Americans are looking for ways to spend less, but when it comes to life insurance they're holding on to their policies, according to a recent report entitled 'The Value of Life in Tough Economic Times', issued by Prudential Financial.

The study found that 93 percent of consumers consider life insurance a 'must'. Despite the fact that 70 percent have cut back on routine expenditures, 84 percent indicated that they view the cost of life insurance as relatively minimal when compared to other items in the household budget.

"Life insurance provides peace of mind, which is a valuable asset given today's economic environment," said Jim Avery, president of Prudential's individual life insurance business.

The study also revealed that 95 percent recognise that life insurance could be significantly more expensive to obtain at an older age, and 55 percent are concerned it could be harder to get coverage due to health conditions. "Ask yourself the question: 'Is my health the same as it was 15, 10 or even five years ago?' The answer is very likely to be no, which underscores the reasons for purchasing life insurance earlier rather than later," Mr. Avery noted.

Prudential's 'The Value of Life in Tough Economic Times' was conducted in conjunction with the company's sponsorship of Life Insurance Awareness Month. The report is part of a survey entitled Taking a Pulse of Americans' Changing Life Insurance Needs that was conducted online between June 24 and July 1. The data was collected for Prudential by MRops, a Pennsylvania based, independent market research firm.

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Prudential Life isn't doing it, but The New York Times reported last week that some companies are assembling and collateralising bunches of life insurance settlements, chopping them up into tranches to allow for suitable ratings, and then selling them off. This is the exact method that was used by retailers of sub-prime mortgage bonds that brought the economic world such great difficulties in the past 18 months. Will we never learn?

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Reuters has reported that the 2008 global recession caused the first worldwide contraction in assets under management in nearly a decade, according to a study that found global wealth had dropped by 11.7 percent in 2008 to $92.4 trillion.

A return to 2007 levels of wealth will take six years, according to a Boston Consulting Group study that examined assets overseen by the asset management industry.

North America, particularly the United States, was the hardest hit region, Reuters said, reporting a 21.8 percent decline in wealth firms' assets under management to $29.3 trillion, primarily because of the beating US equity investments took in 2008.

Also hit hard were offshore centres, such as Switzerland (which is landlocked, and cannot therefore rightfully be considered to be offshore) and the Caribbean, Reuters said, where assets declined to $6.7 trillion in 2008 from $7.3 trillion in 2007, an eight percent drop. It was unclear whether Bermuda was included in the "Caribbean" category.

Europe posted a slightly higher $32.7 trillion of assets under management, edging out North America for the wealthiest region, though the total wealth in Europe dropped by 5.8 percent last year.

Latin America was the only region to report a gain in assets under management, posting a three percent uptick to $2.5 trillion in 2008 from $2.4 trillion in 2007.

The global economy's retreat also pounded millionaires who made risky investments during the economic boom. The number of millionaires worldwide shrank by 17.8 percent, or one in six, to nine million. Europe and North America were hardest hit in that regard, posting 22 percent declines. The United States still boasts 3.9 million millionaires, which Reuters said was the highest population on the globe.

Singapore, Reuters said, had the highest density of millionaires at 8.5 percent of the population, or one in 12 people. Other countries included Switzerland at 6.6 percent, Kuwait at 5.1 percent, and United Arab Emirates at 4.5 percent.

I take issue with that last paragraph. I'd bet that, if the wealth of all Bermuda residents were measured, more than 10 percent would be millionaires. After all, with a light lunch costing upwards of $100 and a simple car service starting somewhere north of $1,000, you'd almost have to be a millionaire to live a full life here.

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Speaking of millionaires, as you may know, comedian Jay Leno began a new chat show this week. One of his first guests was the "documentary film-maker" Michael Moore. I used the inverted commas because what Mr. Moore does is no more documentary than what I do in this column. We are both providers of personal opinion.

Mr. Moore has made a new film about capitalism. He weighs rather more than 300 pounds, at a guess. Mr. Leno is proud of his collection of dozens of gas-guzzling cars. How unintentionally amusing it was, therefore, to see the two men decrying greed in the corporate world, when both are clearly among the greediest human beings who ever lived. Mr. Moore must have eaten the equivalent of several small planets, and Mr. Leno is doing his best to destroy this one.

Neither man produces anything of lasting value, yet both claimed the moral high ground over those who produce jobs, wealth and lives for others (although some business people are also, it should be said, guilty of greed). Neither Mr. Moore nor Mr. Leno saw any connection between their own, disgusting greed and that of those who run corporations that enable most of us to eat in much smaller quantities and drive much smaller (and fewer) vehicles.

A matter, surely, of comedians, heal thyselves.