“We strive to celebrate the independent advisor and I believe we have done a great job of that this year with the five finalists,” said Daniel Williams, editor of Senior Market Advisor.”All of these finalists are terrific producers, who also uphold high ethical standards and have an innate ability to understand their client’s greatest needs.”

“While there’s been talk that the financial advisory industry is aging, just like the rest of the country, there are more than a few young advisors joining the ranks and helping to keep the business dynamic and cutting edge. Josh Jalinski is one of the most motivated of that new wave of advisors.

And while Jalinski says hosting a sometimes politically charged radio show is a great innovation, it’s the relations he has with his clients that helps set him apart. That and his unstoppable work ethic.

“I grew up in the middle of the Jersey Shore, which is a hotbed of retirees, and I started working as a lifeguard when I was 14—and that’s when I noticed I seemed to relate more to the 70-plus generation than to my own, or even to boomers like my parents,” Jalinski says. “I was kind of like this Alex P. Keaton-type kid with a lifelong Democrat grandmother who lived with us.”

Off to an early start
Jalinski’s father was a banker and Jalinski followed suit, starting at OceanFirst Bank when he was just 18. He took both a Bachelor’s degree in rhetoric and a Master’s in Divinity (“I can strike up a conversation with anyone, at any time,” he notes), married at 21 and began taking his first steps as an advisor.

Jalinski says that his move was his decision to start hosting a radio show on WOBM, a popular AM station best known for playing Sinatra and the standards. He says he’s able to use the show (which now airs daily) to develop interest in financial planning.

He’s also not shy to include a lot of his conservative-leaning ideas in the discussions on his show. “It’s sort of the Fox News approach to financial planning,” he laughs. “I do get the most response when I’m overt about it. I just don’t bring those kind of discussions into my seminars or my talks with clients.”

Hard work
And just what is the secret to a million-dollar year, when many of his contemporaries are working at Starbucks or living in their parents’ basements? Hard work is crucial, he says, as well as covering all of his bases with a full suite of designations, including the Series 6, 7, 24 and 66 and various insurance licenses.

“I’m like a machine sometimes we do 30 appointments a week, but that’s the way to do it. I would so much rather help someone with just $100,000 to his name—that alone is sort of like a financial ministry to people. And if you do 30 meetings a week, success just becomes a numbers game.”

**In the interest of full disclosure: A record number of nominees were evaluated by the editorial staff of Senior Market Advisor based on the following criteria:

1.)Have a minimum of five consecutive current years as an advisor

2.) Have garnered a minimum of $5 million in annuity/life insurance premium in PERSONAL production during 2009; or have sold a minimum of $400,000 in Long Term Care Insurance premium in PERSONAL production during 2009

3.)Clear a 7-year background check for civil, criminal and business violations by the National Ethics Bureau (for complete details about the background check, visit www.ethicscheck.com)

4.)Have an average client age of 60 or older

5.)Be able to demonstrate a commitment to community involvement

Dissing the Volt

The ironic thing is that you would think you could, because current law allows a donor to gift stick to charity and not pay capital gains. So, this may be a reason why you may not want to buy and hold long term savings bonds. 

Page 4 of http://www.treasurydirect.gov/instit/savbond/guide/bondtell/bondtell_0500.pdf

Also see the Treasury regulations at http://www.treasurydirect.gov/forms/savdc3-80.pdf

Well, for one, make sure your financial advisor has been verified with www.ethicscheck.com.  They have done a seven year investigation of the Jalinski Advisory Group, my financial firm. 

The National Ethics Bureau (NEB) is an organization that provides services similar to the Better Business Bureau (BBB). However, NEB has an extensive nationwide background check process designed specifically for financial professionals. (See NEB Qualifications Check List).

The mission of the National Ethics Bureau is to promote ethics in the financial services industry.   They do this in three ways:

So, bottom line: make sure your financial advisor is verified by ethicscheck.com like we are!

Click on this link for more of the story: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704075604575357232023445918.html?mod=WSJ_newsreel_opinion

They are the pessimists, worrywarts and naysayers of today’s turbulent markets. These are the guys who appear on CNBC peddling gloom and worry. They represent fear.

The U.S. stock market is already down more than 5% this year and more than 10% since its April peak, as measured by the S&P 500. The biggest bears of the financial markets are concerned about different things: inflation, deflation, government debt, tax hikes, insufficient government stimulus, government intervention or lack of regulation. What they all have in common is they think we are in for some tough sledding.

 David Rosenberg is a big bear. He is the chief economist and strategist at investment firm Gluskin Sheff and used to be chief North American economist at Merrill Lynch. He thinks the U.S. stock market is headed much lower…. He is chiefly concerned about global government debt problems and believes it will take years for the world to cleanse itself through what will be a long period of deleveraging filled with unexpected events.

In Pictures: Wall Street’s Biggest Bears

 The global economy and stock market returns are, according to Mohamed El-Erian, simply mired in a “new normal.” The chief executive of bond giant Pacific Investment Management Co. says stocks will achieve below-average returns and the U.S. economy will be characterized by slow growth, high unemployment and incessant government meddling.

“Our problems aren’t over. Our bear market is not over. These problems are going to come back to haunt us and to hurt us, either this year, next year, the year after–sometime in the foreseeable future,” said Jim Rogers recently. The American investor and cofounder of the Quantum Fund has been critical of government spending and intervention in the markets and predicts it will lead to serious inflationary problems. He advocates that people put their money in real assets ranging from cotton to natural gas, because currencies backed by government are being debased.

“I am very bearish on everything,” Marc Faber recently told Bloomberg News. The investment analyst and newsletter writer thinks disaster is here because of government intervention in the markets and looming inflation. Faber is convinced governments will tax and regulate the private sector to death.

Economist Arthur Laffer says the Bush tax cuts’ expiriation in 2011 will result in “our worst nightmare of a severe ‘double dip’ recession.” His call: When federal tax rates on income, dividend and capital gains rise in January “the train goes off the tracks.” Tax receipts will crash because people have been timing the recognition of their income in 2010. “The economy will collapse in 2011,” says Laffer.

Money manager John Hussman says another financial crisis is being caused by bad fiscal and monetary policy. “It is a delusion to interpret economic statistics suggesting an economic turnaround over the past year without factoring out the extent to which that has been driven by unsustainable levels of deficit spending,” says Hussman. Newsletter writer Richard Russell says things like, “Do your friends a favor. Tell them to ‘batten down the hatches’, because there’s a HARD RAIN coming.”

The bears are growling, and sometimes their predictions can be very specific. David Hefty, chief of Cornerstone Wealth Management, says the benchmark Dow Jones industrial average could tumble below 5,000. Economic forecaster David Levy pegs the chances of a new global recession starting within a year or so at around 60%.

 Then there is Dr. Doom himself. Nouriel Roubini, an economist and Forbes contributor, predicted the global financial crisis. Now he thinks there is an increasing risk the stock market will fall sharply, and that industrialized economies will continue to face serious constraints, like high unemployment and over-indebtedness.

 ”History would suggest that maybe this crisis is not really over,” Roubini told Bloomberg News in May. “We just finished the first stage, and there’s a risk of ending up in the second stage of this financial crisis.”

Weiss Ratings Resumes Role as Nation’s Leading
Independent Rating Agency of Financial Institutions

Jupiter, Florida, May 6, 2010 — Weiss Group, LLC, a leading provider of independent research and ratings since 1971, has announced today that it has bought back the bank and insurance company ratings which it had sold to TheStreet in 2006, restoring the business to its wholly owned subsidiary, Weiss Ratings.

Unlike most other rating agencies, Weiss Ratings accepts no compensation of any kind from the companies it rates, deriving its revenues exclusively from the sale of ratings and data to consumers and others via public libraries and the Internet.

In addition to its independent ratings on the nation’s banks and insurers, Weiss has also entered into a licensing agreement with TheStreet to resume distribution of independent ratings on publicly traded companies, mutual funds, closed end funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). At the same time, TheStreet has licensed Weiss’ bank and insurance company ratings to distribute to its customers.

“I believe the timing of this change couldn’t be better,” commented Martin D. Weiss, Ph.D., chairman and founder of Weiss Ratings. “It comes at a time when financial institutions continue failing at an alarming pace and when new evidence of conflicts at established rating agencies underscores the consumer’s urgent need for unbiased ratings to help protect them.”

Weiss continued: “Also with this change, Weiss Ratings analysts can focus mostly on research that helps safeguard bank depositors and insurance policyholders, while TheStreet analysts can focus primarily on publicly traded companies bought and sold by investors.”

Weiss Ratings has hired back its former bank and insurance analysts and staff, who will continue at their current location in the Weiss Group headquarters in Jupiter, Florida. “TheStreet has done an excellent job of maintaining Weiss’ tradition of independence and accuracy. As the name on the door changes back to Weiss Ratings, we won’t miss a beat. Most important, consumers can rest assured that their financial safety will always be our primary mission.”

*****

Weiss Ratings is the nation’s only provider of independent ratings on the nation’s 900 life and annuity insurers, 2,700 property and casualty insurers, as well as 600 health insurers and HMOs. It is among the nation’s leading providers of independent ratings on 8,000 banks and S&Ls. Plus, it also distributes independent ratings on the shares of thousands of publicly traded companies, mutual funds, closed-end funds and ETFs.

By adhering to its independent business model, Weiss outperformed Standard and Poor’s, Moody’s, A.M. Best and Duff & Phelps (now Fitch) in warning of future life and health insurance company failures according to a 1994 study by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), while also outperforming its competitors in identifying the safest insurers, according to its follow-up study using the GAO’s research methodology. Similarly, Weiss was the only one to identify, in advance, nearly all major banks that failed or required a federal bailout in the 2008-2009 debt crisis. (See Weiss Warnings of Financial Failures in Debt Crisis of 2008-2009.)

In the field of stock ratings, Weiss outperformed J.P. Morgan Chase, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, Piper Jaffray, Credit Suisse First Boston, Smith Barney, Standard and Poor’s, and Morgan Stanley, plus all 14 of the other broker-operated and independent research firms reviewed by Investars.com and published in the Wall Street Journal in June of 2005.

Thanks to its strong track record and independence, The New York Times wrote that Weiss was “the first to see the dangers and say so unambiguously”; Barron’s wrote that Weiss is “the leader in identifying vulnerable companies;” and Esquire concluded that Weiss Ratings is “the one company [that] … provides financial grades free of any conflicts of interest.”

Click on this link for more info: http://www.moneyandmarkets.com/weiss-buys-back-bank-and-insurance-ratings-from-thestreet-com-39001

By DAVID LEONHARDT

Published: April 13, 2010

Daniel Acker/Bloomberg News

About three-quarters of households pay more in payroll taxes than in income taxes.