The subprime mortgage crunch is rippling through our economy in a variety of different ways. Many homeowners are postponing plans to sell until the market stabilizes; others, with hopes for trading up to a bigger home, are opting to stay put, turning instead to remodeling or enlarging.

You don't need to read another article telling you how terrible the malpractice crisis is. You already know that lawsuits are on the rise, jury awards are out of control, malpractice premiums are escalating to the point of being unaffordable, and the practice of medicine as we know it is severely threatened.

Over the last decade, an increasing number of doctors have looked at international approaches to their wealth planning. There are numerous pitfalls for using international planning that can catch naïve doctors. Learn what to do — and what to avoid — in international planning, and about specific tools top attorneys use in their international planning.

As I write this, millions of Americans are straining under the pressures of a fickle, unpredictable economy. Tens of thousands of workers have lost their jobs in recent months, savers are struggling to make sense of the lowest interest rates that some have ever seen, and the stock market has given new meaning to the word "volatility." All of this while gasoline and food prices surge to record highs.

Mutual funds are a better investment choice than individual stocks for most people

As with any legal or insurance planning, the early bird is richly rewarded. Nowhere in practice planning is this truer than in the Buy-Sell agreement. The reason is not so much economic, but political. If this planning is done before any owner is close to a disability, divorce, retirement, or death, all owners are in the same position relative to each other. That makes the negotiation of a standard deal for all owners a much easier and smoother process. Planning early for a Buy-Sell agreement will truly benefit you, your family and your practice.

As frequent speakers to physicians on asset protection and advanced planning, we are often asked about captive insurance companies (CICs).

In the span of a single lifetime, credit cards have evolved from their birth in the 1950s as a simple convenience for restaurant diners to one of the most potent forces within the American economy.

With the worst January performance in the history of the stock market behind us, what now? Are we headed for (or already in) a major recession, or is this just another of those predictable bumps in the economic road to financial security?