Did You Know These Money Facts? Probably Not

- MSCI, a research firm, looked at 800 CEOs and their results. “The highest paid had the worst performance by a significant margin.” About a 40% difference, which can be huge, if your stock ownership is compounded in a 401-k/IRA over time. And the results did not vary by the type of company, either. Ask your financial advisor to remain aware of this finding.

People who find their job through a personal or professional friend earn an average 6% more than those who did not have such a referral, according to the Wall Street Journal.

- Developing and maintaining people networks pay, especially as most docs are now employed by others and have been trending to more job shifts than traditionally.

It turns out that even being a wedding guest can be a budget breaker, according to American Express.

- Those of us who have paid for a wedding know how ludicrously padded the industry’s bills are and how the first thing to go in wedding planning is the budget. Millennials are cranking out an average of $893 per wedding and they attend three per year. That works out to about 5% of the average annual income for this group. Gifts, travel, dress and childcare can really add up. What ever happened to elopement?

If you are at a mealtime business meeting, know that researchers at the University of Chicago have some advice for you.

- If you order the same food that the person you are trying to strike an agreement with, your odds of success improve by up to 29%. Trust building, don’t you know, is the key to striking a deal. Just pray that your opposite number doesn’t like chocolate covered ants.

Attention has recently been paid to offshore accounts since the leak of damning documents from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca.

- Lest you get too excited about your prospects for such things, experts tell us the expenses and hazards are considerable. Like $50,000 in legal and trust fees just to set such a deal up. Then it runs about $10,000 per year to administer your offshore trust. So most experts say you must have at least $1,000,000 to make it worthwhile. And then you have a minefield of legal and reporting requirements to negotiate. With the IRS and various other Federal entities very interested in your activities. So consider managing your taxes at home and forget about offshore tax dodges. Simplify your life and sleep well, says I.

And we may know this, but have gotten distracted by our hard work with patients and trying to keep up with the flood of new advances in medicine; JAMA reports that just 10-20% of health outcomes are derived by healthcare.

- Bummer. But for that one patient each doc treats at a time, that outcome could be 100%. So we keep at it.

Finally, in this election season where truth and fact were early casualties, Daniel Griswold in the Los Angeles Times has some clarifying information.

- Manufacturing jobs have truly declined by 5.6 million, but manufacturing output is up 40% in the last two decades. It seems that technology and automation have accounted for 85% of manufacturing jobs lost. Only 15% have been lost to foreign outsourcing from trade agreements. And those were primarily unskilled jobs. Our focus clearly should be on increasing the skills of the Americans who have lost their jobs to a more modern, competitive manufacturing world.