That time of year again

Around this time of year, I watch the tax payable on my bonus and think. I should get an annuity. Unfortunately in this respect, I have too much knowledge to be sold by a regular agent.

An annuity is by nature a long term product. In my case it matures in 20 years. Therefore the decision in choosing your pension provider is not one to take lightly.

You must have a reasonable belief that the company will be around when you come to collect.

I've boiled it down to Tatil and Scotia. It's not that I don't have confidence in Guardian, Sagicor, Clico etc. It's just personal preference really and I have a hook up in both.

Second are you being sold the correct product. Whilst I was living in the UK there was a huge misselling of pensions scandal.

Basically they would sell you the product they got the most commission on, not the product that best suited your needs.
In the end the law judgement was that agents were liable for the first ten years of the policy life and persistency rates became part of regulatory reporting.

The persistency rate is the number of policies sold x number of years ago to which policyholders are still actively contributing. It is expected to decrease over time.

All the local insurance companies are front end commission based, hence the same incentive for misselling exists in the market. In one case the commission is as high as 40% of contributions in the first year. Evil.

So question for agent. What is your persistency rate? Even if I have to explain what it is, you should still be able to give it.

Second question, What life expectancy are your commutation factors based on?

The commutation factor is what is $1.00 worth at maturity for the rest of your life. Now we don't actually work out life tables for this country so you will be assumed to be living in the UK, US or Canada depending on the affliation of the company.

However hopefully as medical advances continue, it should be assumed that life expectancy also increases so that $1.00 should be worth more. Ideally the commutation in the quote should consider this.
For myself female at age 50 it should be somewhere between 12 and 15.

Next question is how are the assets managed and do you have control to balance the fund. This is a valid question for Scotia not for Tatil.
They should ideally have some long term bonds in the fund but the government doesn't issue many of these so we are always mismatching the durations of the assets to the liabilities in this country.

And at the end of all this I'll probably still end up banking on my tree farm.

Central Market

We usually go to the Central Market on a Sunday morning. You have to leave the house by 7am if you want to meet a good range of products. On arriving to the market, we drive around to the back to look for a park. There are no lines in the car park but Trinis do a pretty good job of spacing out the lines of cars.

Whilst going through the back entrance you get a very pungent whiff of urine as it is down wind from the public restrooms. There is a large skiff and usually by this time, piles of cork husks once corn is available. Just pass the entrance is a pineapple/ watermelon vendor and a coconut vendor.

Vendors tend to specialise. Citrus vendors sell citrus maybe some banana, odd grap of coconuts. Paw Paw vendors paw paw and so on.
These speciality vendors tend to be in the back (priority side) and sell off their pickups.

Under the shed are the clothes vendors on the back and dry good on the front. On the front side are assorted vegetable vendors. Here you get the imported carrot, cabbage etc mixed with the local cucumber, christophene etc.

I'm afraid I don't know most of the vendors names, but I can split up with my shopping partner and say "meet you by sours" Sours is the always sour potato man. Or I will say I gon by rover. Rover is a lady fish vendor who drives a rover. Clearly fish vending is good business.

Some of the strangers who are not regulars with spring balance scales don't give true weight. Beware.

Generally market comes up to $300 these days, it used to be $200, this does not include fish. But considering how much time it takes the fruit to grow the prices are good.

Paw paw - 6 months
Banana - 3 months
Coconut - 3 months

Years to grow, minutes to go.

Negative NPV

Going to look for some articles on what to do if due to current economic outlook your project now has a negative NPV.

Surely this must be a very topical subject at the moment.

Time stands still

Check date posted

86 year old aunt on Barack Obama's win

"The world has gone crazy. Who ever heard of a black man ruling white men. There is going to be a lot more oppression... "

Whilst I do think the old woman is depressingly pessimistic, she is by no means addled.

Harsh economic situations, tend to make us most divisive like crabs in a barrel.

Still I am young enough that I dare to hope.

Should I sell/ give away

All my things I no longer use? Create some space ?

Michelle Shocked CD
Indigo Girls CD

Linoleum for carving, Linoleum carving set.
Art straws
Raffia
Wool assorted crochet and knitting stuff.
Embroidery stuff
Match stick model never completed
Trivia Pursuit sets

And what ever else lies in storage on my top two shelves.

Uhmm all that effort.