PhD, MSFP, MBA, LLB, BSCE
Registered Investment Adviser
Life and Disability Insurance Analyst
DAILY COMMENTARY FOR THE WEEK OF
May 11, 2008
THESE COMMENTS AND WEB LINKS ARE OFFERED FOR A COUPLE WEEKS AND THEN DELETED. YOU HAVE TO COME HERE OFTEN TO BE SURE YOU GET ALL THE NEW STUFF SINCE I TEND TO UPDATE DAILY. (MOST OF THE LINKS ARE THEN ADDED TO OTHER PAGES ON MY SITE AND SOME OF THE COMMENTS MAY BE EXPANDED ON IN OTHER SECTIONS.)
USA Today- "This
is a high-powered personal bookmark list that spans the spectrum of the truly
useful."
FORBES- "You'll find some great information."
BUSINESS WEEK: "For an Expert, Click here"
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Online Investor Sourcebook: One of the top Personal Finance sites on the Internet
From a industry journalist: "It is wonderful - full of very sound advice, and in your typical no nonsense style, you've made sure the reader knows what is what. As usual, you have pulled no punches, and spared no illicit or immoral activity and/or schemes. Good for you. Investors need a healthy dose of reality, sans the sugar-coating."
Industry dialogue: From noted author Rick Ferri. "I GUARANTEE this book is worth every penny. For a little bit of insight into who E F Moody is, go to the widely acclaimed EFMoody.com website. You will not be disappointed."
From a reader: Errold Moody is unusually well qualified to write a book about financial planning. He enjoys more credentials than nearly anybody in the field. In my opinion, no one can be an expert in all the subjects covered. Mr. Moody comes as close as possible.
From a reader: I am studying for my MS in financial planning. I use information from your site to stimulate my appetite in contrast to the traditional texts used in the course. Your site and book rocks!
Yale: As stated, my book is not for industry. Generally, they don't like it since it shows a lot of the warts that exist. That said, others find it very useful. I acted as an expert witness on a major case. One of the attorneys found it useful. He also had this to say: "I showed it to another expert of ours, David ........, who is a Yale professor. He thought it was great and said he was going to order a copy. And he is going to require it for his students."
From a reader: Thank you for writing the informative and refreshingly honest No-Nonsense Finance. Unfortunately, I found myself described amongst the pages as the uneducated investor who takes advice from a friend, hires a planner and a broker and loses 60% of her money. Ouch. Luckily, yours is the first publication that actually explains what went wrong and how to take more grounded steps going forward. Your book (and website) have helped me begin to understand many important principles for prudent investing. Thank you again for your dedication to making Finance and Investing accessible for the rest of us.
From a reader: I am in middle of reading No Nonsense Finance and think it is one of the best financial books I have read to date. Due to watching my monthly statements continue to remain stagnant and the absence of any calls from my various brokers, I decided to take matters into my own hands and become my family's self-proclaimed CFO. First step was a financial plan from a CFP which turned out to be a 68 page piece of crap with relatively no validity or specific recommendations.
From a reader: Read part of Moody's book last night and this morning. Moody covers the 2000-2002 years so well and I really needed to see someone knowledgeable address it. You certainly never see anything in any magazines or from CFPs providing any real information.
From a reader: Your book arrived, wow, must say it has had a major impact on my perspective. As I read and absorb the information, I gain clarity on all levels.
My direction or approach has shifted, taking into consideration my own ignorance as well as the misleading information & handling of my funds. Understand the importance of being prepared to take responsibility for my own actions, along with taking time to gather information necessary to present my case in any forum.
Your book has become an important tool for me, confident I will gain satisfaction if presented properly.
Thank you for putting the information together in such a way that makes sense, especially when life doesn't!
From a reader- I picked up your book last year, read it, put it down and picked it back up during the last couple of months. I would first like to say your writing is indeed hilarious and I have enjoyed every minute spent reading it. !
From a reader: I've read parts of your book & have been reviewing your web site & frankly ----WOW!!! What you are saying is beginning to open my eyes & making some sense to me , However it also struck fear in my heart -knowing how stupid I've have been all these years.
From a reader: I most especially enjoyed your tapes. I also bought your book and read it cover to cover. I have been profoundly enlightened. Thanks. I also share your cynicism and caution about getting financial advise.
Another reader: I purchased your book to investigate issues related to long term care and it was very helpful.
* Of course I am not going to print the couple responses from people who hated it. But I will tell you this- they wanted/expected me to provide the "exact" triggers that would tell you what, when and where to invest. If you want that, try Rich Dad/Poor Dad, or some other piece of sophomoric claptrap. Or ask some CFP, Suze Orman, whoever. None of them have ever been taught the risks of investing.
No Nonsense Finance was published in Chinese in 2005. If it didn't make sense in English, try this.
Investment Malfeasance and Breach of Fiduciary Duty
A report describing the fallacies of knowledge and competency from planners to B/D Firms, attorneys and arbitrators. And absolutely for consumers
Factual and objective. It is based on this solid premise: If you do not understand diversification by the numbers, you cannot determine risk. If you cannot determine risk, you cannot determine suitability.
Human (Ir)rationality, Marketing, and Investment Sophistication
A formal paper on why so many people do the wrong things with investing and are marketed to continue to do so
Irrevocable Life Insurance Trusts and Trustee Fiduciary Duty
John Hancock ILIT Policy Analysis This is the real life analysis that is referenced above.
I have asked Errold Moody to provide a brief example of what he has actually found on behalf of a client who engaged his services to review the insurance contracts which funded the client's estate plan. You will be amazed. In my 30 years in the business, I have never seen an authoritative, objective, prudent expert speak so clearly on the use of insurance. What Errold can do is unique in the industry.
Steven Winks
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UBS AG, battered by $17.3 billion of first-quarter losses at its investment-banking unit, plans to cut 5,500 jobs and said clients withdrew a net $12.2 billion from its asset- and wealth-management divisions.
The headcount reductions, which amount to about 7 percent of the workforce, will include as many as 2,600 positions at the securities division,
But think of this. Some of the (supposed) best minds in the securities business lost almost $20 billion in one quarter. This is indicative of the basic financial acumen of this industry.Berkshire Hathaway, Warren E. Buffett’s investment company, said on Friday that first-quarter profit tumbled 64 percent because of losses tied to derivative contracts.
5/4: No, we ave not turned the corner: The Census Bureau reported that 2.9 percent of homes intended for owner occupancy were vacant at the end of the first quarter, a number that before 2006 had never exceeded 2 percent.
Now that is just plain funny!
5/4: Alzheimers: By 2050 11 million to 16 million Americans will have the disease.
However, from VERY personal experience, do NOT believe you are coming down with the disease if you misplace your keys, cannot remember someone's name (perhaps you never liked them anyway, so what's the problem?). As you get older, you have more things to remember. If you are in a stressful job or, in particular, if you are attempting to do many things at the same time, you are effectively guaranteed to misplace stuff. With some of the reports I do, my brain is spinning and the effort to remember my keys, where I put the stamps, why I put my underwear on my cat- are all just "extra stuff" that means very little overall. I am doing too many things. Nothing to be concerned about.
5/4: The American economy lost 20,000 jobs in April, the fourth consecutive month of decline, in what many economists took as powerful evidence that the United States is almost certainly now ensnared in a recession. But some are saying the loss was not as big as expected so things "are getting better". I do not think so.
Spending grew 0.1 percent in March when adjusted for inflation, after staying flat in February and recording a slight rise in January, the Commerce Department reported Thursday. At the end of last year, spending actually declined.
“What you’ve got here is a very dramatic consumer slowdown,” said Ian Shepherdson, chief United States economist at High Frequency Economics in London. “It’s much more severe than anything we saw in 2001,” he added, referring to the last recession.
Unadjusted consumer spending rose 0.4 percent in March, more than expected, but that figure does not take into account the immense price run-up in food and gasoline
Run, run I say!
The earnings rate for Series I Savings Bonds is a combination of a fixed rate, which applies for the life of the bond, and the semiannual inflation rate. The 4.84% earnings rate for I bonds bought from May through October 2008 will apply for their first six months after issue. The earnings rate combines a 0.00% fixed rate of return with the 4.84% annualized rate of inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index for all Urban Consumers (CPI-U). The fixed rate applies for the 30-year life of I bonds purchased during this six-month period. The CPI-U increased from 208.490 to 213.528 from September 2007 through March 2008, a six-month increase of 2.42%.
Bonds held less than five years are subject to a three-month interest penalty.
5/4: LTC: The average annual price of a private U.S. nursing home room has increased to $76,460 this year, up 2% from the 2007 average.The cost of a semiprivate nursing home rose 4%, to $68,408, while the cost of an hour of care from a non-skilled home health aide held steady at about $19.
The hourly cost of care by a skilled, Medicare-certified provider increased 18%, to $38.
Adult day care cost about $59 per hour
5/4: BofA Investment to disgorge $10 million
Banc of
America Investment Services failed to disclose to clients that it favored two
mutual funds affiliated with them.
Virtually
guaranteed issue if your client can answer NO to the questions
below.
A. Do you
currently receive kidney dialysis or require oxygen use or have you been
diagnosed as having a terminal illness?(Terminal illness is defined as any
illness diagnosed that would reasonably be expected to cause death within
twenty-four(24) months.) Yes or
No
B. Do you
require assistance to eat, bathe, dress or take your own medication or are you
currently confined to a hospital, nursing home, mental facility or Hospice or
have you been hospitalized two or more times in the past twelve months?
Yes or
No
C. Has the
proposed insured ever been diagnosed as having or been treated for AIDS
(Acquired Immune Deficiency
Syndrome) or
ARC (AIDS Related Complex) by a member of the medical profession, or tested
positive for HIV antibodies as part of a test conducted for the purpose of
obtaining insurance? Yes or
No
Any
question answered “Yes” in this section will disqualify the applicant for the
Express Issue Whole Life Policy.
Policy
Description Express Issue Whole Life
Issue
ages 45-80
$2,000
Minimum - $50,000 Maximum
Graded
Death Benefit in first 2 years Full face amount beginning 3rd
year
First
year return of premium plus 12%
Second
year return of premium plus 24%
ADB
included in first 2 years (full death benefit for accidental
death)
Sample
annual premium rates per thousand face
amount*
Non
Tobacco
Age
45
50
55
60
65
70
75 80
Male
$
37.68 45.40 55.53
73.45 98.08 125.35
160.00
208.33
Female
$
31.40 37.06 44.43
57.59 75.45 98.31
128.02 166.67
Tobacco
Age
45
50
55
60
65
70
75 80
Male
$
47.10 59.59 76.36
105.55 147.12 188.03 240.02 312.49
Female
$
39.25 48.64 61.09
82.79 113.16 147.48 192.01
250.00
*
Add $50.00 policy fee. Premium rates and/or availability of product may be
changed without prior notice.



Four Asset Portfolio vs. S&P 500, 1972-2007
REITs, commodities, stocks, and bonds
S&P 500- yellow
Inflation black
Four Asset- green
4/29: Asia is doing O.K.- for now: Japan's Nikkei briefly surpassed 14,000 for the first time in two months as Asian stock markets rose on the back of refreshed optimism about recently battered financial shares
4/29: Oil goes to $120 and the market goes UP. Dweebs
4/29: the FED will probably drop rates another .25%, but it will have to stop after that. Inflation is going up , up and UP.
*Ushers will eat latecomers.
4/29: Comments on Fiduciary to the NY Times
4/29: Houses: (Yahoo) Sales of new homes plunged in March to the lowest level in 16 1/2 years as housing slumped further at the start of the spring sales season. The median price of a new home in March, compared with a year ago, fell by the largest amount in nearly four decades. The Commerce Department reported Thursday that sales of new homes dropped by 8.5 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 526,000 units, the slowest sales pace since October 1991. The median price of a home sold in March dropped by 13.3 percent compared with March 2007, the biggest year-over-year price decline since a 14.6 percent plunge in July 1970. The dismal news on new home sales followed earlier reports showing sales of existing homes fell by 2 percent in March. Housing, which boomed for five years, has been in a prolonged slump for the past two years with sales and home prices falling at especially sharp rates in formerly boom areas of the country
I can fly!!!!!
4/28: Financial Diet (Times) In March, Americans spent less on women’s clothing (down 4.9 percent), furniture (3.1 percent), luxury goods (1.3 percent) and airline tickets (1.1 percent) compared with a year ago.
4/28: Derivatives: (Times) Derivatives are privately negotiated and often complex financial contracts theoretically designed to limit risk. Their value is derived from an underlying basket of assets, like stocks, bonds or loans. Advocates say that derivatives, used wisely, foster economic activity. Critics contend that as derivatives trading has boomed over the last decade, it has led to high-octane speculation more akin to gambling than to sensible hedging of financial risk.
Once again I point readers to what should have been obvious. If the market is up or at least flat, many "theoretical" concepts will do just fine. But when situations finally hit, the theory may not work at all. Want validation? Long Term Capital. 27 PhDs and 2 Nobel Laureates had "theoretically" determined what to do under "any" financial conditions. Then the world changed and the programs could not keep up. and a $6 billion bailout
4/28: DECEPTION AND LYING BEHAVIOR LINK-Attempts have been made to define what lying actually is and these definitions vary. On the whole they consist of the idea of a false communication that is to the benefit of the communicator. A number of reasons are given as to why people lie including to make a goodimpression, to avoid punitive action or for the purpose of gaining an advantage.
1) Defining deception or lying.
2) Why and when do people deceive or lie?
3) What are some of the individual differences in lying?
4) What are the types of deception (lying)?
5) How and why do children practice deception?
There is also the question of whether lying is always wrong and indeed it is not. Zeltzer (2003) emphasises the value of lying or not be totally honest in ones dealing with others as a form of lubrication of socialisation. Telling a white lie, or “therafibbing” can be of value.
The distinction between misinformation and disinformation becomes especially important in political editorials, and advertising contexts where deliberate efforts are made to mislead, deceive, or confuse an audience in order to promote personal, religious, or ideological objectives. The difference consists in having an agenda. This bears comparison with lying because ‘lies’ are assertion that are false, that are known to be false, and that are used with the intention to mislead (Fetzer, 2004). They are also meant to confuse. As already mentioned earlier, deceiving oneself can also culminate into the fear of deception. Barnes (2004) indicates that the term ‘lie’ has a broad range of meaning; like many other recent writers on lying, not all forms of deception are lying and it is cited that a dictionary definition of a lie is but one component of what is the 57intention to deceive; the other component being a statement that the liar believes to be untrue.
Lying is most likely to occur in those who adopt what is termed the “Machiavellian approach to life,” i.e. being opportunistic and adapting any kind of behaviour necessary to get what one seeks.Participants reported telling their serious lies to get what they
wanted or to do what they thought they were entitled to do, or to avoid
punishment. Lies also occurred to protect oneself from confrontation,
in an attempt to appear to be the type of person they wish they were,
to protect others, and to hurt others. The degree to which the liars
and the targets felt distressed about the lies differed significantly
across these different types of lies. Similar results were obtained by
Grover (1997) in an earlier study indicating that self interest was the
major reason for deception or lying.
EXCEPTIONAL ARTICLE
4/28: Peter Bernstein on the recent financial debacle (WSJ) How long do you think this whole process will take, before we get back to normal?
Mr. Bernstein: Longer than people think. The people who think we will have turned in 2009 are wrong. There has to be a respite along the way. Nothing goes in one direction forever. But it will take longer than people think. If that weren't the case, I would be talking entirely differently. I would be saying, "What an opportunity we have got." And I just can't believe that the opportunity is here yet. There is too much to unwind.
WSJ: Can you explain the reason you think it will take a long time?
Mr. Bernstein: We have to go back to a moment when people have the courage to borrow and lenders have the courage to lend. Until credit is going up instead of down, you can't have growth. Housing has got to be a very important part of that; it always has been. You have to reach a point where somebody says, "This house is cheap, I am going to buy it," or where some businessman says, "This is a great opportunity for us to expand our business. Everything is available to us."
If China goes into a recession, God knows. The Iraq war and the whole situation with terrorism, we really don't know where that is going to come out. There are so many things that have got to get buttoned down before you say that the future looks good enough to take a risk.
4/27: Home prices: Yale University economist Robert Shiller, pioneer of the widely watched Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home price index, said there is a good chance housing prices will fall further than the 30 percent drop in the Depression of the 1930s. Home prices nationwide already have dropped 15 percent since their peak in 2006, he said.
Home prices rose about 85 percent from 1997 to 2006 adjusted for inflation, the biggest national housing boom in U.S. history|
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The NYT has an interesting perspective on the mortgage mess. This piece looks at the mortgage mess and by implication blames the whole thing on Moody's and the other bond-rating services S&P and Fitch. I agree with the notion that only the debt-rating services could have stopped this. I do not agree that they alone created it or bear all of the blame.
The article looks at one particular pool of 2,293 subprime mortgages with a total amount of $430 million. Faced with the decision as to how to package and sell this pool of mortgages Moody's divided the bonds sold into 12 tiers and gave the lowest yields to the people who would get paid first and the highest yields to the bonds taking the biggest risk. These folks would be paid only after the other 11 sets were paid. In a perverse way this makes sense but the crux of the problem was that the model which Moody's used to evaluate risk failed. Wait. The model failed miserably.
What was wrong with Moody's model? I think that in fact the answer is very simple. There were two large mistakes. They seriously underestimated the effect that commingling stated income loans with fully documented loan had on foreclosure rates and the assumed that property values would keep rising. Constantly rinsing values allowed the inevitable to be delayed and when values stopped rising everyone got concerned.
Moody's and lenders may say "Well, poor us, we were the victims of a multitude of cases of loan loan fraud in which applicants overstated their income." That is a bad joke. I do not believe that Moody's or lenders were ever unaware of the extent to which stated income was overstated income. A Mortgage Asset Research Institute study that found 90 percent of stated-income borrowers reported incomes higher than those found on file with the Internal Revenue Service and almost 60 percent of the stated incomes were exaggerated by more than 50 percent. Moody's should have had a clue.
Stick a knife in my neck and I will shove a horn up your butt
0
How I really make my money
4/23: The tax extenders bill includes six provisions that are of great importance to philanthropy. These provisions would be effective from January 1, 2008 until December 1, 2009. The six provisions are:
1. IRA Rollovers -- IRA owners over age 70? may transfer tax-free up to $100,000 directly to qualified charities.
2. Conservation Gifts -- The appreciated property limit is raised to 50% (100% for qualified farmers and ranchers) and the carry-forward is extended to 15 years.
3. Gifts of "Apparently Wholesome Food" -- The charitable deduction is increased to the lesser of twice the basis or basis plus half of appreciation.
4. S Corporation Gifts -- Gifts of appreciated property by S Corporations have more favorable basis rules.
5. Gifts of Book Inventory -- An enhanced deduction is available for publishers making gifts of books to schools.
6. Payments to Charities by For-Profit Subsidiaries -- Payments for items such as rent will not be unrelated business income if the payment is at fair market value.
4/23: Groups
React To FINRA VA Rule Delay
Insurance industry groups are welcoming an
announcement that the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has delayed
indefinitely implementation of parts of its new variable annuity marketing rule
because it plans to propose amendments to the controversial provisions in the
near future.
Nothing like delays and procrastination to help the public
4/23: Oil- Crude oil rose to a record $119.90 a barrel in New York as the dollar dropped to an all-time low against the euro.
Readers will note that I said $4 gasoline by this summer quite some time ago. Well maybe $4.25- even $4.50. Unless interest rates RISE the dollar goes lower and the price of oil goes higher.
4/23: Applicable Federal Rate of 3.2% for May -- Rev. Rul. 2008-24; 2008-18 IRB 1 (18 Apr. 2008)
The IRS has announced the Applicable Federal Rate (AFR) for May of 2008. The AFR under Sec. 7520 for the month of May will be 3.2%. The rates for April of 3.4% or March of 3.6% also may be used. The highest AFR is beneficial for charitable deductions of remainder interests. The lowest AFR is best for lead trusts and life estate reserved agreements. With a gift annuity, if the annuitant desires greater tax-free payments, the lowest AFR is preferable. During 2008, pooled income funds in existence less than three tax years must use a 4.8% deemed rate of return.
And, it states that “any producer who advertises himself or herself as holding special status due to training or advanced education must provide documentation of expertise, such as a course syllabus and proof of successful completion of the course of study or training.”
EFM- Still won't work. Who is going to review the syllabus and will they know what is needed? Very doubtful. A minimum standard is the use of a finanical calculator- and no state requries that .
Why I am no longer allowed at the beach
4/22: Hit and miss??: (Times) CONVENTIONAL wisdom recommends that investors start with a high allocation of stock in their portfolios when they are young and reduce it as they approach retirement.
But a recent study of real-world portfolio returns, which fluctuate significantly from month to month and year to year, has found that there is no particular advantage in this approach. You would do just as well, with no greater odds of doing poorly, by simply picking an allocation of stocks and bonds that you can live with for a long while and sticking with it.The professors performed elaborate computer simulations for hypothetical individuals investing for retirement. Each earner is 35 years old and trying to amass $1 million (in 2006 dollars) by age 65, in 30 years’ time. They differ in how they divide their portfolios between stocks and bonds.
They also differ in how the stock and bond markets perform during their decades of investing. For each year and individual, the professors picked randomly from the 80 years from 1926 to 2006. That means, for example, that the period over which an investor is trying to amass wealth could turn out to be like the 30 years beginning in 1929, a period when the market barely beat inflation — or like the 30 years beginning in 1974, a span when stocks provided stellar returns.
By running their simulations thousands of times, and by assuming the future will be like the past, the professors calculated the odds that any given strategy would succeed. Consider, for example, an investor whose portfolio at age 35 has 78 percent allocated to stocks and 22 percent to bonds, and that the equity portion declines gradually so that, at age 65, it is just 40 percent.
Such a scheme is typical of what many financial planners recommend, and is similar to what has been adopted by the so-called life-cycle funds, or target date maturity funds, that mutual fund families in recent years have created. Assume further that this investor contributes $11,000 each year to this portfolio. This would be enough to enable it to reach $1 million by the time he is 65 — provided the stock and bond markets each year perform exactly in line with their long-term averages.
Yearly returns aren’t the same as the long-term averages, though. Based on actual market returns, what are the odds that this investor will succeed? The professors calculate them to be quite low — only 29 percent. Furthermore, the odds aren’t that high that this investor will even get close: the probability of his portfolio being worth at least $750,000, or 75 percent of his goal, is just 62 percent.
4/22: BofA woes: BofA takes $1.9 billion in write-downs
Bank of
America Corp. reported a 77% decline in first-quarter earnings, to $1.21
billion, or $0.23 cents a share
4/21: Scotland has woes too: The Royal Bank of Scotland is planning to raise significantly its target for capital reserves as the lender responds to growing pressure from regulators and investors for banks to hold more capital. Wanna guess why?
4/21: Excuses excuses. Europe's biggest casualty of the subprime crisis explained how its elaborate risk detection procedures failed to detect that it had built up more than $70bn in potentially dangerous positions.
It's one thing to say you picked a fund that did not work. It's another thing for an entire corporation to state it did not have anyone at the helm- all the way to the boileroom- that had any idea that the ship was heading right into a reef. I once again point to Long Term Capital- 27 PhDs and 2 Nobel Laureates that could not set up programs that took into account the volatility of the human element.
In essence if you have a flat economy/market where there are NO extremes most programs will work, albeit still with certain uncertainties. It is the extremes that cannot be accounted for that needs to be addressed INITIALLY and a method to deal with them once the situation happens. However, the male ego (yes, that is exactly what I mean) does not allow most humans to see what what they had done was not working and to do anything to avoid a calamity. So it is "stay the course".
So we had the DotCom. And we have the credit mess. And we have huge deficits. And Congress wanting to reduce taxes some more. Won't work.
Creepy
4/20: Merrill bleeds billions, cuts 3,000 jobs
Merrill
Lynch & Co. Inc. reported a first-quarter loss of $2 billion, or $2.19 per
share - its third consecutive quarterly loss
Ah, but remember what their CEO said last July. 'We're merrill Lynch and we know how to manage risk."
Bite meFrom 1980 to 2004, the assets of stock funds increased 90 times, from $45 billion to $4 trillion. During that same period, fees paid by investors and collected by fund managers via fund management companies soared from $288 million to $37 billion. What’s more, the fund managers received their fees regardless of whether the prices of the stocks they selected went up or down.
Not surprisingly, mutual funds continue to multiply like rabbits. By the beginning of 2007, there were about 4,800 mutual funds with $6 trillion invested in stocks and $3 trillion more invested in bonds and money market funds.
The mutual fund industry offers 11,000 different asset classes, ranging from high-tech to old economy stocks that are sold to investors “like soap.” But rather than dealing directly with the public, mutual funds amass up to 90 percent of their money through retail brokerage firms, which, in turn, enjoy “pay to play” revenue-sharing arrangements. In 2005, for example, the Edward Jones brokerage firm collected a whopping $172 million from a favored seven mutual fund groups to which it had referred its retail clients.4/20; I spoke with a friend of mine that moved to Oregon about 10 years ago for a better life- at least to beat the San Diego traffic (HORRID!!) But his wife got early onset Alzheimers at age 51. She is now in a wheelchair and is essentially incommunicado. He is still taking care of her at home but he is also going downhill. Caregivers have to watch out for themselves. I think he will have to institutionalize her soon if just to retain some of his on sanity.
My mother has been institutionalized for over 10 years. She remembers nothing.
Lousy way to die.
4/20: Citigroup Records a Loss and Plans 9,000 Layoffs4/20: As readers might remember I am a trustee for a client who died in Riverside. It's one of the worst areas in the U.S. for real estate foreclosures- though this house is in a fine neighborhood and looks like a model home. but the last sale went puff because the buyer could not get financing. I knew it would be tough but I had hoped to avoid a listing. The property was appraised for $445 in January. I "sold" it for $425. Probably cannot