February 2018

Better the Devil You Know, Than the Devil You Don’t

Annuity peddlers beware. There might be a new sheriff in town. The New York Department of Financial Services has decided to step into the regulatory void created by the endless delay of the implementation of the Department of Labor’s Fiduciary Rule. Maybe insurers should have chosen door #1. According to Katherine Chiglinsky of Bloomberg, “New York State’s top…

Where Everybody Doesn’t Know Your Name

Investing and driving are eerily similar. Both are dominated by open systems, unknown variables, and irrational human behavior; a recipe for traffic accidents and market crashes. Tom Vanderbilt’s book, TRAFFIC, describes the chaos of our roads.  And, if the word roads is replaced with markets, then we have an excellent description of the daily insanity of global stock…

It’s Monday Again…..When Is My Retirement?

Those who fail to plan-plan to fail. Don’t be part of somebody else’s dream. Start planning for retirement now by reading this week’s links. Do you own gun stocks in your portfolio? It’s complicated. Barrons There are 3 inexpensive retirement plans for self-employed people. Kiplinger Life without retirement savings is something you want to avoid….

A Dark History Of Guns And Violence

“Democracy came too early” – Peter Spierenburg, We have a gun culture unlike any other developed nation. Why? History usually provides the answers to the most perplexing of problems. It doesn’t disappoint here. Cullen Roche states the enormity of the problem: “I think this is an impossible issue to solve because I think it’s a…

Financial Sludge

The opposite of nudge is sludge. Many financial firms sign people up for products they don’t want or need. Compounding their sins, some companies make it very difficult for customers to escape. They sludge them with complicated, confusing and time-consuming paperwork. Take a look at what serial offender Wells Fargo has done. As a way…

Incompetence-Based Investing

Good news! Your so-called financial advisor may not be giving you conflicted advice. Bad news! He may be an IDIOT. The results are in from a survey of 4,000 advisors and their clients located in Canada. The Misguided Beliefs of Financial Advisors confirms something I have suspected for quite a while; the vast majority of people…

It’s Tuesday Again…..When Is My Retirement?

It’s a short work week for most. Make it much shorter in the future by reading these retirement tips. Spend more of your money in retirement before it’s too late. Market Watch How you can avoid retirement boredom. New York Times Your final chance to reverse a Roth IRA conversion. Market Watch What exactly do you…

The Details You Should Never Ignore

Dina here … As our sons started to dip their toes in online consumerism via eBay and Amazon, I realized it was time for an education. Armed with gift cards and trigger-happy index fingers, it was too easy to buy. They lacked the healthy skepticism smart consumers have. They would inadvertently by an accessory to…

YOLO!

Newsflash! Many retirees are not spending ENOUGH in retirement. This flies directly in the face of the “retirement crisis” that is constantly drummed into our brains. We see this on a daily basis. Many clients constantly focus on the threat of running out of money rather than enjoying the fruits of decades of saving and…

Nobody Knows Nothing

Regarding personal finance, most students and their teachers are functionally illiterate. On a global basis, our schools are below average at providing a sound financial education. Source: National Center for Education Statistics According to Financial Education Stalls, Threatening Kids’ Future Economic Health by Annie Nova, CNBC, the facts are damning. More than half of states…