Listen from anywhere, by logging onto www.wfmd.com and clicking the listen live button!  Saturday morning @ 8am on AM 930 WFMD.

About this week’s guest:

Ken Cage, President of Operations

Ken has 20+ years in the banking and collections industry with prestigious firms such as JP Morgan and DaimlerChrysler Financial Services and has vast experience in skip tracing and investigation within the finance sector. This experience allows Ken to understand the needs of banking, financial and legal clientele while utilizing his investigation and recovery skills to provide the highest quality service.

Since joining IRG in 2005, Ken has been involved in thousands of repossessions and investigations on all types of specialty assets. Ken has repossessed units in all 50 states, as well as several foreign countries. Ken has been a guest speaker for the International Superyacht Society and been the focus of many news stories for newspaper, magazines and television all over the world. Ken is a licensed Repossession Agent, Private Investigator and Yacht Broker.

Ken has been a member of many organizations related to the investigation field including American Society of Industrial Security, the International Society of Healthcare Safety and Security, the National Association of Chiefs of Police, Aircraft Owners & Pilots Association (AOPA), National Aircraft Finance Association (NAFA), International Association of Marine Investigators (IAMI) and the National Marine Banking Association.

Listen from anywhere, by logging onto www.wfmd.com and clicking the listen live button!  Saturday morning @ 8am on AM 930 WFMD.

About this week’s guest:

Benn Steil

Senior Fellow and Director of International Economics

Expertise

International finance; financial markets; economic policy.

Programs

Maurice R. Greenberg Center for Geoeconomic Studies

Bio

Dr. Benn Steil is senior fellow and director of international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. He is also the founding editor of International Finance, a top scholarly economics journal, and co-writer of the Council’s Geo-Graphics economics blog. Prior to his joining the Council in 1999, he was director of the International Economics Programme at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London. He came to the Institute in 1992 from a Lloyd’s of London Tercentenary Research Fellowship at Nuffield College, Oxford, where he received his MPhil and DPhil (PhD) in economics. He also holds a BSc in economics summa cum laude from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Steil has written and spoken widely on international finance, monetary policy, economic history, and financial markets. He is a columnist for Dow Jones’ Financial News and a regular op-ed contributor at the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times. His latest book, The Battle of Bretton Woods: John Maynard Keynes, Harry Dexter White, and the Making of a New World Order, was called “a triumph of economic and diplomatic history” by the Financial Times, “a superb history” by the Wall Street Journal, and “the gold standard on its topic” by the New York Times. His previous book, Money, Markets and Sovereignty, was awarded the 2010 Hayek Book Prize. Financial Statecraft: The Role of Financial Markets in American Foreign Policy was named one of the “Best Business Books of 2006″ by Library Journal and an “Outstanding Academic Title of 2006″ by Choice.

Listen from anywhere, by logging onto www.wfmd.com and clicking the listen live button!  Saturday morning @ 8am on AM 930 WFMD.

About this week’s guest:

Meet Dr. Kevin Hogan

Dr. Kevin Hogan is a board certified dermatologist and dermatopathologist.  He grew up in Dubuque, Iowa, and attended Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota on a National Merit Scholarship for three years, graduating magna cum laude as biology major.  He returned to his home state for medical school at the University of Iowa College of Medicine where he received an Armed Forces Health Professions scholarship and was commissioned at a lieutenant upon graduation.

After graduation, Dr. Hogan did a surgical internship at the Naval Regional Medical Center, Oakland, California.  Following his internship, he was the ship’s medical officer on the USS San Jose.  After completing a year of sea duty, Dr. Hogan was selected for a dermatology residency at the National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, Maryland.  In his final year of residency, Dr. Hogan was chosen for fellowship training in pathology of skin diseases at the prestigious Armed Forces Institute of Pathology at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Upon completion of his fellowship, Dr. Hogan served on the faculty of both the Navy dermatology residencies (Bethesda and San Diego).  After nine years in the Navy, he then joined the Patuxent Medical Group, a multi-specialty group practice centered in Columbia, Maryland.  Dr. Hogan was named the chief of the division of dermatology in this over 100 physician practice, and practiced in offices in Columbia, Annapolis, and Frederick.  During this time, Dr. Hogan also earned a doctorate in religious studies at the Catholic University of America, and has taught at Catholic University and Wesley Theological Seminary.

In the four years before starting Frederick Dermatology Associates with Dr. Kathleen Moe, Dr. Hogan was on the faculty of Georgetown University Medical Center, serving as the dermatology division’s Director of Education, residency director, and interim chief of the Division of Dermatology at Georgetown University Hospital.

Dr. Hogan is a Fellow of the American Academy of Dermatology, the American Society of Dermatopathology, and the American Society for Dermatologic Surgery.

With starting Frederick Dermatology Associates, Dr. Hogan has returned full-time to his first love of providing comprehensive care for persons with medical and surgical dermatological concerns, as well as utilizing the ever developing state of the art cosmetic procedures to benefit his patients’ appearance and self-esteem.  Both Dr. Hogan and Dr. Moe are delighted to be providing the kind of excellent care you find at a university medical center, but more importantly, to provide that care in a warm and personable environment, always remembering that relationship is at the heart of medical practice.

Listen from anywhere, by logging onto www.wfmd.com and clicking the listen live button!  Saturday morning @ 8am on AM 930 WFMD.

About this week’s guest:

author bio Gordon G. Chang is the author of Nuclear Showdown: North Korea Takes On the World, released by Random House in January 2006.  Showdown focuses on nuclear proliferation in general and the North Korean crisis in particular.  His first book is The Coming Collapse of China (Random House, August 2001). He is a columnist at Forbes.com and blogs at World Affairs Journal. He lived and worked in China and Hong Kong for almost two decades, most recently in Shanghai, as Counsel to the American law firm Paul Weiss and earlier in Hong Kong as Partner in the international law firm Baker & McKenzie.  His writings on China and North Korea have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Far Eastern Economic Review, the International Herald Tribune, Commentary, The Weekly Standard, National Review, and Barron’s.   He has spoken at Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Penn, Princeton, Yale, and other universities and at The Brookings Institution, The Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, RAND, the American Enterprise Institute, the Council on Foreign Relations, and other institutions.  He has given briefings at the National Intelligence Council, the Central Intelligence Agency, the State Department, and the Pentagon.  He has also spoken before industry and investor groups including Bloomberg, Sanford Bernstein, Royal Bank of Scotland, and Credit Lyonnais Securities Asia.  Chang has appeared before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.    He has appeared on CNN, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, CNBC, MSNBC, PBS, the BBC, and Bloomberg Television. He has appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and is a frequent co-host and guest on The John Batchelor Show.     Outside the United States he has spoken in Beijing, Shanghai, Taipei, Hong Kong, Seoul, Singapore, Tokyo, The Hague, London, Ottawa, Toronto, and Vancouver. He has served two terms as a trustee of Cornell University.

Listen from anywhere, by logging onto www.wfmd.com and clicking the listen live button!  Saturday morning @ 8am on AM 930 WFMD.

About this week’s guest:

Harold Evans was the editor of the Sunday Times and the Times (and earlier of the Northern Echo and assistant editor of the Manchester Evening News). A graduate of Durham University, he has written a number of best selling histories. He followed the late Alistair Cooke in commentaries on America for the BBC. He holds the British Press Awards’ Gold Award for Lifetime Achievement of Journalists. In 2001 British journalists voted him the all-time greatest British newspaper editor. He was knighted in 2004.

Sir Harold Matthew Evans (born 28 June 1928) is a British-born journalist and writer who was editor of The Sunday Times from 1967 to 1981. He has written various books on history and journalism. Since 2001, Evans has served as editor-at-large of The Week Magazine and since 2005, he has been a contributor to The Guardian and BBC Radio 4.

Evans was born in Newton Heath, Manchester, where he attended Brookdale High School Newton Heath, school with the future Alfred, Lord Morris of Manchester, who nicknamed him “Poshie” because he was the only boy in the school whose father – a railway driver – owned an automobile.

His career began as a reporter for a weekly newspaper in Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire at 16 years old. After completing his national service in the Royal Air Force, he entered Durham University where he graduated with honours in politics and economics and subsequently earned a Master of Arts degree for a thesis on foreign policy. He became an assistant editor of the Manchester Evening News and won a Harkness Fellowship in 1956-57 for travel and study in the United States. He began to gain a reputation on his return from the U.S. when he was appointed editor of the regional daily The Northern Echo, where one of his campaigns resulted in a national programme for the detection of cervical cancer.

During his 14-year tenure as editor of the Sunday Times, Evans was responsible for its crusading style of investigative reporting which brought to public attention many stories and scandals which were officially denied or ignored.

One such report was about the plight of hundreds of British Thalidomide children who had never had any compensation for severe birth defects some had suffered. This turned into a campaign for the newspaper’s Insight investigative team, and Evans himself took on the drug companies responsible for the manufacture of Thalidomide, pursuing them through the English courts and eventually gaining victory in the European Court of Human Rights. As a result, the victims’ families won compensation after more than a decade. Moreover, the British Government was compelled to change the law inhibiting the reporting of civil cases.

Other influential investigative reports included the exposure of Kim Philby as a Soviet spy and the publication of the diaries of former Labour Minister Richard Crossman, thereby risking prosecution under the Official Secrets Act.

When Rupert Murdoch acquired Times Newspapers Limited in 1981, Evans was appointed editor of The Times. However, he remained with the paper only a year, resigning over policy differences relating to editorial independence. Evans wrote an account in a book entitled Good Times, Bad Times (1984). On leaving The Times, Evans became director of Goldcrest Films and Television.

In 1984, Evans moved to the United States, where he taught at Duke University. He was subsequently appointed editor-in-chief of The Atlantic Monthly Press and became editorial director of US News and World Report. In 1986 he was the founding editor of Conde Nast Traveler, dedicated to “truth in travel”.

Evans was appointed president and publisher of Random House trade group from 1990 to 1997 and editorial director and vice chairman of US News and World Report, the New York Daily News, and The Atlantic Monthly from 1997 to January 2000, when he resigned to concentrate on writing.

Evans’ best known work, The American Century, won critical acclaim when it was published in 1998. The sequel, They Made America (2004), described the lives of some of the country’s most important inventors and innovators. Fortune identified it as one of the best books in the 75 years of that magazine’s publication. It was adapted as a four-part television mini-series that same year and as a National Public Radio special in the USA in 2005.

Harold Evans became an American citizen in 1993, and lives in New York with his wife Tina Brown and their two children. He was knighted for services to journalism in 2004.

Listen from anywhere, by logging onto www.wfmd.com and clicking the listen live button!  Saturday morning @ 8am on AM 930 WFMD.

About this week’s guest:

Patty Azzarello is an executive with more than 25+ years of experience working in high tech and business. She has held leadership roles in General Management, Marketing, Software Product Development and Sales. She has been successful in running and transforming large and small businesses, and has significant international management experience.

Patty Azzarello became the youngest general manager at HP at the age of 33. She ran a $1B software business at the age of 35 and became a CEO for the first time at the age of 38 (without turning into a self-centered, miserable jerk).
Patty was recently featured in Forbes magazine in a column called Women We Love.

Patty’s prior roles have included: Vice President and General Manager of HP OpenView, Chief Marketing Officer for Siebel Systems, and President and CEO of Euclid Software.

Patty Azzarello is the founder of Azzarello Group, which works with CEOs and leadership teams to help their businesses (and people) get better at what they do. She is the author of the best selling book RISE: 3 Practical Steps to Advancing Your Career, Standing Out as a Leader (and Liking Your Life).

Contact Me
Follow Me on Twitter: @pattyazzarello

Listen from anywhere, by logging onto www.wfmd.com and clicking the listen live button!  Saturday morning @ 8am on AM 930 WFMD.

About this week’s guest:

History/Timeline:

In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act.  It was created in response to the ending of the Great Depression and numerous aging Americans were struggling.  Financing would come from workers and employers and be distributed to retirees.  After years of paying into Social Security, it is approaching the time that the largest generation ever will begin reaping their benefits…

A more detailed and extensive history can be found here.

So what do you need to know about Social Security for your own, personal situation?  Everyone has different factors and needs to consider when making decisions about their benefits.  Here are 5 key areas/questions to consider when planning for your Social Security benefits:

Click

  to play Understanding the Challenges of Social Security video

1.) When should I apply for my Social Security benefits (now vs. later)?

• First, you should consider “Do I need the money”?  If you need it, then it’s a simple answer, but if you are not in immediate need, delaying may be more beneficial in the long run.
• Secondly, you should consider your health and life expectancy.  Poor health may mean that it makes sense or is a necessity to begin taking your benefits as soon as you are eligible.
• If you delay receiving benefits until age 70, your payment will increase for each delayed year.

2.) How do spousal benefits work?

• If you are married and have little to no earnings, Social Security can be received through spousal benefits
• Two high income-earning spouses can also utilize spousal benefits.  The one claiming spousal benefits can receive Social Security payments while allowing his/her own benefit to continue increasing until the age of 70 (must then forfeit spousal benefit and receive their own).
• Divorced, unremarried people may also receive spousal benefits based on the ex-spouse’s work history if they were married for at least 10 years and can produce documents to verify the marriage.
• Widowed people may also receive survivor benefits as early as age 60 (before your full retirement age (FRA), you will receive reduced benefits, and after FRA, you will receive 100%).  There are other factors that may affect the amounts and what you are eligible to receive.

3.) Can I work in retirement and still receive benefits?

• You can work and still receive benefits, but there regulations as to how much income you can earn before seeing a reduction in your benefit amount when you are working between age 62 and your full retirement age.
• Once you have reached your full retirement age, there is no limit to the amount of income you can earn, and you will not have reduced benefits.

4.) Will I pay taxes on my Social Security income?

• Depending on how much income you earn in retirement, your Social Security benefit may be taxable.
• Income that counts toward your limits include: pensions, dividends and interest, and tax-free interest from municipal bonds.
• There are two ways to reduce the amount of tax you pay on your Social Security:
  1. Reduce the amount of other income you are receiving.
  2. Change the type of investments you have that are paying dividends and interest.

5.) What is my plan to fill in the “income gap” if my benefits are not enough to meet my needs?

• Go to the Social Security Administration’s website and click the link that will allow you to estimate your retirement benefits (you will have to enter personal information to verify your identity.  There are step-by-step instructions to walk you through the process.
• Work with your financial professional to analyze your current financial situation and your future needs and goals.  It is never to early to begin to plan for retirement, and if you are already retired, it is not too late to take a look at your financial picture and plans.
• There are a lot of things you can do on the SSA website, including applying for benefits, getting your statement, appealing a decision, finding out if you qualify for benefits, and changing your information and delivery options.

To find out more, listen to this Saturday’s Your Personal Economy segment on Your Financial Editor on AM 930 WFMD @ 8am.  You can also go to the MFG homepage and download the “Guide to Social Security”.

Source: www.socialsecurity.gov

Listen from anywhere, by logging onto www.wfmd.com and clicking the listen live button!  Saturday morning @ 8am on AM 930 WFMD.

About this week’s guest:

Ambassador Panagopoulos joined the Greek Foreign Service in 1978 and brings to Washington many years of rich international experience and a unique understanding of global and European affairs, including an in-depth knowledge of the Balkans and South East Mediterranean issues.

Prior to his current post as Greece’s Ambassador to the U.S., Ambassador Panagopoulos served for the past four years as Director of the Diplomatic Cabinet of the Minister and of the Alternate Minister of Foreign Affairs. Previously, he was Ambassador of Greece to the Republic of Serbia, after having spent five years as Ambassador to the Republic of Cyprus.

Ambassador Panagopoulos started his career at the Greek Embassy in Ankara. He has also worked on European issues, as Head of the European Integration Directorate, actively participating in the decision-making process of the European Union and in the promotion of the Transatlantic ties. His experience in South East Europe was acquired also during his tenure as head of the Directorate for Balkan Affairs.

Having also served as Consul General in Los Angeles and Dean of the New England Consular Corps in Boston, Ambassador Panagopoulos is no stranger to American politics. He now returns to the United States as Ambassador, at a time when Greek-American bilateral relations are at an unprecedentedly excellent level.

Born in Kalamata, Greece, in 1954, Christos Panagopoulos holds a Degree in Law from the University of Athens and a Master’s Degree in International Law and International Relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Boston, USA. He served in the Hellenic Navy at the Office of the Admiral, Chief of the Hellenic Fleet. He was also a member of the Junior National Waterpolo Team of Greece.

Among other distinctions, Ambassador Panagopoulos is the recipient of the Grand Commander of the Order of Phoenix of the Hellenic Republic, as well as of the Grand Commander of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Cyprus.

1.) Cyber attacks leading threat against U.S.: spy agencies

2.) Analysis: What rebound? Poorer families delayed to spend

3.) Starbucks CEO to Christian shareholders: Buy stock elsewhere:

Let Starbucks CEO Howard Shultz know you don’t agree with his company’s aggressive attempts to re-define marriage.

March 26, 2013

At the annual shareholder’s meeting last week, Starbucks CEO, Howard Shultz, insulted Christians throughout the country by suggesting they buy stocks in other coffee businesses if they do not agree with his position on same-sex marriage. It is no surprise that Starbucks supports homosexual marriage.

They have been sending liberal messages for years. But this is beyond anything we have seen from the left or the right. Shultz went as far as to tell shareholders who support Christian values to sell their stock and support other companies.

According to ChristianNews.net, Tom Strobhar, a shareholder, raised a question during the shareholder’s meeting about the significant drop in sales after a boycott from the National Organization for Marriage, who was protesting Starbucks support of homosexual marriage in Washington state.

See this interview in which Starbucks shareholder Tom Strobhar explains what happened at the meeting. It includes a clip of Mr. Shultz’ comments.

“In the first full quarter after this boycott was announced, our sales and our earnings, shall we say politely, were a bit disappointing,” said Strobhar.

In response, Starbucks’ CEO Shultz said the company’s decision to support gay marriage was not an economic one and snidely suggested Strobhar and other Christians who support natural marriage can take their investment elsewhere.

“If you feel, respectfully, that you can get a higher return than the 38% you got last year, it’s a free country. You can sell your shares in Starbucks and buy shares in another company. Thank you very much.”

TAKE ACTION

1. Send an email to Starbucks CEO Howard Shultz, asking the company to remain neutral in the issue of gay marriage. We have prepared a letter for you to send. If you are a customer, please add your personal note to the message.

2. If you are a Starbucks shareholder, consider taking Mr. Shultz’ advice and sell your Starbucks stock.

3. Take strong action by resolving to no longer support Starbucks by taking your business elsewhere.