I was pretty resistant to these policies. But they were heavily marketed as “tax free” income and asset protection vehicles (insurance policies being exempt property in TX). There are many physicians we know who fall heavily once those two things are mentioned in one breath.
There is another round of resisting life insurance to fund estate taxes to come.
@dstark ,
Don’t spill secrets! 
On a more serious note, I don’t think any profession is exempt. But no one possesses certainty.
Lawyers always tell H at cocktail parties, “at least if I make a mistake, no one dies.”
@AttorneyMother, lol!
And, you know, that’s not exactly true, either. My former assistant worked for a death penalty defense lawyer before me.
" I find that experts don’t know that much. It’s hard to predict the future."
I can’t imagine telling that to people flying with me. They would turn around and walk out!
" In the scheme of things, most decisions aren’t that important."
I have to disagree with that. While many decisions aren’t permanent, and can be reversed, your life is mostly guided by your decisions. Very often things don’t just happen, it is because of free will and the choices you have made. I don’t believe in fate, though luck and genetics plays a part in everyone’s life.
“Enjoying life is important.”
Now THAT I agree with.
I have a friend who is a lawyer and he works on death penalty cases.
If he screws up a person can die. Even when he doesn’t screw up, a person can die.
It is a tough gig.
@dstark ,
Agreed. But, we can all enjoy some good-natured ribbing.
Busdriver11,
I said most decisions.
You are a product of some of your decisions but not all of them.
I just made a decision now to post this. The decision wasn’t difficult. 
@dstark ,
Are you concerned about high frequency trading or do you discount that as background noise. I think you mentioned you used to be a HFT, but I assume this was before the Flash Boys.
I happened to have CNBC on this afternoon just as Twitter was going down because of a premature release of earnings by Tweet.
@AttorneyMother Yes, that is true that life insurance policies are tax free. Its a nice benefit.
@AttorneyMother, I am not concerned with hft. Middlemen have always taken a piece of the action. The hft industry takes less than prior systems.
If there is another flash crash, do not let that affect your investment decisions in any way…except maybe to buy. The market will correct any hft error over time.
Look how stock market has done since the flash crash. The market is up size!
Life insurance is free from income taxation to the beneficiary (good social policy, IMO, as originally intended). Proceeds do count in decedent’s gross estate. So, they are often used as vehicles to pay for estate taxes.
In TX, cash value is also exempt from creditors last I checked. So, fat policies are used as for asset protection also.
@dstark , that was my initial reaction. But, boy, the new flash trading seems to amplify things even more, now that they can pick up key words in a nanosecond and execute trades based on pre-programmed algorithms.
Back in the “old days,” earnings releases were made over the wire, after close of business. And the corporate press officer did the releasing. Apparently some 3rd party found the earnings release early and tweeted it, ironically.
" I said most decisions.
You are a product of some of your decisions but not all of them."
Then what I disagree with is the “most”.
Case in point, the dilemma of the chocolate chip cookies sitting in my pantry. I can blame it on genetics, whereas on my mother’s side, the women have a hard time keeping off weight. I can blame it on my sex, as women have a tendency to desire sweets. I can blame it on my dirty little Prius, which for some reason veered left into the QFC parking lot, without my permission. I can blame it on QFC, who greedily displayed these luscious chocolate chip cookies, in a prominent position. I can also blame it on the manufacturer, Tate’s Bake Shop, who have created a completely irresistible chocolate chip cookie, that you must eat five of, if you eat one bite. And I can certainly blame the cashier, who rang me up without a word of protest or even a disapproving look. In fact, she encouraged me by saying, “Ohhh, yum!”
In fact, now that I’ve blamed everyone else for my predicament, I don’t think I hold any responsibility for buying those cookies, whatsoever! I guess I have no choice but to finish them off… 
If you got this number just by dividing your return by 22, that won’t give you an accurate value.
In this case your actual compounded yearly return is about 4%.
I believe this is only true if the decedent owns the policy. So if you transfer ownership of the policy to one of your heirs (or set it up with another owner from the start?), it removes it from your estate and provides tax-free funds to pay estate taxes. Or so I’ve read, I don’t know all the nuances.
re HFT, it seems to me like these kinds of activities, along with naked options, short-selling, etc, are mostly just legalized gambling using the markets rather than a casino (yes I know they can be used for hedging strategies or cost certainty for things like futures). And do we really want people to be gambling with stuff our retirements are dependent on? It adds volatility and can cause real damage. Go to a casino and play craps or roulette of you want to gamble. What do I know though, I’m sure dstark will set me straight. 
@AttorneyMother, things do move very fast. I would prefer hft did not exist and certain traders did not have an edge. I would prefer a level playing field, but I don’t see that ever happening.
I was eating lunch today with a friend and we discussed his legal case.
So…I heard a little about the twitter story on the radio. I own 75 shares of twtr from the ipo. I guess I lost a few bucks today.
I don’t know the details.
Yeah… Traders are trading off twitter and other published sites. If you are a trader, I don’t think these developments are good unless you are doing that kind of trading.
If you are a long term investor, stocks like twitter are going to go where they are going to go…just a little faster.
I mentioned earlier that I was a floor trader and people used to ask me where the stock market was going. (That post was true).
I got tired of those questions so I told people I was a professional gambler. That was true. I was. I don’t want to argue too much with notrichenough. People stopped asking me questions about where the market was going. People respected me less but I could handle that.
Thanks, @notrichenough, I told you Math is not my strong suit. I figure if the number is in the black and I can divide by 22 and get a whole number, I’m happy.
About the life insurance, it’s my understanding some people who use the policy to pay for estate taxes also put them in ILIT (Irrevocable Life Insurance Trusts) to get the value out of the gross estate.
^ If you knew where the market was going you’d be a billionaire living on your own personal tropical island, not living in a condo in CA.
@dstark , I agree. It should be interpreted as background noise, but it is fairly prominent.
Here’s a good WSJ video I showed my D featuring Jonathan Clements and Jason Zweig:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KgY1-CF8iY&feature=share_email
It contains some great hindsight is 20/20 lessons.
Also, although @notrichenough thinks I’m over 65 :), I am not quite that old. I do remember when Blockbuster’s public offering was a big thing and I have two friends who were in-house counsel there for many years. I’m trying to pass on perspective.