"But you can certainly find situations where you'd be a fool to drop an existing policy, " Mr. Daily says, especially if it's an older "whole life" policy the kind that builds cash value some of which offer a tax-deferred rate of return on the cash value of over 3%.

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With the majority of CDOs being backed by mortgages, the principal-only tranche has a known future cash flow, but at a variable rate of return, while the interest-only tranche has both an unknown cash flow and an unknown rate of return on that cash flow.

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Because the dividends on Laffer Shares would vary depending upon GDP growth rates, the markets would discount the expected cash flows at an equity rate of return, which is considerably higher than the interest rate on government bonds.

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