My Comments: Over the years, I've called myself slightly different things when people ask me what I do for a living. If I was a plumber or car salesman, it would be fairly easy. But as an entrepreneur in financial services, you are always searching for that quick response that defines who you are and …
Continue reading Americans to Financial Planners: We Need Help!
My Comments: All of us are uncertain and anxious about the upcoming elections and how the outcome will impact our lives. The following article and the one I have scheduled for tomorrow suggest that life will go on, no matter what. And that life is going to be pretty good for most of us, no …
My Comments: I describe myself as a financial planner and investment advisor. I use this blog to attempt to bring my ideas to the general public, some of whom will from time to time contact me for advice. (at least that’s the plan...) Meanwhile, members of the general public are faced with a choice of …
Continue reading SEC Offers Primer on Selecting a Financial Planner
My Comments: As a financial planner for longer than I can remember, there has always been tension around the question of whether or not to have an individual retirement account, or IRA. The IRS makes the rules that allow someone to put earned income in a special account with tax advantages. You know what I …
Continue reading Are Richer Clients Getting Outsized Benefits From Tax Deferral?
"Money isn't the most important thing in life, but it's reasonably close to oxygen on the "gotta have it" scale." Zig Ziglar So I asked my clients, "which would you prefer; a plan that has a 70% chance of success or one that has a 90% chance of success?" We had been discussing how to …
My Comments: My habit is to post a blog every Monday about investments and retirement planning. My intent is to help educate you about the forces out there that will influence how your money will grow in the years to come. Among the writers I’ve come to revere over the years has been Nick Murray. …
My Comments: For the past 3 and 1/2 years, I've been listening to negatives from the right. Some of them have been justified. But many of them simply appeal to the inability of voters to understand the most basic facts of life. For example, after about 40 years as a financial advisor and insurance agent, …
Continue reading Romney’s Dodd-Frank Kill Pledge Collides With Wall Street Agenda
My Comments: Right now is a relatively quiet time for those individuals and firms who make a living doing tax returns. Everyone I know, and I know many of them, have a lump in their throat when they think about January and the coming year. That's when the rubber hits the road and most, if …
My Comments: The ideas behind this article have filtered through my mind for decades. Everyone and their brother talks about the value of socking away money in an IRA or other tax advantaged retirement plan. And there is an advantage to this, only it has nothing to do with taxes. The advantage is the perceived …
My Comments: This article is further confirmation that these are not “normal” times. My efforts to help you manage your money cannot follow the traditional “buy and hold” approach that worked in the eighties and nineties. If you expect to have more money in the future than you have now, you have to be either …
Continue reading A Modern-day Depression: The Current Secular Market Cycle Mirrors the Past
Helping Define Your Financial Future 