our guest is roger ferguson. he's with us now from new york city. r, good as always to have you with us. we appreciate it. let's go and talk a little bit about annuities and whether today's annuities are better than yesterday's annuities. annuities were high cost low return and usually not recommended for those reasons. >> the answer is that there are some annuityies that still fit that classification. there are some that are probably too high cost for sure. some that are relatively opaque. my company, we try to do lower cost annuities that are probably more appropriate for many of your listeners. the real message here i think is yes, the annuities may well be the right answer for many middle income americans as they try to look for guaranteed income for life. but they have to choose ones that have properties that are what i would describe as consumer friendly. lower cost relatively simple. and backed by a really strong balance sheet, such as the one that we have right now. >> roger, does it matter whether they are fixed or variable annuities, immedi