Yesterday I compared the financial planning process to a labyrinth. Later in the day I taught a class on financail planning for a group of seasoned financial advisors and presented them wth this same analogy. I suggested that they may not be advising their clients properly if they were not advocating the use of cash value [...]
A labyrinth, unlike a maze, offers only one path to its center. To exit the labyrinth you have to retrace your steps.
The financial planning and advising business has become a labyrith of sorts. There are so many shibboleths (oft repeated statements that are held to be true just because they are repeated so often and [...]
American’s who follow the practices of Money for Life…in good times and bad may have money in the markets. They may even be experiencing losses as the markets self-destruct. The equities they hold may lose value. They have no reason to panic, however, and they are able to maintain peace of mind about their money situation.
Money for [...]
“History shows that once nominal growth slows in a heavily indebted economy, there can be no recovery until the excess debt is eliminated…Too many people have become complacent about deflation. But watch out. Debt has grown too large to be sustained out of cash flow. As soon as the balance sheet is depleted, a deeper [...]
Tax deductibility is a trap…all by itself. It rarely creates a real benefit and often creates real problems - even when you do it right. Your IRA deduction is probably costing you money without you knowing it, but at least it’s fully legitimate.
Relying on tax deductibility becomes even more dangerous when the advisor who proposes a tax [...]
An interesting comment on the radio this morning sent me searching the internet for information about how the White Star Line dealt with the life boats on the Titanic. While the White Star Line spared no expense on almost every aspect of the Titanic - from dinner plates for the steegage class to the redundant power [...]
I recently held a dialogue with an advisor, (we’ll call him Mike - not his real name) who holds what he claims to be different, but equally valid opinions regarding whole life insurance. His first comments were replete with factual errors, made general statements that were off topic, and offered some not very kind judgments that were personal, [...]
InvestorsInsight - http://www.investorsinsight.com/ - delivers profound information and accurate forecasts on a regular basis. Today you can read a penetrating analysis and bold forecast from one of the world’s leading economic think tanks as well as Gary Halbert’s comments in his Weekly E-Letter.
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1/15/2008 I won’t burden you with my opinion, just give you the [...]
Are you aware that a generation ago, American men in their 30s had median annual incomes of about $40,000? Today, men of the same age, make about $35,000 a year, adjusted for inflation. That’s a 12.5% drop over the last 30 years.
Perhaps, if that were a 12.5% gain, there would be more mothers who could choose motherhood [...]
Predictions by Jon Markman, contributing editor to MSN Money…
“For investors, the new year will be defined by a titanic struggle between governments’ efforts to flood the world’s faltering financial system with cash and banks’ efforts to hoard it all for themselves.
Commercial banks are stashing instead of using the cash infusions because leveraged mortgage bets [...]