You want 21 percent risk free? Pay off your credit cards.

Still, most people don't have much money. So finding ways to come out a couple of thousand dollars ahead every year still matters.

Hay fever suffers tend to be above average in intelligence.

The life insurance policies advertised on the radio with the line "You cannot be turned down for this coverage!" are actually saying, "For policies this small, it would cost us more to decide whom to turn down than simply to accept everybody - and make them pay through the nose."

What kind of bank gives back 65 percent-often less-of what you deposit? Indeed, when you compare the services of a bank and an insurance company, common sense suggests something is out of whack.

In short: Readily available low-cost life insurance would be a threat to the industry, and whatever threatens the life insurance industry threatens America.

The first life insurance societies where formed in England in the years between 1692 and 1720. In America, life insurance became available to the clergy through the Presbyterian Ministers Fund, founded in 1759 (still in existence), and the Episcopal Corporation, founded ten years later (subsequently merged).