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Tuesday, November 12, 1974
University Daily Kansan
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
OPINION
WATERGATE...INFLATION...NIXON!
As you can see from the amounts involved it was not exactly a catastrophic financial error, but it was only my poverty that saved me from a greater error. I thought at the time I could only afford a $1,000 policy. In retrospect my conduct seemed to have failed. I couldn't even afford that. How much life insurance did I really need? The answer is—none. I had no debts and no dependents and my parents were capable of laying my burial expenses.
I was a senior in college, young and ignorant, and perhaps I did not understand all the nuances of the agent's pitch. But I distinctly got the imitation options: withdraw my "dividends" and pay the $21.18 annual premium for 20 years, leave the dividends with the company as payment for investment "dividends" with the company and have the policy paid up in less than 20 years. I opted for the last option. Well 25 premiums and $29.50 later I finally cancelled the policy and sent the case to the surrender value. The check came to $453.76.
The editorial for all seasons
Life insurance overrated
It was about 46 years ago that an agent of the Northwestern National Life Insurance company cailed me into buying what I thought was a 20-year pay, cash-value type of life insurance policy. I use the word "advised" adversely My Webster dictionary defines the term as "deceiving or persuading with specious promises; to wheedle, coax."
Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me
—Traditional Scottish saying The (federal government, University administration, Student Senate) once again has demonstrated its stark ignorance and startling low regard for the rights of (the people, the students).
With the approval of (name of regulation), these elitist politics have quashed the will of the people and enacted a totally irresponsible repression of human rights.
How can we respect and admire our leaders if they continue to take such actions? Surely they must realize that these actions are patently illegal and immoral.
The flaws of the regulations are paramount and obvious. To discuss why they are flawed would be to engage in a redundant action. The
flaws are recognized and accepted by everyone, but most have known this when they enacted the rules.
The worst aspect of the new plan is the method in which it was formulated. The actions were taken without careful and knowledgeable consideration and deliberation.
The Kansan deeply condemns the (name of regulation) approved by (first and last name of one official). Of course, it wasn't (his, her) fault officials under (him, her) are to blame. too.
Such actions as these are but another prostitution of the public's trust.
But, more than that, we are to blame too.
We must act now to correct this wrong. We must repeal the decision and take steps to censure or remove (last name of official) and his cohort from office. —The Office Cat
The term "dividends" has been put in quotes because these payments are not real dividends. This is the term used by the industry and only confuses. These payments are in reality a deferred and partial refund of previously paid excess dividends. If you want dividends from a life company, go buy some common stock in a stock type company. You will usually find the "multiple" (that is, the ratio of common stock prices to earnings) high because most life insurance companies have, and are expected to have, above average returns. You sequence your initial rate of return on your investment will be relatively low.
The purpose of life insurance is to provide the insured with an instant and a temporary estate. An estate large enough, should he die, to pay all debts and provide dependents with an adequate insurance cover for the insured lives, he should be able to accumulate a permanent estate from his savings, pay off his debts, pay for the
education of his children—and cancel all of his life insurance policies. In other words, life insurance is needed only during a part of one's life, usually between the ages of 25 to 55. By about the age of 50, the mortgage house should have been paid off, and the family educated and on their own. And when one retires, income is what is needed, not life insurance.
The best method to accomplish all of these objectives is to combine a 20 to 30 year decreasing term life insurance policy with a saving/investment program. A savings/investment type of policy has no investment risk, cash-surrender value - it is just pure insurance. The premium is level, that is constant over the life of the policy, and the face amount of the policy decreases
For example, a $100,000 20-year Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association (TIAA) account at age 30 invoices an annuity premium of $195 a year for 17 years. The face amount of the
policy decreases to $88,400 at age 35, to $89,400 at age 43,$40,000 at age 45 and to $88,400 at age 50. The decreasing term type of policy recognized the fact that one's need for life insurance diminishes as mortgages are retired and hence cease to be dependents. And the extremely low cost of decreasing term insurance, as compared to cash-value type policies, enables the insured to build up a permanent estate.
All people of course are not college professors and are not eligible for the extremely low cost decreasing term policies offered by ITAA. But similar benefits for older employees cost may be obtained from regular old-line insurance companies.
The following comment is to illustrate the advantages of using the decreasing term type of policy in conjunction with a savings-investment program as compared with investing through a life insurance policy. I will compare two programs,
At age 65, the cash-surrender value of the 20-year pay policy is about $75,000; the cash value of the series "E" savings bonds are $75,000; not suggesting that series bonds are a proper vehicle for long-term investment in these days of "double-digit inflation," but selected them because they have about the same tax advantages as life insurance. Because of the rate of inflation $199,000 will still have more purchasing power than $75,000.
each involving the same total dollar outlays a year for the same number of years. The one program will involve a 20-year pay policy beginning at age 30; the other a 20-year decreasing term policy also beginning at age 30; and the cost between the cost of the premiums on the 20-year pay policy and the 20-year decreasing term policy invested in United States savings bonds.
—Leland J. Pritchard Professor of Economics
'Veto-proof Congress' will be Ford's scapegoat
Now that the Democrats have their sweeping victories, achieving almost overwhelming domination in the House, Senate and governors' mansions, it is actually at what it means.
society except as it is inspired by the White House. The closest thing to a major exception was the law passed in 1946 that the civil rights field during the
The short answer is: not nearly as much as President Gerald R. Ford and other candidates have wanted the public to believe they went about spreading fear of "a veto-proof Congress."
Cynics are saying that Ford and his advisers are secretly happy to the Democrats win big, because it will mean that the Democrats will have to bear the cost of a war with the economic debate that seemed inevitable. That is either wishful thinking or dreaming based on the naive assumption that the average American is a fool.
sumer protection, a war on poverty or anything else in the way of social process because it was driven by a nonactivist headed by a nonactivist
Most Americans know that no matter what the makeup of Congress, nothing much really changes, for good or ill, in this
By Carl Rowan
1940s and 1950s when neither the executive nor legislative branch was inclined to do much.
Republican president
Congress enacts laws or appropriates monies against the walls of the White House, it is the president who administers and pursues the investments through impoundment. It is the president who chooses the cabinet officers and agency heads who can, in a briefing with the president, introduce the intention of Congress.
Yet even in that field it took stirring White House initiatives, mostly by former President Lyndon B. Johnson, to push Congress into passing the public accommodations and voting laws, which stand as the most enduring civil rights gains in this century.
Presidents get blamed for recessions, depressions and other grave dislocations and aberrations in this society. And mostly with good reason. It is important to note that major departures in social, economic or foreign policy. It is the president who has the power of the veto (that 86 Congress can override only 28 of its vetoes!). It is the president who can commander the television and radio networks and dominate the front pages of newspapers, appealing to the public's leadership of Congress can never match or counter. Even when an opposition party
Summing up, this predominantly Democratic Congress will have little impact on this nation's economic woes because it can go to whatever direction Ford suggests. But the likelihood is that while the Congress will want to take steps to avert a recession or depression, Ford will still want to fight inflation.
Food still a major world crisis
While you are reading these words, four people will have died from starvation, most of them children. —Paul Ehrlich Remembered by Ehrlich! He was a professor at Stanford University who wrote the book "The Population Bomb." The reaction of those who read the book ranged from shock to outraged disbelief. That is why scientists in Ehrlich's own field, regarded the book as trash and
And even if the Congress had regained its backbone, which it hasn't, it would still not be able to override the President to the point of dictating what national economic policy shall be.
called Ehrlich a quack.
The message of "The Population Bomb" was that the world's population growth was rapidly outstripping the world's ability to support such growth. Erichrich said that each year food crops were adopted nations was falling behind population growth.
Ehrlich's message wasn't new. Thomas R. Malthus, an English clergyman and economist, asserted in 1798 in
So Ford's political advisers can forget any notions that they can make Congress the ground-truth for knowing the decisions in the Oval Office will still be the key to whether a lot of us work or go on bailout. And into bankruptcy, over the next two years,
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Malttus' ideas were scorned just as much as Ehrlich's ideas. Ehrlich, unlike Malttus, has a lack of statistics to back his claims.
his "Essay on the Principle of Population, As It Affects the Future. Improvement of Society," that population in need is exceeded the increase in the means of subsistence.
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Just as there were people who laughed at Malthus and Ehrlich, there are people today who are unwilling to accept the fact that the world is involved in a food crisis. One such person, unfortunately, is Earl L. Butz, attorney. Agriculture is agriculture. The situation is more serious now than a few years ago, but Buzz recently on NBC's "Meet the Press" that there was no crisis
Isn't there? There are severe shortages of food in the African nations of Chad, Gambia, Mali, Mauritania and Ethiopia, and in India, Bangladesh and northeastern Brazil. The situation in Honduras, Ireland, Canada is almost as bad, and poor harvests in Nepal, Somalia, Tanzania, Zambia, Mexico and the Philippines may threaten food security to the most recent issue of Time magazine, nearly half a billion people are suffering from some form of hunger, each week for more than two months in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
In an effort to deal with the problem of world hunger, representatives from about 100 countries gathered at the Food Conference in Rome.
conference, Henry Kissinger,
secretary of state, presented a five-point cooperative program to solve food production, distribution and reserve problems and session of conference. Butz said primary responsibility of the conference was to move the
Remember that in 1968 the Democrat won a whopping 235 seats in the House and 66 in the Senate. The Democrats have the house now and 61 in the Senate with three House seats still to be determined). But the Republicans are 86th Congress in the way of civil rights, aid to education, con-
In the opening session of the
world to a higher level of food production. Iran announced that it would pledge $50 million this year for agricultural development and emergency food aid, but attached several conditions to this pledge. One of the conditions was that population control measures be started in both developed and developing countries, making population control measures one of the conditions for food aid, Iran went to the heart of the world food crisis.
At present no emergency effort could save millions from starvation for, for example, India's next harvest was a crop production and distribution systems aren't flexible enough.
It will be difficult to save food from being destroyed by efforts to increase food production and distribution, no matter how drastic those efforts may be.
Irregularities in the weather over the past year have ruled out the bumper crops that were supposed to feed the starving millions and build up the snow cover. Weather scientists are saying that the global surface temperature, which has decreased
one degree Fahrenheit since the 1940s, will continue to decrease. At the very least, this would mean troublesome changes in regional temperatures and rainfall patterns that could decrease the earth's ability to feed itself.
—Glenn Meyer
Of course, we really don't have to worry that the world's population will double in the next decade. But we don't slow our population growth voluntarily, famine, disease and war will do it for us.
Unprecedented cooperation among the world's nations will be required to feed the masses that are now starving. If we are to avoid similar situations in the world, we will have to be applied to reducing the world's population growth.
World food reserves are at their lowest point in 22 years. To build them up will require a major effort by the grain ex-port industry, even the United States is incapable of building up the necessary reserves without economic assistance from the developing nations. Such help may not be forthcoming.
Massive education and economic assistance programs to improve the agricultural output of underdeveloped nations, so that people, like the World Food Conference wants to cure the world food problem, it must emphasize population control. The world's population is increasing at 140 people a minute. The world's population, now at 3.9 billion, will double in 35 years.
Democratic victories may be due to a feeling of betrayal