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FA Insights is a daily newsletter from Business Insider that delivers the top news and commentary for financial advisors.

Advisors should encourage their clients to talk about the ugly stuff during the holidays (Wealth Management)

It’s a good idea to encourage clients to capitalize on holiday get-togethers and address some of the tougher financial, security, and legal issues regarding familial affairs.

There are several key things that advisors should recommend clients think about such as finding the will(s), locating disability and life insurance policies, figuring out what family members want done with their bodies after they die (and figuring out whether they have purchased these things in advance), and finding where people keep important password information.

Here are 5 financial New Years resolutions for this year (The Eppy Group)

People should take some time to think about their financial New Years resolutions this year. Joe Eppy, president of The Eppy Group, suggests that there are five important things to consider:

1) Folks should set goals with measurable results. 2) They should plan ahead to better manage finances, and consider using apps to keep track. 3) They should remember to review their credit. 4) People should sit down at the end of every month and review their bank and credit statements. 5) They should meet with a real financial advisor to help with long-term planning because “Googling and reading blogs just simply doesn’t cut it when your financial future is at stake,” according to Eppy. 

The US falls a bit flat when it comes to financial literacy (Think Advisor)

The US ranked 14th out of the 140 countries surveyed in terms of financial literacy with a rate of 57%, according to a new survey by the S&P. By comparison, Norway’s rate was at 71%, Israel was at 68%, and the UK’s was at 67%.

“Americans with less education and lower incomes have lower financial literacy levels than their counterparts in other wealthy countries,” reports Emily Zulz. Additionally, “62% of men in the US are financially literate, compared with 52% of women.”

The mild growth is hiding things in the global economy (Advisor Perspectives)

“Global growth in a range of 2.5%–3% is not particularly inspiring, but it is what we expect for at least well into next year, and more broadly it is what we have come to expect in a New Neutral world of overall lower trend growth rates,” said Richard Clarida of PIMCO. 

But, notably, “that lackluster average growth disguises some interesting divergences in the global economy. In the US, eurozone, UK, and potentially Japan, we expect growth rates above trend, even as China and other major emerging economies slow down. This is indeed a multi-speed world,” he added.

A bill that would prevent the SEC from seizing emails without a criminal warrant has wide support in the House (Financial Advisor Magazine)

“A House bill that SEC Enforcement Director Andrew Ceresney claims would hinder investigations has widespread bipartisan support,” reports Ted Knutson. “The bill would prevent federal agencies from obtaining e-mails from Internet service providers without a criminal search warrant, which could hinder the SEC investigations because the agency has no police powers.“

John Conyers, the lead Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said that the bill has over 300 co-sponsors out of the 435 House members.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — New at the White House this holiday season: penguins, snowmen and snow women, and hanging snowflakes.

Returning this season: larger-than-life replicas of dogs Bo and Sunny, an 18 1/2 -foot Blue Room tree dedicated to military families, and a gingerbread White House — covered in dark chocolate, instead of white chocolate as in years past, and weighing in at nearly 500 pounds.

President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, expect to welcome more than 68,000 guests in the weeks before Christmas.

They’ll be greeted at the East Wing entrance by a family of plywood penguins before walking down a hallway with paper snowflakes hanging overhead. There’s one snowflake for each state and U.S. territory, along with others made by local schoolchildren who adorned them with hand-written wishes.

Outside the hallway windows, 56 snowmen and women, some wearing hats and scarves or earmuffs, look on from the first lady’s garden.

The first lady unveiled the decorations Wednesday, giving military families the first peek. Afterward, she led a group of children dressed in their finest clothes to the East Room where they prepared crafts and treats with help from the White House executive chef, head pastry chef and head florist.

Mrs. Obama said celebrating the start of the season with military families is an important part of her family’s White House tradition.

“We do this because of everything that you all do every day to make our country great,” she said. Mrs. Obama and Jill Biden, the wife of Vice President Joe Biden, started a nationwide campaign in 2011 to generate more public support for active-duty and retired service members and their families.

In all, some 62 trees and 70,000 ornaments, most of them reused from years past, decorate the White House.

The Fraser fir that dominates the Blue Room features messages to U.S. troops from their families on a ribbon that wraps around the tree. Its decorations were inspired by the stars and stripes of the U.S. flag. Each family will receive their portion of the ribbon after the holidays as a keepsake.

Some 55,000 feet of black yarn was knitted into 7,000 pom-poms that were used to make the Bo and Sunny replicas.

Nearly 90 volunteers from across the country spent from the day after Thanksgiving through early this week decorating the building. Among them was first-time volunteer Cheryl Forbes, who said she was surprised to end up working in the Oval Office.

“It took me a minute to take it all in,” said Forbes, a vice principal at a Bronx, New York, charter school. “Just to see where a president sits, it’s indescribable.”

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Former national security adviser Sandy Berger, who helped craft President Bill Clinton’s foreign policy and got in trouble over destroying classified documents, died Wednesday.

He was 70. The cause of death was cancer, said a statement by his consulting firm, the Albright Stonebridge Group.

Berger was White House national security adviser from 1997 to 2001, when the Clinton administration carried out airstrikes in Kosovo and against Saddam Hussein’s forces in Iraq. Berger, a lawyer, also was deeply involved in the administration’s push for free trade, and in the response to al-Qaida’s bombing of American embassies in East Africa.

He was deputy national security adviser during Clinton’s first term, and had previously worked in the State Department in President Jimmy Carter’s administration.

“Today, his legacy can be seen in a peaceful Balkans, our strong alliance with Japan, our deeper relationships with India and China,” President Barack Obama said in a statement.

Bill Clinton, in a joint statement with Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, called Berger a “terrific public servant” who “embraced our common humanity and advanced our national interests.”

In 2005, Berger pleaded guilty to illegally removing classified documents from the National Archives by stuffing some papers in his pants leg. He cut up some of the documents with scissors, for reasons that remain unclear. He was sentenced to probation and a $50,000 fine. He expressed regret for his actions.

Out of government, he helped found an international consulting firm that in 2009 merged with one run by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

“He cared deeply about where this country was going and what we could do to solve problems,” Albright said in a telephone interview. “That was the basis of his life, was to make a difference.”

Berger presided over foreign policy during what was a relatively serene period between the fall of the Soviet Union and the September 2001 terrorist attacks.

The biggest trouble spot was the Balkans, where the breakup of the former Yugoslavia spawned a series of civil wars. The U.S. and its NATO allies took militarily action against what they viewed as Serbian aggression, first in the conflict over Bosnia, and then in Kosovo.

Berger led White House meetings during NATO’s 11-week bombing of Kosovo in 1999.

He also played a key role in Operation Desert Fox, the four-day bombing of Iraq in 1998 over Saddam’s failure to comply with U.N. Security Council resolutions about weapons inspections.

Stephen Hadley, who had Berger’s job in the George W. Bush administration, once asked Berger what he remembered about it. “It’s relentlessness,” Berger responded.

Also in 1998, al-Qaida attacked U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The Clinton administration responded with a cruise missile barrage against training camps in Afghanistan and a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan. The strikes did little to disrupt al-Qaida and became a thread in a long running criticism that Clinton and his team failed to properly respond to a burgeoning terrorist threat.

But Berger was not blind to the problem. Briefing Hadley and incoming Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in 2000 during the transition, Berger said they would be “spending a lot of time dealing with al-Qaida,” Hadley recalled. “That was prophetic.”

Berger also played a key role in Operation Desert Fox, the four-day bombing of Iraq in 1998 over Saddam’s failure to comply with U.N. Security Council resolutions about weapons inspections.

After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Berger was vocal in defending the administration’s counter terrorism record, and it was his passion that may have led to his prosecution.

In court, Berger admitted to taking and destroying three copies of a classified report about the government’s response to the millennium plot in 2000 by Islamic extremists to attack in Los Angeles and other locations. But a report by House Republicans claimed he may have secretly removed many more documents from the Archives.

Albright said she and Berger never spoke about the matter, through years of working together.

“Even the finest people make mistakes,” she said.

Berger grew up in Millerton, New York, where his father died in 1953 when Berger was 8. His mother ran the family Army-Navy store while raising Berger and his sister.

He went to Cornell, and then Harvard law school. He met Bill Clinton while the two worked on George McGovern’s 1972 presidential campaign.

“There is no one I have relied on more these past eight years,” President Clinton wrote Berger in a letter as the pair left office in January 2001. “You never flinched when American’s interests and values demanded that we make unpopular choices.”

Berger remained an important political and foreign policy figure in Washington. In August, he wrote an opinion piece for Politico in support of the Iran nuclear agreement.

“It is not without risks, and it does not solve the Iran threat in the region. But it will prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon for at least 15 years,” he wrote.

Berger is survived by his wife, Susan, in addition to three children and five grandchildren, Albright said.

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United Airlines on Tuesday announced that it’s buying more than 6,000 iPhone 6 Plus phones for its customer service employees.

This is on top of the 23,000 iPhone 6 Plus phones it bought for its flight attendants a year ago.

United has written custom iOS apps for the phones that will do some pretty nifty things.

For instance, the app will let a customer service rep print boarding passes or tag baggage from anywhere in the airport, as long as the customer has already checked into the flight.

Or they can help passengers find alternative flight options, and such.

United has been an all-in poster child for Apple since 2011, when it outfitted its pilots with 11,000 iPads.

Apple’s success with United is important to the company. It is really trying to push its devices more deeply into the lucrative commercial/business markets, first through its partnership with Apple and more recently with Cisco.

CEO Tim Cook sees sales to businesses as one of Apple’s big growth areas.

And, he says that this push is working. He said in October that sales to large enterprise companies “accounted for about $25 billion in annual Apple revenue in the last 12 months, up 40% over the prior year and they represent a major growth vector for the future.”

SEE ALSO: 50 enterprise startups to bet your career on in 2016

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NOW WATCH: These sneakers have a gorgeous animated display that you can customize with your phone in seconds

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Barcelona (AFP) – Sandro Ramirez scored a hat-trick as Barcelona swept aside third-tier Villanovense 6-1 on Wednesday to book their place in the last 16 of the Copa del Rey.

Barca boss Luis Enrique left Lionel Messi out of his 16-man squad, whilst Neymar and Luis Suarez remained on the bench as Barca’s mix of youngsters and veterans proved way too strong for Villanovense after they had held out bravely for a 0-0 draw in the first leg five weeks ago.

Dani Alves’s dipping long range effort which took Villanovense ‘keeper Jose Antonio Fuentes by surprise opened the floodgates after just four minutes.

Ramirez then ended his 12-month wait for a goal with the Barca senior side as he slammed into the roof of the net after capitalising on a fluffed clearance by Fuentes.

Juanfran gave the visitors a moment to savour just before the half hour mark when he fired into the top corner of Jordi Masip’s top right-hand corner to reduce the deficit to a single goal.

However, Ramirez eased any Barca nerves two minutes later with a cool finish from Aitor Cantalapiedra’s pass.

Both Ramirez and Munir El Haddadi failed to score in the two months that they shared deputising for Messi whilst the Argentine was sidelined by a knee ligament injury recently.

But against weaker opposition they showed their potential as El Haddadi headed home Jeremy Mathieu’s cross to make it 4-1.

Ramirez swept home from close range to complete his hat-trick 21 minutes from time and then teed up El Haddadi with a lovely backheel to round off the scoring seven minutes later.

Real Madrid get their Cup campaign underway later on Wednesday when they travel to Cadiz for the first leg of their fourth round tie.

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Impeachment proceedings were opened Wednesday against Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff by the nation’s speaker of the lower house of Congress, a sworn enemy of the beleaguered leader.

A special commission in the lower house, in which all political are proportionally represented, must now way the decision of speaker Eduardo Cunha to open the proceedings against Rousseff based on accusations her government broken fiscal responsibility laws.

If the commission approves the impeachment proceedings, it then moves to a full vote in the lower house where two-thirds of deputies must approve it.

While the impeachment is expected to get by the commission, most political analysts say that at this time, it is not expected that the measure will get the two-thirds votes necessary for it to move forward.

Rousseff began her second term in office on Jan. 1 and has been hobbled by a massive political corruption scandal centered around a kickback scheme at state-run oil company Petrobras.

Rousseff herself faces no accusations of wrongdoing in the corruption scandal _ while Cunha, the house speaker who introduced the impeachment proceedings, faces corruption charges before the Supreme Court for allegedly taking millions in bribes.

Since her narrow re-election, Rousseff has faced repeated calls for her to be impeached or step-down _ but with no direct link to the Petrobras scandal, her opponents’ calls have until now gone unheeded.

But Brazil’s federal audit court in October ruled that Rousseff broke the nation’s “fiscal responsibility” law by using money from state-run banks to fill budget gaps and pay for government social spending.

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AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The future of the struggling U.S. Grand Prix was thrown into further doubt Wednesday when the 2016 Formula One calendar listed the race as “subject to agreement” with the promotor.

Officials at the Circuit of the Americas have said they are financially strapped after storms wiped out much of the 2015 race weekend and by news the Texas governor’s office is cutting public funding by about 20 percent.

The 2016 race calendar still has the race scheduled for Oct. 23 but with an asterisk. Track officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The $300 million track was built to host the race, which has run in Austin since 2012. Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton has won three times, including this year to clinch this third Formula One championship.

The private investors who built the track, including hedge fund manager Bobby Epstein and billionaire businessman Red McCombs, said they were promised significant help from the state to pay for the commercial rights to hold the race over a 10-year deal. Under an agreement reached with former Gov. Rick Perry and former Comptroller Susan Combs, Texas gave $25 million from the state’s Major Events Trust fund in the first year.

Promoters said they were counting on that money every year. But a 2010 letter from Perry and Combs to Formula One’s commercial rights holder Bernie Ecclestone notes the state portion could be less than $25 million for the rest of the contract. The letter says that if tax revenues fall short, promoters must make up the difference.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s office told track officials they will get about $19.5 million from the state for the next race because the formula used to award grants were changed to make them more restrictive.

Combined with local tax revenue, race officials will still get about $23 million in public funds.

Abbott’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the updated race calendar. Abbott was traveling in Cuba on Wednesday, wrapping up a three-day trade mission to the island nation.

Austin Mayor Steve Adler has called the race an important event for the Texas capital. But he also has told track officials they can’t look to the city for a “bailout.”

Track officials have said the event has pumped “hundreds of millions” of dollars into the Austin and Texas economies since 2012 and applied for state funding under the same formula as Super Bowls, NCAA basketball tournaments and other events.

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While Thanksgiving is often a time for family antics, this video of a 60-year-old man getting a beer from his forehead to his mouth without using his hands might  take the cake. 

“When your 60 year old step dad bets you he can place a beer on his forehead and drink it without using his hands or arms………….. And he totally kills it,” Alyse Schiedler captioned the video on Facebook.

Since uploading the video on Saturday, it’s been viewed almost 8 million times. 

First, Schiedler’s stepdad carefully makes his way to the floor with the cup on his forehead. 

Next, he reaches his legs back to pick up the cup with his knees. Not bad for somebody who is 60!

Then, he rolls backwards to set the cup on the ground. 

Finally, he finishes by drinking the beer. And all without using ever his hands or arms.

Check out the entire video here or below. 

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CINCINNATI (AP) — An armed suspect who killed a Cincinnati police officer and then was shot to death by police wanted to ambush and kill as many officers as possible, a prosecutor said Wednesday.

Hamilton County prosecutor Joe Deters said there will be no charges in the case. Deters said 21-year-old Trepierre Hummons, had he survived, would have been facing the death penalty for shooting Officer Sonny Kim.

“I believe the motivation was, his goal was, to lure and kill as many police officers as he could,” Deters said.

He said Tom Sandmann, the officer who killed Hummons, “deserves a medal” for saving lives. “There could have been a lot more dead police officers,” Deters said.

Deters said after his investigation, he saw no need to take the case to a grand jury.

Cincinnati police had earlier said they thought Hummons was seeking a “suicide by cop.” But Deters said Wednesday he believed that Hummons, who was distraught after being accused of sexual assault by a girlfriend, was making “an attempt at mass murder.”

Deters also said that Hummons was under the influence of alcohol and some type of drug.

Hummons’ mother, Khanita Maston, told a Cincinnati Enquirer reporter while she was watching the news conference on television that Deters’ version of events wasn’t accurate.

“What they said, that’s not what happened,” she said, declining further comment

Deters also released dashboard-camera video from Sandmann’s police cruiser, following a months-long standoff with news organizations. During a news conference being broadcast live locally, Deters played only a brief clip showing Hummons standing near Kim, who was on the ground, and then advancing toward Sandmann while pointing a gun at him. Hummons’ hands fly into the air, then he appears to turn back toward Sandmann just before he disappears from view.

Deters said Hummons fell after being hit, then was shot again as he tried to reach for his gun.

Deters urged the news media to be sensitive in what they aired from the video. Kim’s widow had appealed publicly against its release, saying it would add to the family’s grief.

Police have said Kim, 48, was responding to two 911 calls about a man with a gun. The 911 caller reported that the subject was a “belligerent” black man in his early 20s who was wearing a white T-shirt with a gun tucked in his waistband.

Police later determined the caller was Hummons himself.

Kim was the first officer to arrive and Hummons shot him three times, with one of the bullets hitting a major artery, Deters said. After Sandmann arrived, a gunfight broke out, with Hummons using Kim’s gun to shoot at Sandmann, Deters said. The prosecutor said Sandmann opened fire, with two shots hitting Hummons.

Deters told reporters that Hummons’ mother was at the scene when he shot Kim.

Cincinnati’s interim police chief, Eliott Isaac, said Wednesday that all of the officers involved responded appropriately and that lessons to be learned from the tragedy was that officers must always be vigilant and “look after each other.”

Deters said he had talked recently to Kim’s widow. She had written earlier to city officials saying she didn’t want their three children to see Kim “lying helplessly on the ground.”

The Associated Press was among news organizations that sought the video under public records laws.

In July, media organizations including the AP sued Deters when he refused to release police body-camera video involving the July 19 fatal shooting of a black motorist in a traffic stop by a white University of Cincinnati police officer. Deters later released the video when he announced a murder indictment against Officer Ray Tensing. Tensing has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder and voluntary manslaughter.

Deters has asked the Supreme Court to throw out the news media’s lawsuit in that case, saying the issue is moot. But he also said in a motion filed in August he wouldn’t object if the court looked at the overall issue of releasing such video in the midst of investigations, since the issue is likely to come up again.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. health care spending last year grew at the fastest pace since President Barack Obama took office, driven by expanded coverage under his namesake law and by zooming prescription drug costs, the government said Wednesday.

After five years of historically low growth, national health expenditures increased by 5.3 percent in 2014, reaching $3 trillion, or $9,523 for every man, woman and child. That followed a 2.9 percent increase for 2013. Such seemingly small percentage shifts resonate when the total is $3 trillion.

The report by nonpartisan experts at the Department of Health and Human Services may signal the end of an unusually long lull in health care inflation that has benefited the Obama administration. While the president’s health care law has increased coverage, the cost problem doesn’t appear solved. Even now, the Republican-led Congress is preparing to send a repeal bill to his desk.

Renewing concerns about affordability, the report also found that health care spending grew faster than the economy as a whole, reaching 17.5 percent of GDP.

“The return to faster growth and an increased share of GDP in 2014 was largely influenced by the coverage expansions of the Affordable Care Act,” said the report, referring to Obama’s law. It made no predictions, saying future trends depend on how the health care industry adjusts to continuing change and how the economy fares.

Political appointees at HHS responded quickly, saying that spending is still not growing as fast as in the years before Obama’s law, which passed in 2010.

“Health care spending growth stayed well below the trend seen prior to the Affordable Care Act,” Richard Frank, a top economic adviser, said in a statement.

“Aggregate health care spending growth in 2014 had been widely predicted by economists, and it is not surprising given that more people are covered and getting the health care they need,” Frank added. Much of that growth “will be temporary and will fade in the coming years,” he suggested.

The report confirmed the increase in insurance coverage due to Obama’s law, already documented by major national surveys that show the uninsured rate at 9 percent, a historic low. Expanded coverage has long been regarded as a benefit to society, not only the individuals gaining access.

Beyond that, however, it painted a picture of costs creeping upward at many critical points in the system.

Among the major findings:

— Prescription drug spending shot up by 12.2 percent in 2014, driven by new medications for hepatitis C infection, as well as treatments for cancer and multiple sclerosis. Hepatitis C drugs contributed $11.3 billion in new spending.

— The growth in per-person health care spending was driven mainly by greater use of medical services, which outpaced increases in the price of those services. That suggests that some newly insured people got care they had previously gone without. Additionally, already-insured people may have gotten elective treatments postponed earlier during lean economic times.

— Medicare spending increased by 5.5 percent last year, the fastest rate of growth since 2009. The two biggest reasons were the rising cost of prescription drugs, and more spending for doctors’ services and other outpatient care.

— Spending on Medicaid, the federal-state health insurance program for low-income people, jumped by 11 percent in 2014, the fastest growth in more than a decade. That was mainly driven by the health law’s Medicaid expansion, which is optional for states. In some reassuring news for states that face surging Medicaid rolls, the report found that per-person spending declined due to healthier people signing up in the program. Also, the federal government picked up nearly all the new costs.

Some outside experts who reviewed the report say they don’t see a return to galloping inflation, but even modest increases could lead to affordability problems.

“We don’t read in this any sign that the pressure is off now and we are going back to double-digit growth,” said economist Charles Roehrig of the Altarum Institute, a Michigan-based nonprofit that does health care system research and consulting.

But even if health care spending grew at a slower rate, closer to the overall economy, it would still be a major problem. That’s “not sustainable in the long term unless we want to increase the amount we collect in taxes,” said Roehrig.

The federal report was published online by the health policy journal Health Affairs.

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