million, his spendable income would be secure for the life of the bond, even though the price of that bond would fluctuate substantially from day to day. The same holds true for annuities: Although their market value varies from day to day, the income from an annuity is secure throughout the retiree’s life.

Exhibit 6.2 Cost of $1,000 in Monthly Lifetime Annuity Income, Starting at Age 65 Year Male Female 2004 $157,432 $167,818 2005 $157,255 $167,817 2006 $151,700 $161,363 2007 $151,524 $160,966 2008 $147,953 $155,843 2009 $156,500 $165,502 2010 $170,116 $178,410 2011 $174,828 $182,952 2012 $187,008 $195,216 2013 $183,728 $191,571 Average $163,804 $172,746 Source: CANNEX Financial Exchanges for non-COLA-adjusted qualified annuity income with a 10-year guarantee for California.

The best solution in our view would be to combine the enactment of a negative income tax with winding down Social Security while living up to present obligations. The way to do that would be: Repeal immediately the payroll tax. Continue to pay all existing beneficiaries under Social Security the amounts that they are entitled to under current law. Give every worker who has already earned coverage a claim to those retirement, disability, and survivors benefits that his tax payments and earnings to date would entitle him to under current law, reduced by the present value of the reduction in his future taxes as a result of the repeal of the payroll tax. The worker could choose to take his benefits in the form of a future annuity or government bonds equal to the present value of the benefits to which he would be entitled. Give every worker who has not yet earned coverage a capital sum (again in the form of bonds) equal to the accumulated value of the taxes that he or his employer has paid on his behalf.

However, the biggest factor is the product you select. Every annuity contract is different in the amount of contractually guaranteed income it will provide, so it’s important you understand this before you pull the trigger.

The amount that you contribute to the annuity, the length of time before you decide to access your income stream, and your age at the time your income begins are the primary factors that will ultimately contribute to the amount of income you’ll receive.

Government inflation-protected securities (in the United States, these are Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities, or TIPS) A low-cost total U.S. domestic equity (stock) index fund, either a mutual fund or an exchange-traded fund (ETF—i.e., a sort of mutual fund that can be traded like stocks on an exchange) A low-cost total international equity index fund, either a mutual fund or an ETF Single-premium income annuities Low-cost term life insurance