Consultants to our industry advise small business owners to have life insurance in the amount of company value held so surviving partners can carry on without a crushing debt load. I begin with a story of the torturous quest for more insurance. Insurance Rant Once insured, the seller of insurance wants customers to be healthy, do preventive maintenance, and have proactive checkups like an annual physical. Much of this is even “free.” So they like us? Not so much. For the next policy you need, you’re better off leaving no trace. God forbid something might need to be pre-emptively treated.…
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The utility business is fascinating and bizarre to me, and this can only mean I’m a hapless, pathetically boring person. But that is what it may look like to the uninformed. It’s like soccer, baseball, or Indy car racing. If you don’t like these games/sports, you just don’t get it. First off, from business and investor perspectives, utilities are not growth stocks, and they haven’t been for decades. Essentially, they are like US treasuries. I learned this in a 1989 personal finance class. Geezers invest in utilities for the steady dividend. Clearly, I wasn’t interested in a paltry 7% yield…
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