I recently met with a client—let’s call him Joe Plumber—who did not have a ‘typical’ estate plan in place, but rather had the majority of his assets held jointly with his wife.  When I raised the issue of establishing a ‘typical’ estate plan, Joe’s response was that he had somewhat of a bias against an estate plan with numerous trusts because he simply did not understand the complex setup.  My goal, then, was to provide an explanation of a ‘typical’ estate plan and its benefits, in an easy to understand format.  For clients who turn glassy-eyed during the estate planning discussions in review meetings, this explanation is intended to help you understand more easily the ways of the estate planning world.  Believe me, I recognize that this is a very complex subject, one which can be difficult to understand short of spending three years in law school.  I would also ...

At the end of the third quarter, the S&P 500 Index had risen almost 60 percent since its low on March 9, 2009.  A variety of indicators, including capital goods orders, vehicle and home sales have retreated from their downward trends and turned positive.  In the wake of the recent credit meltdown, the contracting U.S. economy appears to have turned the corner.  Or has it?

Without sounding too depressing a note, perhaps we shouldn’t be too quick to accept that the economy is completely out of the woods.  Why?  Three words: Commercial Real Estate. 

According to Fortune magazine, real estate research firm, Foresight Analytics, estimates that banks should have booked losses on defaulted commercial real estate and construction loans to the tune of $110 billion.  To date, they have only booked about one-third of those losses.  This will put some of the smaller, regional and community banks (already ...