Robert Kiyosaki's Key Financial Philosophies
Showing posts with label Personal Finance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Personal Finance. Show all posts
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Credit Card Bill of Rights Part 2
I just received this update from The Simple Dollar on the "CC Bill of Rights"
The Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights Act of 2009 Is Here: What Does It Mean For You - And What Might It Mean for the Future?
Posted: 20 May 2009 07:00 AM PDT
On Tuesday, the Senate passed the Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights Act of 2009, an act that will quickly be passed into law with the signature of President Obama, likely within the week. This bill has a huge number of ramifications for credit cards - for users who are late on their payments, for those who pay their bills on time, and perhaps even for the ability to use credit cards in stores.
Washington Wire summarizes the bill very succinctly:
Existing balances: Issuers cannot retroactively change the rate on an existing balance unless the account is 60 days delinquent.
Payments: A consumer payment above the minimum applies first to the balance with the highest rate.
Teaser rates: Issuers cannot raise rates for the first year after an account opened. Promotional rates must last at least six months.
Bills: Issuers must send a bill 21 days before the due date.
Over limit: Issuers cannot charge over-limit fees on credit cards unless the consumer has signed up to allow such transactions.
Minors: For consumers under 21 years old, a company must get the signature of a parent or another to take responsibility for the debt, or it must obtain proof that the under-21 consumer can repay credit.
Disclosure: Cardholders must get 45 days notice of change in terms.
Fees: Issuers cannot charge fees to pay by mail, phone, and electronic transfer or online, except for expedited service.
Gift cards: All gift cards must have at least a five-year life.
Meanwhile, The Wallet offers a few predictions for what this means:
“We’re in uncharted territory here,” says Curtis Arnold, head of CardRatings.com, a credit-card comparison site. Mr. Arnold says consumers can expect issuers to work overtime to lure high-end, high-volume clientele while adding fees and rate hikes for customers with less-than-stellar credit profiles.
The rationale is that credit-card issuers make money off interchange fees (fees merchants pay to card issuers). So customers who charge everything and pay off their balances are seen as less risky and still profitable by card issuers.
The future of rewards programs is also up in the air. Mr. Arnold advises cashing in reward and airline mile points, as their purchasing power has been on the decline in the last year or so. However, he points to new cards from brokerages like Charles Schwab and Fidelity, which offer higher cash-back rewards that lure customers to their brokerage products.
Mr. Arnold also advises those customers with existing balances to pay them off as soon as possible and consider transferring them to smaller banks and credit unions, which may be able to offer more generous rates and repayment terms. He, and others in the industry, expect interest rates on existing balances to keep climbing before the proposed legislation kicks in. (An optimistic guess would be that card issuers would have to comply nine months or a year from now.)
Something else to keep an eye on: Annual fees. The era of reward cards, or even non-reward cards, with no annual fees may be at an end. Stay tuned to notices from your card issuers and the changing fine print of your statement
So what does this mean for you?
First of all, these rules do help people avoid getting into trouble with credit cards. I applaud the change that requires minors to get parental approval or to prove they have the ability to repay before getting a card. I also like that all extra payments always go to the portion of the balance with the highest interest rate - no more shenanigans with companies applying overpayments to 0% balance transfers. Eliminating fees for different types of payment is also a plus.
But what else will change? It’s important to remember that the full ramifications of this bill won’t be seen immediately. Obviously, the credit card companies will try to keep their level of profits the same, which means that, inevitably, they’ll have to change their business in some ways. However, as Arnold noted above, they don’t want to kill the golden goose - the interchange fees that they rake in as a result of wide credit card use.
So, beyond the immediate impact for credit card users noted above, I’m going to make a few predictions about how this bill will affect things over the long term.
Interest rates will keep climbing. The days of easy low-interest credit are ending. That means the role of the credit card will begin to change as smart consumers begin to use credit cards more like charge cards - they pay off the balance in full at the end of each month.
What this might mean for you: Paying down your credit card balances as soon as possible is more important than ever! If you’re carrying a credit card balance, now is the time to start buckling down and wiping out that debt. If you aren’t carrying a debt on your cards, don’t start one - stick to spending less than you earn and keep using the credit card as an intelligent tool.
The credit card syndicates (Visa, Mastercard, etc.) will seek to raise interchange fees as a first line of attack. Credit cards work most effectively when lots of consumers have them and then expect this service from merchants. Think about it from Target’s perspective, for example - if half of their customers use credit cards to pay, they’re somewhat tied to offering that service to customers. Thus, I predict credit card companies will use that to their advantage and raise interchange fees, particularly on large retailers.
What this might mean for you: Many merchants will attempt to recoup this increase in interchange fees by passing the cost along to the consumer, so I would expect a slight bump in prices - 1% or so, spread out over many purchases and items. For most people, this will largely go unnoticed and will be seen as normal inflation.
Credit card issuers will get clever with fees, but annual fees won’t return. Most consumers have come to expect that their credit card will have no annual fees, so I don’t believe these will return in wide use. Instead, the companies will see other avenues for fees - cards that require a minimum number of uses per month, cards that have fees to enroll in particular rewards programs, and so on.
What this might mean for you: You’ll have to be more careful with credit card offers in the future. Also, when there are updates to your terms, you’ll need to read them carefully. Again, if you keep your balance paid, your credit will be good, so you can walk away from any cards that try to slip sneaky fees in on you.
I don’t believe rewards programs will go away. I would expect, though, that rewards programs will become more tied to specific “partner” retailers, like Target and Amazon, and away from more general programs like Drivers’ Edge. Why? Merchant-specific cards encourage loyalty to those merchants, and that has quite a bit of value to the merchants - those aren’t programs they will want to see go away.
What this might mean for you: Don’t be surprised if you find some of your rewards programs changing, particularly when your current card expires. For now, though, stick with what works for you.
Any thoughts or predictions on this new world of credit card rules?
The Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights Act of 2009 Is Here: What Does It Mean For You - And What Might It Mean for the Future?
Posted: 20 May 2009 07:00 AM PDT
On Tuesday, the Senate passed the Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights Act of 2009, an act that will quickly be passed into law with the signature of President Obama, likely within the week. This bill has a huge number of ramifications for credit cards - for users who are late on their payments, for those who pay their bills on time, and perhaps even for the ability to use credit cards in stores.
Washington Wire summarizes the bill very succinctly:
Existing balances: Issuers cannot retroactively change the rate on an existing balance unless the account is 60 days delinquent.
Payments: A consumer payment above the minimum applies first to the balance with the highest rate.
Teaser rates: Issuers cannot raise rates for the first year after an account opened. Promotional rates must last at least six months.
Bills: Issuers must send a bill 21 days before the due date.
Over limit: Issuers cannot charge over-limit fees on credit cards unless the consumer has signed up to allow such transactions.
Minors: For consumers under 21 years old, a company must get the signature of a parent or another to take responsibility for the debt, or it must obtain proof that the under-21 consumer can repay credit.
Disclosure: Cardholders must get 45 days notice of change in terms.
Fees: Issuers cannot charge fees to pay by mail, phone, and electronic transfer or online, except for expedited service.
Gift cards: All gift cards must have at least a five-year life.
Meanwhile, The Wallet offers a few predictions for what this means:
“We’re in uncharted territory here,” says Curtis Arnold, head of CardRatings.com, a credit-card comparison site. Mr. Arnold says consumers can expect issuers to work overtime to lure high-end, high-volume clientele while adding fees and rate hikes for customers with less-than-stellar credit profiles.
The rationale is that credit-card issuers make money off interchange fees (fees merchants pay to card issuers). So customers who charge everything and pay off their balances are seen as less risky and still profitable by card issuers.
The future of rewards programs is also up in the air. Mr. Arnold advises cashing in reward and airline mile points, as their purchasing power has been on the decline in the last year or so. However, he points to new cards from brokerages like Charles Schwab and Fidelity, which offer higher cash-back rewards that lure customers to their brokerage products.
Mr. Arnold also advises those customers with existing balances to pay them off as soon as possible and consider transferring them to smaller banks and credit unions, which may be able to offer more generous rates and repayment terms. He, and others in the industry, expect interest rates on existing balances to keep climbing before the proposed legislation kicks in. (An optimistic guess would be that card issuers would have to comply nine months or a year from now.)
Something else to keep an eye on: Annual fees. The era of reward cards, or even non-reward cards, with no annual fees may be at an end. Stay tuned to notices from your card issuers and the changing fine print of your statement
So what does this mean for you?
First of all, these rules do help people avoid getting into trouble with credit cards. I applaud the change that requires minors to get parental approval or to prove they have the ability to repay before getting a card. I also like that all extra payments always go to the portion of the balance with the highest interest rate - no more shenanigans with companies applying overpayments to 0% balance transfers. Eliminating fees for different types of payment is also a plus.
But what else will change? It’s important to remember that the full ramifications of this bill won’t be seen immediately. Obviously, the credit card companies will try to keep their level of profits the same, which means that, inevitably, they’ll have to change their business in some ways. However, as Arnold noted above, they don’t want to kill the golden goose - the interchange fees that they rake in as a result of wide credit card use.
So, beyond the immediate impact for credit card users noted above, I’m going to make a few predictions about how this bill will affect things over the long term.
Interest rates will keep climbing. The days of easy low-interest credit are ending. That means the role of the credit card will begin to change as smart consumers begin to use credit cards more like charge cards - they pay off the balance in full at the end of each month.
What this might mean for you: Paying down your credit card balances as soon as possible is more important than ever! If you’re carrying a credit card balance, now is the time to start buckling down and wiping out that debt. If you aren’t carrying a debt on your cards, don’t start one - stick to spending less than you earn and keep using the credit card as an intelligent tool.
The credit card syndicates (Visa, Mastercard, etc.) will seek to raise interchange fees as a first line of attack. Credit cards work most effectively when lots of consumers have them and then expect this service from merchants. Think about it from Target’s perspective, for example - if half of their customers use credit cards to pay, they’re somewhat tied to offering that service to customers. Thus, I predict credit card companies will use that to their advantage and raise interchange fees, particularly on large retailers.
What this might mean for you: Many merchants will attempt to recoup this increase in interchange fees by passing the cost along to the consumer, so I would expect a slight bump in prices - 1% or so, spread out over many purchases and items. For most people, this will largely go unnoticed and will be seen as normal inflation.
Credit card issuers will get clever with fees, but annual fees won’t return. Most consumers have come to expect that their credit card will have no annual fees, so I don’t believe these will return in wide use. Instead, the companies will see other avenues for fees - cards that require a minimum number of uses per month, cards that have fees to enroll in particular rewards programs, and so on.
What this might mean for you: You’ll have to be more careful with credit card offers in the future. Also, when there are updates to your terms, you’ll need to read them carefully. Again, if you keep your balance paid, your credit will be good, so you can walk away from any cards that try to slip sneaky fees in on you.
I don’t believe rewards programs will go away. I would expect, though, that rewards programs will become more tied to specific “partner” retailers, like Target and Amazon, and away from more general programs like Drivers’ Edge. Why? Merchant-specific cards encourage loyalty to those merchants, and that has quite a bit of value to the merchants - those aren’t programs they will want to see go away.
What this might mean for you: Don’t be surprised if you find some of your rewards programs changing, particularly when your current card expires. For now, though, stick with what works for you.
Any thoughts or predictions on this new world of credit card rules?
Credit Card Bill of Rights
I just spoke with a friend angry at the "Bill of Rights" to be signed into law over the next week. We are concerned and just a bit angry because reward cards may become a thing of the past as a result of this "Bill of Rights". As always the full implications of this new law won't be known for years. Our credit card debt is in the trillions! See the YouTube video.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Developing Your Personal Financial Philolophy
Philosophy is defined as the most general beliefs, concepts and attitudes of an individual or group. A financial philosophy, therefore, is the development of general beliefs and attitudes as they relate to money and business transactions.
I began to think about this article months ago when it dawned upon me that I simply wasn’t getting the level of enjoyment out of my money that I ought to be. Each new purchase has become a cause of fear and anxiety rather than a cause of joy at having the resources to make the purchase. I poured over consumer reports for months looking for the perfect purchase until I realized that I hadn’t had a salad in weeks, produce freezing without end in my old refrigerator. I picked up a copy of Rich Brother, Rich Sister by Robert and Barbara Kiyosaki thinking that the Buddhist teachings of Barbara Kiyosaki would inform my spiritual thoughts about money. It didn’t. I have watched affluent friends research purchases until the joy of the purchase has long passed and finally, today, I read an article on a widely-read financial blog, The Simple Dollar, about haggling. The article was a about a reader who had proudly written in that they had haggled successfully at a dollar store!
I am reminded of Dr. Depek Chopra’s audio, Creating Affluence. To paraphrase: If you are constantly thinking about money, spending it, how to get more of it, then regardless of the dollar amount in your bank account, you are really poor. The antidotes to psychological poverty? Carefreeness and charity.
I was not brought up in poverty, the popular claim of so many financial authors, my upbringing was solidly middle class. My father always had a wad of cash on his person or nearby. When he passed on, I came to believe that his wad of cash was the only tangible asset that my father had. My grand parents were business people who thrived even in the segregated South. When my grandfather died, my grandmother managed the assets that he left her for almost 40 years. I always heard that my grandmother was cheap. I preferred to think of her as frugal. She had the funds to do what she needed to do and, in many cases, what she wanted to do. When she became ill in her later years, it was her resources, not the resources of her children, that paid her medical bills and assisted living expenses. My mother, like my father, is highly educated. She always earned a good living. “He is going to die and go to hell” was the mantra that I often heard in childhood when an unexpectedly high utility bill came due and my mother was afraid to show it to my father.
In the 1970’s, when I grew up, the dollar was worth something. Food and energy were expensive, iceberg lettuce was in, salmon came in a can, steak was a treat, and I thought the best cakes were made by Duncan Hines.
I was the kid who had a wad of cash hidden away in a coffee can.
I was afraid to spend it and afraid someone would ask me for it. Wanting only to accumulate, and afraid to spend, I was afraid to make decisions about money.
My mother and I had a fight about money when I was in college. She wanted me to move some money to a different account and needed me to get some paperwork notarized. I resented the request and didn’t do what she asked. I didn’t feel trustworthy in the area of money and was angry that my mother had told me to do something I wasn’t comfortable doing.
My solution trustworthiness around money was to depersonalize money and to think of it as a tool, something to help me move from point A to point B. Since money was just a tool, it did not matter to me who owned the tool as long as I got to use it. I was therefore content to rent the tool. My mother tried to teach me financial lessons by sharing a credit card with me while I was in college. She had to take the card back because tool ownership was not a concept that I had learned to embrace. When I went to graduate school, I got a credit card of my own. Seemed a great deal that I could charge a lot and pay a little. Citibank and I became business partners, a relationship that would last almost 16 years. By the time I left graduate school I owed a manageable amount to Citibank. By the time I left professional training, I owed double the amount. By my second year in practice, I owed 12 times the amount plus a car, plus student loans, plus a mortgage and open lines of credit at other retail outlets. Yes, my philosophy was that money was a tool, but because I was only renting and didn’t own the tool, I found myself in bondage to Citibank, forever focused on the next pay raise as the solution to my problems.
My financial philosophy of buying what I want, using someone else’s money at a high rate of interest was not working. My nights were sleepless. I felt enslaved as much to my own habits as I was to Citibank. I read the Millionaire Next Door and my philosophies began to change. Robert Kiyosaki came into my life and I learned that income is not wealth and that my home is not an asset. Kim D. H. Butler, of Partners 4 Prosperity, came into my life and I realized that I have to have each dollar do as many jobs for me as it can, that one of my major responsibilities is to generate as much income as I can and that to the extent possible I have to retain control of my money, remain as liquid as possible and shun situations in which access to my money is restricted by law or the economic climate.
My key money philosophy shifted from one of renting the tool to owning or having clear control of the tool.
My clearest thought and philosophy about money is that it is to bring joy. Not that money buys happiness. It does not, but it does facilitate ease. It is the unexpected, but necessary, trip home to see family, the trip overseas, the gifts to charity, the new kitchen, the new car, the flower garden, the work of art. I developed some clear money rules about how and under what circumstances money could leave my account. But on the road to money acquisition new philosophies can clash with old money rules and the old dissonances can occur anew. That is certainly what has happened at times for me.
Save for a major purchase and forestall buying even if it means missing a major sale and saving money. Does that make sense?
Understand the time value of money, but does that mean that every minute not spent in revenue generation is a minute wasted?
Understand what it costs in work, sweat, and time to earn the money to buy a car and we understand the true cost of the car.
Developing a financial philosophy that serves and empowers rather than imprisons us is a personal development activity that never ends. Our relationship to money is defined anew as the complexity of each transaction increases and our thoughts about ourselves in the market place evolve.
Without evolving philosophies we risk slavery to poverty and sacrifice carefreeness and charity even as we gain material wealth. This is one of the greatest ironies of our time that differentiates the cheapskate, from the person driven by value and the haggler from the person living in abundance.
I began to think about this article months ago when it dawned upon me that I simply wasn’t getting the level of enjoyment out of my money that I ought to be. Each new purchase has become a cause of fear and anxiety rather than a cause of joy at having the resources to make the purchase. I poured over consumer reports for months looking for the perfect purchase until I realized that I hadn’t had a salad in weeks, produce freezing without end in my old refrigerator. I picked up a copy of Rich Brother, Rich Sister by Robert and Barbara Kiyosaki thinking that the Buddhist teachings of Barbara Kiyosaki would inform my spiritual thoughts about money. It didn’t. I have watched affluent friends research purchases until the joy of the purchase has long passed and finally, today, I read an article on a widely-read financial blog, The Simple Dollar, about haggling. The article was a about a reader who had proudly written in that they had haggled successfully at a dollar store!
I am reminded of Dr. Depek Chopra’s audio, Creating Affluence. To paraphrase: If you are constantly thinking about money, spending it, how to get more of it, then regardless of the dollar amount in your bank account, you are really poor. The antidotes to psychological poverty? Carefreeness and charity.
I was not brought up in poverty, the popular claim of so many financial authors, my upbringing was solidly middle class. My father always had a wad of cash on his person or nearby. When he passed on, I came to believe that his wad of cash was the only tangible asset that my father had. My grand parents were business people who thrived even in the segregated South. When my grandfather died, my grandmother managed the assets that he left her for almost 40 years. I always heard that my grandmother was cheap. I preferred to think of her as frugal. She had the funds to do what she needed to do and, in many cases, what she wanted to do. When she became ill in her later years, it was her resources, not the resources of her children, that paid her medical bills and assisted living expenses. My mother, like my father, is highly educated. She always earned a good living. “He is going to die and go to hell” was the mantra that I often heard in childhood when an unexpectedly high utility bill came due and my mother was afraid to show it to my father.
In the 1970’s, when I grew up, the dollar was worth something. Food and energy were expensive, iceberg lettuce was in, salmon came in a can, steak was a treat, and I thought the best cakes were made by Duncan Hines.
I was the kid who had a wad of cash hidden away in a coffee can.
I was afraid to spend it and afraid someone would ask me for it. Wanting only to accumulate, and afraid to spend, I was afraid to make decisions about money.
My mother and I had a fight about money when I was in college. She wanted me to move some money to a different account and needed me to get some paperwork notarized. I resented the request and didn’t do what she asked. I didn’t feel trustworthy in the area of money and was angry that my mother had told me to do something I wasn’t comfortable doing.
My solution trustworthiness around money was to depersonalize money and to think of it as a tool, something to help me move from point A to point B. Since money was just a tool, it did not matter to me who owned the tool as long as I got to use it. I was therefore content to rent the tool. My mother tried to teach me financial lessons by sharing a credit card with me while I was in college. She had to take the card back because tool ownership was not a concept that I had learned to embrace. When I went to graduate school, I got a credit card of my own. Seemed a great deal that I could charge a lot and pay a little. Citibank and I became business partners, a relationship that would last almost 16 years. By the time I left graduate school I owed a manageable amount to Citibank. By the time I left professional training, I owed double the amount. By my second year in practice, I owed 12 times the amount plus a car, plus student loans, plus a mortgage and open lines of credit at other retail outlets. Yes, my philosophy was that money was a tool, but because I was only renting and didn’t own the tool, I found myself in bondage to Citibank, forever focused on the next pay raise as the solution to my problems.
My financial philosophy of buying what I want, using someone else’s money at a high rate of interest was not working. My nights were sleepless. I felt enslaved as much to my own habits as I was to Citibank. I read the Millionaire Next Door and my philosophies began to change. Robert Kiyosaki came into my life and I learned that income is not wealth and that my home is not an asset. Kim D. H. Butler, of Partners 4 Prosperity, came into my life and I realized that I have to have each dollar do as many jobs for me as it can, that one of my major responsibilities is to generate as much income as I can and that to the extent possible I have to retain control of my money, remain as liquid as possible and shun situations in which access to my money is restricted by law or the economic climate.
My key money philosophy shifted from one of renting the tool to owning or having clear control of the tool.
My clearest thought and philosophy about money is that it is to bring joy. Not that money buys happiness. It does not, but it does facilitate ease. It is the unexpected, but necessary, trip home to see family, the trip overseas, the gifts to charity, the new kitchen, the new car, the flower garden, the work of art. I developed some clear money rules about how and under what circumstances money could leave my account. But on the road to money acquisition new philosophies can clash with old money rules and the old dissonances can occur anew. That is certainly what has happened at times for me.
Save for a major purchase and forestall buying even if it means missing a major sale and saving money. Does that make sense?
Understand the time value of money, but does that mean that every minute not spent in revenue generation is a minute wasted?
Understand what it costs in work, sweat, and time to earn the money to buy a car and we understand the true cost of the car.
Developing a financial philosophy that serves and empowers rather than imprisons us is a personal development activity that never ends. Our relationship to money is defined anew as the complexity of each transaction increases and our thoughts about ourselves in the market place evolve.
Without evolving philosophies we risk slavery to poverty and sacrifice carefreeness and charity even as we gain material wealth. This is one of the greatest ironies of our time that differentiates the cheapskate, from the person driven by value and the haggler from the person living in abundance.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
The Great 401K Experiment and 16 Strategies for Creating Wealth
You have been diligently saving into your 401K looking forward to funding your retirement. You are 57 years old and you open your statement. You’ve lost half of your retirement investment. Suddenly retirement has been pushed back beyond age 65 and you are facing the prospect of having a part-time job when you retire. You have been diligently saving into your 529 college plan. Junior is about to turn 18 and instead of the one hundred thousand dollars you expected based on what you were told were the historic returns of the market, you have less than half of that. Now you have to have the conversation with Junior, valedictorian of his class, about going to the Junior College.
What if the first thing that your financial planner told you after the usual obligatory greeting was that you were about to embark on a great experiment? That experiment would require you to set a consistent amount of money aside for 30 years in a lock box controlled by investment banks and the United States Federal Government, limit your investment options to mutual funds and bonds, and hope that certain beliefs about long term historical returns hold true until you need your money at the end of your working life.
That is exactly the first conversation that I had with my financial planner 7 years ago. She said to me, “Ouida, these mutual funds, 401Ks and 529 college plans…this is all a great experiment Large groups of people have never retired or planned for college in this way before and we won’t know how this experiment is going to turn out for another 10 years or so.”
When I heard that, I thought how silly the television pundits and financial authors are who teach and preach that investors should invest for the long haul and dollar cost average. They simply articulated unproven strategies in an overall experiment that began in the late 1970’s when corporations began to shift the responsibility for retirement planning and pension funding onto employees. I thought about the meaningless conversations that I had with my erstwhile plumber about the latest hot mutual fund and whether or not he should buy Google. The Great 401K Experiment has turned the majority of employees into investors and turned the man on the street or the salesman behind the desk into a financial guru.
Wikipedia defines an experiment in the following manner:
In scientific inquiry, an experiment (Latin: ex- periri, "to try out") is a method of investigating causal relationships among variables. An experiment is a cornerstone of the empirical approach to acquiring data about the world and is used in both natural sciences and social sciences. An experiment can be used to help solve practical problems and to support or negate theoretical assumptions.
I wonder who ever thought that by diligently placing money in their 401K that they were “trying out” their retirement plan?
In scientific inquiry we use an experiment to determine an outcome. As a physician, I rely on the outcomes of well-designed experiments to determine the best therapeutic strategy for my patients. In health care, by the time an experiment involving a therapeutic intervention is carried out on human test subjects, basic assumptions about the therapeutic intervention have already been formulated and tested in the laboratory. In medicine, we know what the variables are and we control for them, we have specific outcome measures and, most importantly, we can stop the experiment if the outcome is out of line with expectations and proves to be harmful to patients.
Despite involving human test subjects, the goings on in the world of finance and retirement planning have nothing to do with a safe controlled experiment. No, in the world of personal finance and retirement planning, we have what is known as an observational study. In an observational study, people participate in a series of activities and we follow them long term to the, uh, end. Whatever that end is. We are simply along for the ride waiting to see what happens. In terms of retirement planning, that could mean a retirement lived in poverty or a retirement in which all of the financial needs are met. But this experiment does not guaranty the latter outcome.
Let’s look at the assumptions that financial planners and employees alike have made:
1) In retirement, expenses will go down. Therefore retirees will need only 75% of their pre-retirement income. This assumption basically means that a person with an annual income of $100,000 during their working years, should set enough aside to generate an annual income of $75, 000 in retirement. This assumption has one basic flaw: it ignores inflation. Current estimates are that retirees will need $250,000 to $300,000 dollars to handle health care expenditures alone. This basic tenet of retirement planning ignores the realities of many retirees, personal illness, the need to care for a sick spouse or adult children.
2) Stock market returns average 8% per year over the long haul. This is simply untrue. A quick trip to moneychimp.com shows that the S&P has returned 8.76% since 1871. However that percentage drops to 6.56% when adjusted for inflation. If you could have been invested in the markets for the past 137 years you could have done okay. But 137 years really does challenge the idea of just what the long haul is. The long haul is certainly more than 10 years. From January 1, 1998 to December 31, 2008 market returns were 0.96%. Inflation-adjusted returns were -1.44%. As I discuss in my article, The Stock Market: The Second Greatest Financial Scam of the 20th Century, the long haul for stocks is more like 30 years. It becomes obvious, then, what you should do if you are 50, intend to retire at 65 and are contemplating putting money in the markets as an investment.
3) Home prices will always go up. This assumption made home ownership tantamount to putting money away monthly into a super-charged savings account. I’ve never seen a savings account lose value the way the housing market did during the Savings and Loan crash and this most recent financial downturn.
4) Capital gains are better than cashflow. The current economic environment is a prime example of what happens when people invest for capital gains alone. When the capital gains party stops wealth is devastated. With cashflow, however, businesses can operate as usual. It is estimated that 20 percent of real estate loans made during the housing boom went to investors. What if all of those investors had invested for cashflow? Price appreciation made cashflow impossible for most of the investor purchases that were made in the last 4 years of the most recent real-estate boom. Absent cash flow, investor money would have remained on the sidelines, fewer loans would have been made, property valuations would have remained in check and part of the speculation that drove the recent housing market would have been absent.
What happens when the basic assumptions of an experiment prove false? The experiment fails. In medicine, a failed experiment sends everyone back to the drawing board looking for answers. Not so in the world of personal finance. Personal Finance is called personal finance for a reason. You are the person and it is your finance. You are the only one who goes back to the drawing board usually with less money than you started with. The broker who sold you the stocks made his money. The fee-only planner that you were told to use by Smart Money Magazine made her money. The fund manager made his money.
What is the solution? Education. Education of the financial type. Every waking minute of every waking day. Yes this is work, but it is the only way. Those who don’t want to do this type of work should remain participants in the observational experiment to whatever end. My financial planner made sure that I stayed out of 529 plans, and that I did not invest in IRAs outside of my 401K plan. The way to wealth is simple and it is the following:
1) Live below your means
2) If housing prices in your area are too high, rent, but aim to keep total housing costs at less than 20% of income
3) Buy a quality car no more often than every 10 years and maintain that car. Car leases and frequent new car purchases are among the greatest drainers of household wealth
4) Eliminate consumer debt.
5) Obtain skills in writing, sales and marketing
6) Save
7) Invest savings into income-producing assets:
a) businesses such as network marketing
b) real-estate
8) Work with those assets once you do invest to make sure they produce income.
9) Protect all assets via entities
10) Find advisors and partners that you can trust who have your interests in mind. They are not hard to find
11) Understand yourself and your tolerance for risk. For many putting money into bonds and not giving financial education another thought is the best strategy.
12) Read a financial book per month and attend one business development seminar per year that teaches a specific skill
13) Stay away from mainstream financial magazines. They only offer the same pabulum that has left many high and dry, stripped of their wealth.
14) Subscribe to Investors Business Daily, The Financial Times or The Wall Street Journal
15) Stay away from personal development seminars but read personal development books
16) Implement the strategies and skills from the seminars and books
Your time investment will be at least 10 hours per week.
Are you ready to invest the time and get going?
What if the first thing that your financial planner told you after the usual obligatory greeting was that you were about to embark on a great experiment? That experiment would require you to set a consistent amount of money aside for 30 years in a lock box controlled by investment banks and the United States Federal Government, limit your investment options to mutual funds and bonds, and hope that certain beliefs about long term historical returns hold true until you need your money at the end of your working life.
That is exactly the first conversation that I had with my financial planner 7 years ago. She said to me, “Ouida, these mutual funds, 401Ks and 529 college plans…this is all a great experiment Large groups of people have never retired or planned for college in this way before and we won’t know how this experiment is going to turn out for another 10 years or so.”
When I heard that, I thought how silly the television pundits and financial authors are who teach and preach that investors should invest for the long haul and dollar cost average. They simply articulated unproven strategies in an overall experiment that began in the late 1970’s when corporations began to shift the responsibility for retirement planning and pension funding onto employees. I thought about the meaningless conversations that I had with my erstwhile plumber about the latest hot mutual fund and whether or not he should buy Google. The Great 401K Experiment has turned the majority of employees into investors and turned the man on the street or the salesman behind the desk into a financial guru.
Wikipedia defines an experiment in the following manner:
In scientific inquiry, an experiment (Latin: ex- periri, "to try out") is a method of investigating causal relationships among variables. An experiment is a cornerstone of the empirical approach to acquiring data about the world and is used in both natural sciences and social sciences. An experiment can be used to help solve practical problems and to support or negate theoretical assumptions.
I wonder who ever thought that by diligently placing money in their 401K that they were “trying out” their retirement plan?
In scientific inquiry we use an experiment to determine an outcome. As a physician, I rely on the outcomes of well-designed experiments to determine the best therapeutic strategy for my patients. In health care, by the time an experiment involving a therapeutic intervention is carried out on human test subjects, basic assumptions about the therapeutic intervention have already been formulated and tested in the laboratory. In medicine, we know what the variables are and we control for them, we have specific outcome measures and, most importantly, we can stop the experiment if the outcome is out of line with expectations and proves to be harmful to patients.
Despite involving human test subjects, the goings on in the world of finance and retirement planning have nothing to do with a safe controlled experiment. No, in the world of personal finance and retirement planning, we have what is known as an observational study. In an observational study, people participate in a series of activities and we follow them long term to the, uh, end. Whatever that end is. We are simply along for the ride waiting to see what happens. In terms of retirement planning, that could mean a retirement lived in poverty or a retirement in which all of the financial needs are met. But this experiment does not guaranty the latter outcome.
Let’s look at the assumptions that financial planners and employees alike have made:
1) In retirement, expenses will go down. Therefore retirees will need only 75% of their pre-retirement income. This assumption basically means that a person with an annual income of $100,000 during their working years, should set enough aside to generate an annual income of $75, 000 in retirement. This assumption has one basic flaw: it ignores inflation. Current estimates are that retirees will need $250,000 to $300,000 dollars to handle health care expenditures alone. This basic tenet of retirement planning ignores the realities of many retirees, personal illness, the need to care for a sick spouse or adult children.
2) Stock market returns average 8% per year over the long haul. This is simply untrue. A quick trip to moneychimp.com shows that the S&P has returned 8.76% since 1871. However that percentage drops to 6.56% when adjusted for inflation. If you could have been invested in the markets for the past 137 years you could have done okay. But 137 years really does challenge the idea of just what the long haul is. The long haul is certainly more than 10 years. From January 1, 1998 to December 31, 2008 market returns were 0.96%. Inflation-adjusted returns were -1.44%. As I discuss in my article, The Stock Market: The Second Greatest Financial Scam of the 20th Century, the long haul for stocks is more like 30 years. It becomes obvious, then, what you should do if you are 50, intend to retire at 65 and are contemplating putting money in the markets as an investment.
3) Home prices will always go up. This assumption made home ownership tantamount to putting money away monthly into a super-charged savings account. I’ve never seen a savings account lose value the way the housing market did during the Savings and Loan crash and this most recent financial downturn.
4) Capital gains are better than cashflow. The current economic environment is a prime example of what happens when people invest for capital gains alone. When the capital gains party stops wealth is devastated. With cashflow, however, businesses can operate as usual. It is estimated that 20 percent of real estate loans made during the housing boom went to investors. What if all of those investors had invested for cashflow? Price appreciation made cashflow impossible for most of the investor purchases that were made in the last 4 years of the most recent real-estate boom. Absent cash flow, investor money would have remained on the sidelines, fewer loans would have been made, property valuations would have remained in check and part of the speculation that drove the recent housing market would have been absent.
What happens when the basic assumptions of an experiment prove false? The experiment fails. In medicine, a failed experiment sends everyone back to the drawing board looking for answers. Not so in the world of personal finance. Personal Finance is called personal finance for a reason. You are the person and it is your finance. You are the only one who goes back to the drawing board usually with less money than you started with. The broker who sold you the stocks made his money. The fee-only planner that you were told to use by Smart Money Magazine made her money. The fund manager made his money.
What is the solution? Education. Education of the financial type. Every waking minute of every waking day. Yes this is work, but it is the only way. Those who don’t want to do this type of work should remain participants in the observational experiment to whatever end. My financial planner made sure that I stayed out of 529 plans, and that I did not invest in IRAs outside of my 401K plan. The way to wealth is simple and it is the following:
1) Live below your means
2) If housing prices in your area are too high, rent, but aim to keep total housing costs at less than 20% of income
3) Buy a quality car no more often than every 10 years and maintain that car. Car leases and frequent new car purchases are among the greatest drainers of household wealth
4) Eliminate consumer debt.
5) Obtain skills in writing, sales and marketing
6) Save
7) Invest savings into income-producing assets:
a) businesses such as network marketing
b) real-estate
8) Work with those assets once you do invest to make sure they produce income.
9) Protect all assets via entities
10) Find advisors and partners that you can trust who have your interests in mind. They are not hard to find
11) Understand yourself and your tolerance for risk. For many putting money into bonds and not giving financial education another thought is the best strategy.
12) Read a financial book per month and attend one business development seminar per year that teaches a specific skill
13) Stay away from mainstream financial magazines. They only offer the same pabulum that has left many high and dry, stripped of their wealth.
14) Subscribe to Investors Business Daily, The Financial Times or The Wall Street Journal
15) Stay away from personal development seminars but read personal development books
16) Implement the strategies and skills from the seminars and books
Your time investment will be at least 10 hours per week.
Are you ready to invest the time and get going?
Friday, January 23, 2009
Why Won't Someone Just Tell Me What To Do With My Money?
I am sitting here in my office looking over the book titles I have purchased and read over the years. Wealth Cycle Investing, Cash Machine and The Truth About Money are titles that jump out at me. There are many, many others.
Why did I buy those books? Because I, like so many people looking for a way out of financial quick sand, have often just thrown up my hands and wished someone with more brains than me would give me a plan and tell me what to do.
Stephen Greenspan wrote in a recent Wall Street Journal article about financial gullibility. He was swindled by Bernard Madoff. He chalked his gullibility up to financial ignorance and his failure to remedy the situation through financial education. He also outlined social factors that cause us to act contrary to our own financial self-interest. Who is Stephen Greenspan anyway? He is emeritus professor of educational psychology at the University of Connecticut. Oops and oh dear. If he gets swindled with all the tools he has to understand human behavior what about the rest of us? Are we sunk?
I don’t think so. The truth is that no one and I mean no one will care as much about our own personal financial situation than we will. A dear friend of mine used to be an investment banker on Wall Street. She asked me how I was investing my 401K. I said that I was invested in bonds and index funds. She said that that was a good thing because her co-workers who were money managers spent more time managing their own accounts than the accounts of their clients. Humm what a shocker. But isn’t this what the current financial crisis is all about? That money managers, brokers, CEOs, creators of financial instruments were far more worried about their personal bottom lines than the long term implications of their actions in the market place?
What is a person to do? The first thing is to realize that while you may have a trusted financial advisor, that advisor also has mouths to feed and we as a society seem to be a bit beyond the philosophy that payment and compensation should be based on the value one creates in the market place. There has been a giant decoupling of the concept of commissions based on the returns for the investor. Mortgage brokers and realtors were paid based on sales and loans generated for over-priced properties. Now as real estate prices plummet across the country they get to keep their money. Fund managers get to keep their one, two, three, four, five or six percent of assets under management even in a declining market. As a friend of mine recently said, it is a “Yo-Yo”: yo on yo own. One would be well served to realize that it’s a “Yo-Yo” and act accordingly.
Financial planners tell individual investors to consolidate debt by refinancing their homes, to buy and hold, diversify and invest for the long haul. What they neglect to tell individuals is that the long haul is actually a generation. Charles Farrell, an adviser with Denver’s Northstar Investment Advisors, used data from Morningstar’s Ibbotson and Associates to analyze 52 rolling 30-year periods, starting with 1926 to 1955 and ending with 1977 to 2006 “But here’s what’s interesting: The Majority of your wealth would almost always have come in the last 10 years. Mr. Farrell calculates that, on average, you would have notched 8% of your final wealth after the first decade and 32% after the second. In other words, 68% of the total sum accumulated was amassed in the last 10 years.” (Wall Street Journal, Jonathan Clements November 21, 2007); For the investor who invested in mutual funds in 2000 and is asking himself when is he finally going to make money, the answer is probably 2030. Too bad if that investor needed that money in 2010, 2015 or 2020. What about using a home to consolidate debt? Most financial advisors neglect to tell their clients that there is benefit in gaining the skills necessary to eradicate short-term debt. Exchanging short-term debt for long-term debt merely forestalls the problem without addressing the underlying problem for the short-term debt. Lack of skills in debt management simply means that the short-term debt will recur if the reasons for the accumulation of that debt remain unaddressed. From the financial planners’ point of view, consolidation solves their client’s debt problem that is until the debt occurs again. To me the only reason to refinance a house is to free up capital to use for other purposes including gaining the skills to retire short-term debt. Once the debt is retired, the capital can go to other worthwhile financial projects.
Why won’t someone just tell me what to do?
One of the biggest criticisms of financial author Robert Kiyosaki is that he doesn’t give individuals a specific plan to attain financial freedom. He writes, outlining broad concepts, without providing specifics. Robert Kiyosaki does not know each individual’s circumstance, level of financial education or tolerance for risk. How can he simply tell any individual what to do?
Acting the part of the bon vivant, I got a very late start on my financial path and had to make up for lost time. My solution has been to realize first that it is a “Yo-Yo” and to read widely, very widely. Understanding that there is no one size that fits all when it comes to financial matters, I am careful about where I get my financial advice. I was listening to a recent Business Week podcast. The discussion was about credit, the credit markets and ways to protect yourself financially during the current downturn. The correspondent did not even know her credit score when asked. I listened to the podcast, but I certainly wasn’t going to take that correspondent’s advice. I have carved out a plan that works for me. My plan isn’t sexy, it is slow and steady. It isn’t all one strategy, but a combination of strategies gleaned from a few sources. I use free online calculators at bankrate.com and hugh’s calculators to make savings and investment projections. I diligently work my plan. I make mistakes and I blow opportunities but my plan works nonetheless. Yes, I have financial advisors, but the advisors I started out with are not the ones I have today. The advisors I have today have proven over time that they have my interests as well as theirs at heart. I never expect an advisor to throw themselves under the train for my sake but I do expect that if they spy the promised land that they will take my hand and that we will journey there together.
What are the lessons? First, realize that it is a “yo-yo” act accordingly and read widely. Second, financial intelligence is the only remedy for financial ignorance. Third, wealth creation takes time and is not without risk. Fourth develop a plan and work that plan. Fifth, evaluate that plan. Sixth, wealth creation is a team sport so develop your advisors and evaluate those advisors based on the results they get for you. Seventh, as Jesus once said, the poor will always be with you, so understand that whatever is going on in your life that is preventing you from accomplishing steps one through six will always be with you, so the time to start truly is now.
Why did I buy those books? Because I, like so many people looking for a way out of financial quick sand, have often just thrown up my hands and wished someone with more brains than me would give me a plan and tell me what to do.
Stephen Greenspan wrote in a recent Wall Street Journal article about financial gullibility. He was swindled by Bernard Madoff. He chalked his gullibility up to financial ignorance and his failure to remedy the situation through financial education. He also outlined social factors that cause us to act contrary to our own financial self-interest. Who is Stephen Greenspan anyway? He is emeritus professor of educational psychology at the University of Connecticut. Oops and oh dear. If he gets swindled with all the tools he has to understand human behavior what about the rest of us? Are we sunk?
I don’t think so. The truth is that no one and I mean no one will care as much about our own personal financial situation than we will. A dear friend of mine used to be an investment banker on Wall Street. She asked me how I was investing my 401K. I said that I was invested in bonds and index funds. She said that that was a good thing because her co-workers who were money managers spent more time managing their own accounts than the accounts of their clients. Humm what a shocker. But isn’t this what the current financial crisis is all about? That money managers, brokers, CEOs, creators of financial instruments were far more worried about their personal bottom lines than the long term implications of their actions in the market place?
What is a person to do? The first thing is to realize that while you may have a trusted financial advisor, that advisor also has mouths to feed and we as a society seem to be a bit beyond the philosophy that payment and compensation should be based on the value one creates in the market place. There has been a giant decoupling of the concept of commissions based on the returns for the investor. Mortgage brokers and realtors were paid based on sales and loans generated for over-priced properties. Now as real estate prices plummet across the country they get to keep their money. Fund managers get to keep their one, two, three, four, five or six percent of assets under management even in a declining market. As a friend of mine recently said, it is a “Yo-Yo”: yo on yo own. One would be well served to realize that it’s a “Yo-Yo” and act accordingly.
Financial planners tell individual investors to consolidate debt by refinancing their homes, to buy and hold, diversify and invest for the long haul. What they neglect to tell individuals is that the long haul is actually a generation. Charles Farrell, an adviser with Denver’s Northstar Investment Advisors, used data from Morningstar’s Ibbotson and Associates to analyze 52 rolling 30-year periods, starting with 1926 to 1955 and ending with 1977 to 2006 “But here’s what’s interesting: The Majority of your wealth would almost always have come in the last 10 years. Mr. Farrell calculates that, on average, you would have notched 8% of your final wealth after the first decade and 32% after the second. In other words, 68% of the total sum accumulated was amassed in the last 10 years.” (Wall Street Journal, Jonathan Clements November 21, 2007); For the investor who invested in mutual funds in 2000 and is asking himself when is he finally going to make money, the answer is probably 2030. Too bad if that investor needed that money in 2010, 2015 or 2020. What about using a home to consolidate debt? Most financial advisors neglect to tell their clients that there is benefit in gaining the skills necessary to eradicate short-term debt. Exchanging short-term debt for long-term debt merely forestalls the problem without addressing the underlying problem for the short-term debt. Lack of skills in debt management simply means that the short-term debt will recur if the reasons for the accumulation of that debt remain unaddressed. From the financial planners’ point of view, consolidation solves their client’s debt problem that is until the debt occurs again. To me the only reason to refinance a house is to free up capital to use for other purposes including gaining the skills to retire short-term debt. Once the debt is retired, the capital can go to other worthwhile financial projects.
Why won’t someone just tell me what to do?
One of the biggest criticisms of financial author Robert Kiyosaki is that he doesn’t give individuals a specific plan to attain financial freedom. He writes, outlining broad concepts, without providing specifics. Robert Kiyosaki does not know each individual’s circumstance, level of financial education or tolerance for risk. How can he simply tell any individual what to do?
Acting the part of the bon vivant, I got a very late start on my financial path and had to make up for lost time. My solution has been to realize first that it is a “Yo-Yo” and to read widely, very widely. Understanding that there is no one size that fits all when it comes to financial matters, I am careful about where I get my financial advice. I was listening to a recent Business Week podcast. The discussion was about credit, the credit markets and ways to protect yourself financially during the current downturn. The correspondent did not even know her credit score when asked. I listened to the podcast, but I certainly wasn’t going to take that correspondent’s advice. I have carved out a plan that works for me. My plan isn’t sexy, it is slow and steady. It isn’t all one strategy, but a combination of strategies gleaned from a few sources. I use free online calculators at bankrate.com and hugh’s calculators to make savings and investment projections. I diligently work my plan. I make mistakes and I blow opportunities but my plan works nonetheless. Yes, I have financial advisors, but the advisors I started out with are not the ones I have today. The advisors I have today have proven over time that they have my interests as well as theirs at heart. I never expect an advisor to throw themselves under the train for my sake but I do expect that if they spy the promised land that they will take my hand and that we will journey there together.
What are the lessons? First, realize that it is a “yo-yo” act accordingly and read widely. Second, financial intelligence is the only remedy for financial ignorance. Third, wealth creation takes time and is not without risk. Fourth develop a plan and work that plan. Fifth, evaluate that plan. Sixth, wealth creation is a team sport so develop your advisors and evaluate those advisors based on the results they get for you. Seventh, as Jesus once said, the poor will always be with you, so understand that whatever is going on in your life that is preventing you from accomplishing steps one through six will always be with you, so the time to start truly is now.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Cashflow: The Only Sensible Investment Strategy for the Twenty-first Century
First the Disclaimer: This is a thought-provoking article that draws upon real world examples, articles, books and websites that are readily available to the public. This article is not intended to offer investment advice. Any actions that you take in the market place should be the result of your own financial education and consultation with a licensed professional.
This is the conclusion of my 3 part series that began with Home Ownership: The Biggest Financial Scam of the Twentieth Century and was followed up by parts one and two of The Stock Market: The Second Biggest Financial Scam of the Twentieth Century.
What is Cashflow? Cashflow simply put is the flow of money. Positive cashflow is the revenue or income that a person receives from a job, investment or business. The majority of people derive their cashflow from their jobs. To the extent that they come to derive cashflow from investments and or businesses is the extent to which they will become financially free when their working years are over. Negative cashflow is the revenue that a person loses due to an investment or business.
Most people are taught to invest for capital gains rather than positive cashflow. Investment success depends on appreciation of the underlying “asset” rather than income production. This is the basis for “investing” in a primary residence or the stock market for wealth creation. Yet, success of the capital gains investment strategy is by no means assured. No one can guaranty that an asset will appreciate in value, despite the tendency to quote historical gains as justification for an investment today. The current housing and market crises highlight the fallacy of depending on capital gains to create wealth. The housing crisis alone will destroy billions of dollars of personal wealth. From the October 25, 2007 Joint Economic Committee report:
The JEC report found that the subprime catastrophe is likely to accelerate the downward spiral of house prices. Based on state-level data, the report estimates that by 2009:
• 2 million foreclosures will occur by the time the riskiest subprime adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) reset over the course of this year and next.
• Approximately $71 billion in housing wealth will be directly destroyed because each foreclosure reduces the value of a home.
• More than $32 billion dollars in housing wealth will be indirectly destroyed by the spillover effect of foreclosures, which reduce the value of neighboring properties.
• States will lose more than $917 million in property tax revenue as a result of the destruction of housing wealth caused by subprime foreclosures.
• The ten states with the greatest number of estimated foreclosures are California, Florida, Ohio, New York, Michigan, Texas, Illinois, Arizona and Pennsylvania. But there are several others that are close behind in the rankings.
• On top of the losses due to foreclosures, which this report examines, a 10 percent decline in housing prices would lead to a $2.3 trillion economic loss.
The power of positive cashflow is that it guarantees the value of an investment regardless of the markets. Imagine the difference between a real estate investor who bought a house expecting it to go up in value versus the investor who bought for cashflow. The capital gains investor bought at very high premiums in the market such that the rents received for his investment do not cover the expenses. Now the investor must find a buyer who paid more than he did in order to make a profit. If the market goes down that investor will find that he has no staying power and will likely sustain a substantial loss to liquidate the property and limit his on-going monthly losses. The fate of the cashflow investor is much more secure. The positive cashflow yielded by the property will continue regardless of market activity. Should the market go down, the cashflow will continue, giving the investor staying power and continued profits in a down market. More importantly, most if not all of the positive cashflow will be shielded from taxes by depreciation expenses on the property. In short, the cashflow, not the capital gains, on a property will usually be tax-free. Avoidance of unnecessary taxes is one of the best wealth acceleration strategies you can employ. To quote David Swenson from Unconventional Success, “Taxes impair wealth accumulation.”
Cashflow strategies can also be applied to the stock market.
The trouble with cashflow investing is that it requires having a financial education. Cashflow investing requires the ongoing thirst for financial knowledge specific to your chosen area of cashflow generation.
The capital gains strategy encourages financial ignorance. Tempting the would-be investor to treat their investment as a money-in-money out proposition. Actively seeking financial education is the only way that a cashflow investor will be successful. Yet the odds are against him. Not because financial education is difficult to attain, no. The odds are against him because the financial sales people any would-be investor will encounter are paid commissions based on their ability to sell products and the majority of those products are for capital gains rather than cashflow. I find one or two real estate deals per year that yield sufficient positive cashflow for me to consider the deal, yet I am often encouraged by brokers to ignore my criteria for cashflow and invest instead for capital gains.
The cashflow strategy requires that you learn to work with people to form a team and generate profits for all. A capital gains strategy has people so focused on maximum gain that they ultimately succumb to greed, fail to exit an investment at an appropriate time and experience financial loss.
Even in today’s economy cash in the bank is not a source of solace as savers are seeing their returns destroyed by interest-rate-cutting policies of the Federal Reserve. People who depended on interest from savings to provide retirement income are seeing their incomes dissipate as the Federal Reserve sacrifices their incomes to bail out Wall Street, Banks and the derivatives markets.
The actions of the Fed and the behavior of Banks and Wall Street have proven that it is cashflow, not cash that is king.
This is the conclusion of my 3 part series that began with Home Ownership: The Biggest Financial Scam of the Twentieth Century and was followed up by parts one and two of The Stock Market: The Second Biggest Financial Scam of the Twentieth Century.
What is Cashflow? Cashflow simply put is the flow of money. Positive cashflow is the revenue or income that a person receives from a job, investment or business. The majority of people derive their cashflow from their jobs. To the extent that they come to derive cashflow from investments and or businesses is the extent to which they will become financially free when their working years are over. Negative cashflow is the revenue that a person loses due to an investment or business.
Most people are taught to invest for capital gains rather than positive cashflow. Investment success depends on appreciation of the underlying “asset” rather than income production. This is the basis for “investing” in a primary residence or the stock market for wealth creation. Yet, success of the capital gains investment strategy is by no means assured. No one can guaranty that an asset will appreciate in value, despite the tendency to quote historical gains as justification for an investment today. The current housing and market crises highlight the fallacy of depending on capital gains to create wealth. The housing crisis alone will destroy billions of dollars of personal wealth. From the October 25, 2007 Joint Economic Committee report:
The JEC report found that the subprime catastrophe is likely to accelerate the downward spiral of house prices. Based on state-level data, the report estimates that by 2009:
• 2 million foreclosures will occur by the time the riskiest subprime adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) reset over the course of this year and next.
• Approximately $71 billion in housing wealth will be directly destroyed because each foreclosure reduces the value of a home.
• More than $32 billion dollars in housing wealth will be indirectly destroyed by the spillover effect of foreclosures, which reduce the value of neighboring properties.
• States will lose more than $917 million in property tax revenue as a result of the destruction of housing wealth caused by subprime foreclosures.
• The ten states with the greatest number of estimated foreclosures are California, Florida, Ohio, New York, Michigan, Texas, Illinois, Arizona and Pennsylvania. But there are several others that are close behind in the rankings.
• On top of the losses due to foreclosures, which this report examines, a 10 percent decline in housing prices would lead to a $2.3 trillion economic loss.
The power of positive cashflow is that it guarantees the value of an investment regardless of the markets. Imagine the difference between a real estate investor who bought a house expecting it to go up in value versus the investor who bought for cashflow. The capital gains investor bought at very high premiums in the market such that the rents received for his investment do not cover the expenses. Now the investor must find a buyer who paid more than he did in order to make a profit. If the market goes down that investor will find that he has no staying power and will likely sustain a substantial loss to liquidate the property and limit his on-going monthly losses. The fate of the cashflow investor is much more secure. The positive cashflow yielded by the property will continue regardless of market activity. Should the market go down, the cashflow will continue, giving the investor staying power and continued profits in a down market. More importantly, most if not all of the positive cashflow will be shielded from taxes by depreciation expenses on the property. In short, the cashflow, not the capital gains, on a property will usually be tax-free. Avoidance of unnecessary taxes is one of the best wealth acceleration strategies you can employ. To quote David Swenson from Unconventional Success, “Taxes impair wealth accumulation.”
Cashflow strategies can also be applied to the stock market.
The trouble with cashflow investing is that it requires having a financial education. Cashflow investing requires the ongoing thirst for financial knowledge specific to your chosen area of cashflow generation.
The capital gains strategy encourages financial ignorance. Tempting the would-be investor to treat their investment as a money-in-money out proposition. Actively seeking financial education is the only way that a cashflow investor will be successful. Yet the odds are against him. Not because financial education is difficult to attain, no. The odds are against him because the financial sales people any would-be investor will encounter are paid commissions based on their ability to sell products and the majority of those products are for capital gains rather than cashflow. I find one or two real estate deals per year that yield sufficient positive cashflow for me to consider the deal, yet I am often encouraged by brokers to ignore my criteria for cashflow and invest instead for capital gains.
The cashflow strategy requires that you learn to work with people to form a team and generate profits for all. A capital gains strategy has people so focused on maximum gain that they ultimately succumb to greed, fail to exit an investment at an appropriate time and experience financial loss.
Even in today’s economy cash in the bank is not a source of solace as savers are seeing their returns destroyed by interest-rate-cutting policies of the Federal Reserve. People who depended on interest from savings to provide retirement income are seeing their incomes dissipate as the Federal Reserve sacrifices their incomes to bail out Wall Street, Banks and the derivatives markets.
The actions of the Fed and the behavior of Banks and Wall Street have proven that it is cashflow, not cash that is king.
The Stock Market: The Second Biggest Financial Scam of the Twentieth Century
First the Disclaimer: This is a thought-provoking article that draws upon real world examples, articles, books and websites that are readily available to the public. This article is not intended to offer investment advice. Any actions that you take in the market place should be the result of your own financial education and consultation with a licensed professional. Financial calculations were accomplished using the savings goal calculator found at Bankrate.com unless otherwise indicated.
When I entered the work force, I was offered a retirement plan, actually I was offered two. My employer was transitioning out of defined benefit plans, i.e. pensions and opting into defined contribution plans, i.e. 401ks. Because I was hired during the transition I was given a choice. I could not see working for any employer for 20 years and since the pension as I understood it was all or none, I opted for the 401K. Little did I know, I became part of a phenomenon initiated by the Federal Government in 1974 when it enacted the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA).
ERISA was created in the wake of the failure of the Studebaker Corporation in 1963. When Studebaker failed it left a pension that was so badly funded it could not provide benefits for all of its employees. ERISA did two things: 1) It provided regulation of any existing and future pension plans; 2) It provided government insurance of those pension plans in the form of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. ERISA also did something else, it virtually guaranteed a shift away from corporate-sponsored pensions and toward employee-sponsored savings plans. The 401K, intended to be a tax-advantaged benefit to corporate executives, has become the major savings vehicle for retirement for the average worker in America.
Let’s look at that statement. The 401K, intended to be a portable, tax-advantaged benefit to corporate executives, people whose income is generally north of six figures, has become the major savings vehicle for the average American worker, people whose median income is $46,326. ( This figure for median income comes from the US Census and the General Accounting Office.)
Assume the average retiree will need cash assets of one million dollars. One million dollars invested at 5% will earn an income of $50,000 per year without having to draw down the principle. This goal of one million dollars assumes the $300,000 to $500,000 dollars retirees will have to have set aside to cover health care costs. (CNNMonday February 19, 2008 “Most Americans Unprepared for Retirement”) Even if a worker earning the median income only desires to live on sixty percent of his or her working income, he would still have to save $555,912 invested at 5% to earn an income of $27,796. Add in the amount needed for health care and the goal is still one million dollars. The Savings goal calculator at bankrate.com shows that even if a worker earning the median income managed to save $10,000 per year or 21.6% of his gross income, it would take 100 years to reach the estimated million-dollar target needed for a comfortable retirement. In other words this retiree will die of old age while trying to save for retirement. Using bonds or a “high-yield” savings account with an annual percentage yield of 3.6% will put the average American worker within reach in 77 years 11 months almost beyond the average American’s lifespan. He would still die of old age while trying to save for retirement. Add a 50% employer match and the goal is reached in 34 years and 3 months. Well within the estimated forty year working life of the American worker. But an employer match of 50% is virtually unheard of. A true 50% match of 50 cents per employee dollar invested does not exist. The 401Khelpcenter reviews the common matching plans available to people who save through their 401Ks.
Because amassing the funds necessary for a comfortable retirement is virtually impossible through savings alone, employees must seek vehicles capable of higher returns in order to reach their retirement goals.
In steps the Stock Market, promising higher returns than stodgy old bonds, and money market accounts; hence, the stock market became the destination of choice for retirement savings and Wall Street responded by increasing the offerings to retail consumers through Mutual Funds. Before the year 2000 it was not uncommon to hear that the S&P returned 16% over the previous 10 years. Looking at the returns of one of the best known indexed mutual funds, the Vanguard 500, returns since its 1976 inception are 11.75%, impressive until you look at the 1 year return, -2.41%, the 5 year return, 11.89% and the 10 year return 5.06%. These are average returns not real returns. As an example let’s look at the growth of 1 dollar in the mythical High Fly Fund. High Fly posts a 50% gain in one year and your dollar grows to $1.50. The next year it posts a 25% loss, now your investment is worth $1.125. The average return for High Fly reported by the mutual company is 12.5%, but that is not your actual return. Your actual return or compound annual growth rate (CAGR) is in the neighborhood of 6% per year worse if you factor in inflation.
Is 6% acceptable given the risk that investors take on by investing in the stock market? David F. Swenson, CIO of the Yale Endowment explains investor risk in his book, Unconventional Success, when he states: “Because equity owners get paid after corporations satisfy all other claimants, equity ownership represents a residual interest. As such stockholders occupy a riskier position than, say, corporate lenders who enjoy a superior position in a company’s capital structure.” He goes on to say “the 5.0 percentage point difference between stock and bond returns represents the historical risk premium, defined as the return to equity holders for accepting risk above the level inherent in bond investments.” Mr. Swenson’s comments and calculations of the risk premium were based on a compound annual return of 10.4% in the stock market compared with 5% bond yields. 10.4%-5% equals a risk premium of 5.4%. Unfortunately I have yet to find a calculation of CAGR (compound annual growth rate) that matches Mr. Swenson’s. I found many examples of average returns that match the 10.4% average growth rate but not the CAGR. The reason that this is important is that all other savings vehicles are quoted by the CAGR. Your savings accounts, bonds and money market account are all quoted by the CAGR or its equivalent, the annual percentage yield (APY). In order to determine where to allocate your funds, you must compare apples to apples not apples to oranges. As you might guess the CAGR for the stock market is lower.
A quick look at the CAGR calculator for the stock market on moneychimp.com shows the average return from January 1, 1975 to December 31, 2007 to be 9.71%. You only realized that return if you were invested in the market the entire time. What if you began investing in 1980? The numbers look about the same. If you started in 1985 your returns look a little better. By 1990 the CAGR drops to 8.21%. If you started in 1995 your CAGR jumps to 9.32%. If you began investing in 2000 your CAGR drops to minus 0.06%! If you eliminate the results of the past 7 years from the S&P performance and track performance from January 1, 1975 to December 31, 1999 the CAGR was 13.03%. When the stock market is good it is great, when it is bad, it is pretty darn miserable. For the record, there has been only one 9 year period from January 1, 1950 to December 31, 2007 in which the average return for the S&P was 16.14% and the CAGR was 15.32%: the period from January 1, 1990 thru December 31, 1999.
It should be clear from these numbers that your returns are dependent not only on how long you are invested in the markets but when you started investing. In fact the stodgy old bond investor has outperformed the stock investor over the past 7 years.
The 1990’s investor will have a very different view of market performance than the 2000’s investor.
Mr. Swenson’s book is a must read for anyone investing in mutual funds, he makes a compelling case, explaining why actively managed mutual funds are generally a money losing proposition for investors and why a balanced portfolio based on six solid asset classes constitutes the winning combination for investors.
How can I call the stock market the second biggest financial scam of the twentieth century if I am quoting numbers that are on the face of it pretty good? For four reasons: 1) because the true CAGR going back to 1950 is much lower 7.47%. It will take the average American worker 25 years and one month saving $10,000 per year to accumulate one million dollars in wealth as long as the market achieves CAGR of 9.71% and in 29 years 2 months if forced to accept the longer term returns of the market. These numbers leave very little margin for error for the average American worker. Retirement projections for the most part are based on returns that have existed at only one point in the stock market’s history since 1950; 2) because the same laws that facilitate the transfer of individual investor money into the stock market also mandate its withdrawal at a specific time which is tantamount to what all financial pundits have called a money losing strategy, Market Timing. In other words the laws governing tax-deferred savings mandate that withdrawals begin at age 70 and a half at the latest forcing retirees to time the market to determine their exit; 3) the time horizon for capturing meaningful gains from the market is long indeed, at least 30 years. To quote Mr. Swenson, “Returns of bonds and cash may exceed returns of stocks for years on end. For example from the market peak in October 1929, it took stock investors fully twenty-one years and three months to match returns generated by bond investors.”
Charles Farrell, an adviser with Denver’s Northstar Investment Advisors, used data from Morningstar’s Ibbotson and Associates to analyze 52 rolling 30-year periods, starting with 1926 to 1955 and ending with 1977 to 2006 “But here’s what’s interesting: The Majority of your wealth would almost always have come in the last 10 years. Mr. Farrell calculates that, on average, you would have notched 8% of your final wealth after the first decade and 32% after the second. In other words, 68% of the total sum accumulated was amassed in the last 10 years.” (Wall Street Journal, Jonathan Clements November 21, 2007); 4) because current marketing strategies by financial pundits, gurus and Wall Street treat stock market investing as a money in, money out proposition obscuring the true risks of investing and the true time horizon needed to accumulate wealth. In other words, the money needed for retirement must be invested for an extended period of time, roughly 30 years. It cannot be borrowed against. It cannot be used to buy a home, car, pay for college or a child’s wedding.
It can only be used for retirement 30 years hence. Any other needs must be paid for from an additional source other than retirement savings. Most people lack the financial education to understand this and blindly chase market returns hoping for a big score.
Fortunately there is a simple solution, but like most simple solutions this one requires work and financial education. I will introduce this simple solution in part 3 of this series.
When I entered the work force, I was offered a retirement plan, actually I was offered two. My employer was transitioning out of defined benefit plans, i.e. pensions and opting into defined contribution plans, i.e. 401ks. Because I was hired during the transition I was given a choice. I could not see working for any employer for 20 years and since the pension as I understood it was all or none, I opted for the 401K. Little did I know, I became part of a phenomenon initiated by the Federal Government in 1974 when it enacted the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA).
ERISA was created in the wake of the failure of the Studebaker Corporation in 1963. When Studebaker failed it left a pension that was so badly funded it could not provide benefits for all of its employees. ERISA did two things: 1) It provided regulation of any existing and future pension plans; 2) It provided government insurance of those pension plans in the form of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. ERISA also did something else, it virtually guaranteed a shift away from corporate-sponsored pensions and toward employee-sponsored savings plans. The 401K, intended to be a tax-advantaged benefit to corporate executives, has become the major savings vehicle for retirement for the average worker in America.
Let’s look at that statement. The 401K, intended to be a portable, tax-advantaged benefit to corporate executives, people whose income is generally north of six figures, has become the major savings vehicle for the average American worker, people whose median income is $46,326. ( This figure for median income comes from the US Census and the General Accounting Office.)
Assume the average retiree will need cash assets of one million dollars. One million dollars invested at 5% will earn an income of $50,000 per year without having to draw down the principle. This goal of one million dollars assumes the $300,000 to $500,000 dollars retirees will have to have set aside to cover health care costs. (CNNMonday February 19, 2008 “Most Americans Unprepared for Retirement”) Even if a worker earning the median income only desires to live on sixty percent of his or her working income, he would still have to save $555,912 invested at 5% to earn an income of $27,796. Add in the amount needed for health care and the goal is still one million dollars. The Savings goal calculator at bankrate.com shows that even if a worker earning the median income managed to save $10,000 per year or 21.6% of his gross income, it would take 100 years to reach the estimated million-dollar target needed for a comfortable retirement. In other words this retiree will die of old age while trying to save for retirement. Using bonds or a “high-yield” savings account with an annual percentage yield of 3.6% will put the average American worker within reach in 77 years 11 months almost beyond the average American’s lifespan. He would still die of old age while trying to save for retirement. Add a 50% employer match and the goal is reached in 34 years and 3 months. Well within the estimated forty year working life of the American worker. But an employer match of 50% is virtually unheard of. A true 50% match of 50 cents per employee dollar invested does not exist. The 401Khelpcenter reviews the common matching plans available to people who save through their 401Ks.
Because amassing the funds necessary for a comfortable retirement is virtually impossible through savings alone, employees must seek vehicles capable of higher returns in order to reach their retirement goals.
In steps the Stock Market, promising higher returns than stodgy old bonds, and money market accounts; hence, the stock market became the destination of choice for retirement savings and Wall Street responded by increasing the offerings to retail consumers through Mutual Funds. Before the year 2000 it was not uncommon to hear that the S&P returned 16% over the previous 10 years. Looking at the returns of one of the best known indexed mutual funds, the Vanguard 500, returns since its 1976 inception are 11.75%, impressive until you look at the 1 year return, -2.41%, the 5 year return, 11.89% and the 10 year return 5.06%. These are average returns not real returns. As an example let’s look at the growth of 1 dollar in the mythical High Fly Fund. High Fly posts a 50% gain in one year and your dollar grows to $1.50. The next year it posts a 25% loss, now your investment is worth $1.125. The average return for High Fly reported by the mutual company is 12.5%, but that is not your actual return. Your actual return or compound annual growth rate (CAGR) is in the neighborhood of 6% per year worse if you factor in inflation.
Is 6% acceptable given the risk that investors take on by investing in the stock market? David F. Swenson, CIO of the Yale Endowment explains investor risk in his book, Unconventional Success, when he states: “Because equity owners get paid after corporations satisfy all other claimants, equity ownership represents a residual interest. As such stockholders occupy a riskier position than, say, corporate lenders who enjoy a superior position in a company’s capital structure.” He goes on to say “the 5.0 percentage point difference between stock and bond returns represents the historical risk premium, defined as the return to equity holders for accepting risk above the level inherent in bond investments.” Mr. Swenson’s comments and calculations of the risk premium were based on a compound annual return of 10.4% in the stock market compared with 5% bond yields. 10.4%-5% equals a risk premium of 5.4%. Unfortunately I have yet to find a calculation of CAGR (compound annual growth rate) that matches Mr. Swenson’s. I found many examples of average returns that match the 10.4% average growth rate but not the CAGR. The reason that this is important is that all other savings vehicles are quoted by the CAGR. Your savings accounts, bonds and money market account are all quoted by the CAGR or its equivalent, the annual percentage yield (APY). In order to determine where to allocate your funds, you must compare apples to apples not apples to oranges. As you might guess the CAGR for the stock market is lower.
A quick look at the CAGR calculator for the stock market on moneychimp.com shows the average return from January 1, 1975 to December 31, 2007 to be 9.71%. You only realized that return if you were invested in the market the entire time. What if you began investing in 1980? The numbers look about the same. If you started in 1985 your returns look a little better. By 1990 the CAGR drops to 8.21%. If you started in 1995 your CAGR jumps to 9.32%. If you began investing in 2000 your CAGR drops to minus 0.06%! If you eliminate the results of the past 7 years from the S&P performance and track performance from January 1, 1975 to December 31, 1999 the CAGR was 13.03%. When the stock market is good it is great, when it is bad, it is pretty darn miserable. For the record, there has been only one 9 year period from January 1, 1950 to December 31, 2007 in which the average return for the S&P was 16.14% and the CAGR was 15.32%: the period from January 1, 1990 thru December 31, 1999.
It should be clear from these numbers that your returns are dependent not only on how long you are invested in the markets but when you started investing. In fact the stodgy old bond investor has outperformed the stock investor over the past 7 years.
The 1990’s investor will have a very different view of market performance than the 2000’s investor.
Mr. Swenson’s book is a must read for anyone investing in mutual funds, he makes a compelling case, explaining why actively managed mutual funds are generally a money losing proposition for investors and why a balanced portfolio based on six solid asset classes constitutes the winning combination for investors.
How can I call the stock market the second biggest financial scam of the twentieth century if I am quoting numbers that are on the face of it pretty good? For four reasons: 1) because the true CAGR going back to 1950 is much lower 7.47%. It will take the average American worker 25 years and one month saving $10,000 per year to accumulate one million dollars in wealth as long as the market achieves CAGR of 9.71% and in 29 years 2 months if forced to accept the longer term returns of the market. These numbers leave very little margin for error for the average American worker. Retirement projections for the most part are based on returns that have existed at only one point in the stock market’s history since 1950; 2) because the same laws that facilitate the transfer of individual investor money into the stock market also mandate its withdrawal at a specific time which is tantamount to what all financial pundits have called a money losing strategy, Market Timing. In other words the laws governing tax-deferred savings mandate that withdrawals begin at age 70 and a half at the latest forcing retirees to time the market to determine their exit; 3) the time horizon for capturing meaningful gains from the market is long indeed, at least 30 years. To quote Mr. Swenson, “Returns of bonds and cash may exceed returns of stocks for years on end. For example from the market peak in October 1929, it took stock investors fully twenty-one years and three months to match returns generated by bond investors.”
Charles Farrell, an adviser with Denver’s Northstar Investment Advisors, used data from Morningstar’s Ibbotson and Associates to analyze 52 rolling 30-year periods, starting with 1926 to 1955 and ending with 1977 to 2006 “But here’s what’s interesting: The Majority of your wealth would almost always have come in the last 10 years. Mr. Farrell calculates that, on average, you would have notched 8% of your final wealth after the first decade and 32% after the second. In other words, 68% of the total sum accumulated was amassed in the last 10 years.” (Wall Street Journal, Jonathan Clements November 21, 2007); 4) because current marketing strategies by financial pundits, gurus and Wall Street treat stock market investing as a money in, money out proposition obscuring the true risks of investing and the true time horizon needed to accumulate wealth. In other words, the money needed for retirement must be invested for an extended period of time, roughly 30 years. It cannot be borrowed against. It cannot be used to buy a home, car, pay for college or a child’s wedding.
It can only be used for retirement 30 years hence. Any other needs must be paid for from an additional source other than retirement savings. Most people lack the financial education to understand this and blindly chase market returns hoping for a big score.
Fortunately there is a simple solution, but like most simple solutions this one requires work and financial education. I will introduce this simple solution in part 3 of this series.
Home Ownership: The Greatest Financial Scam of the Twentieth Century
Robert Kiyosaki was the first and has been the only financial pundit to suggest that your home is not an asset. As they so often do, Kiyosaki’s statements fly in the face of prevailing financial wisdom.
David Bach, author of Automatic Millionaire, not only says that your home is an asset, he asserts that home ownership is the first wrung on the ladder of wealth creation in America. He encourages everyone to buy a home as soon as possible to begin building their wealth.
CNN Money does their Millionaire in the Making profiles and I am shocked to find that in almost all cases 50-75% of the wealth of the families profiled is locked in their home. Given that people have to have a place to live, this is a problem.
In science, we have a term, “true, true and unrelated.” Does one thing cause another or do they simply occur together in time and space? Does home ownership produce wealth or are wealth and home ownership produced by sound wealth-producing financial habits?
The Economist, tracking real estate over the past decade, has concluded that the economics no longer support home ownership.
I bought my first home in 1991. The housing market in the North East had not recovered. The savings and loan collapse of the mid 1980’s depressed home prices and brought the condo market to a halt. Multiunit condominium properties were vacant. Many of the properties were very cool, but they continued to sit vacant because banks had strict owner occupancy ratios for condominiums. Mortgage money was tight. First-time home buyer programs were coming on the market and the minimum down was ten percent. I was raised to think that a home was an asset, an investment. My mortgage broker sat me down and said, “it is best that you think of your house as a roof over your head, not as an investment.” That was incredible advice. Prices dropped another 10% after I moved into my home. After 3 years of living in my home and 2 years of renting it out, I sold it for what I paid for it. After closing costs and realtor fees, I received a check for 447 dollars, significantly less than the $14,000 dollars that my family gave me for closing costs and the down payment. I always intended to pay them back with the proceeds from the sale. All told the housing market was depressed in the North East for over 10 years.
Even in an appreciating market, home ownership is no bargain. And a home is not an asset.
Most people will try to argue the point, so we will look at some numbers in just a moment.
Let’s tackle the issue of equity as a component of wealth first. Let’s say you buy a $100,000 home and put money down. Let’s say that down payment is 20%. In real terms at the time of closing you have 20% equity in your home. If you had $20,000 dollars in your bank account, you had $20,000 in wealth. If you move that money to your home in the form of a down payment, you may have $20,000 in wealth as long as the market at least stays flat. For this illustration, we will say that is the case. You have $20,000 wealth stored in your home. Now what can you do with that?
If you borrow against your home, you erode your equity and your wealth.
If you sell your home and get your $20,000 back, then what? You have to live somewhere and living somewhere costs money. The equity in your home is essentially dead. You cannot do anything with it. Sell your house and you reinvest that money into a new home, borrow against your equity and you lose it.
In short, the equity in your home, once in your home, will remain there. Useless to you in real terms, but that equity will do something that is quite dangerous. It will cause you to feel wealthy, wealthier in fact than you are and spend money, money that you, in reality don’t have.
It might be helpful if I defined an asset here. Kiyosaki calls an asset anything that retains or appreciates in value that pays you. For Kiyosaki a house does not fit that definition. I define an asset as anything that retains or appreciates in value that I can sell and dance around my house throwing the proceeds of the sale in the air and have a jolly good time. Can’t do that with a house because, once again, I need someplace to live.
Someone might say that they want to downsize. Sell their home, pick up something smaller and bank the rest of the profits.
The numbers don’t support it. One of the columnists for the WSJ wrote that he doubted that he had made much money on his home although it was valued at half a million dollars. He had lived in his home for 10 years and paid just under $300,000 dollars for it. When he factored in taxes, insurance and maintenance, he figured that he broke even. Broke even!
What that means is that he actually spent the $200,000 on his home in other ways and the sale of the home would just result in returning that money to him. Two hundred thousand dollars equity and wealth gone when you actually look at the numbers. So much for great profits! So much for down sizing.
The example on my home is just as concerning. My example is what happens when you refinance or draw equity out. For the amount of time that I have actually lived in my home I have made $82,800 dollars in payments. These payments went primarily to interest so let’s deduct the top tax rate. For tax rates lower than the maximum the numbers don’t look any better, in fact ,the top tax rate is the best-case scenario, so we’ll use that. Deduct $27,324 and get $55,476. Taxes and insurance paid amount to $20,460.
Now the total paid is $55,476 + $20,460 = $75,936. Maintenance, landscaping, updates, repairs total $29,779. Add the two, $75,936 + $29,779 and get $105,714. I refinanced the house in order to take money out and buy my first investment property. Add in the mortgage balance and the total owed, paid and put into the house is $188, 715.
Now this is a critical concept. Improvements on a home don’t necessarily increase the value of that home. Every neighborhood has a trading range. The trading range for an area is based on location, size of the homes in that area and amenities. Homes will trade at the high end or low end of a neighborhood based on those factors. Let’s say my home sold for $170, 000. Based on the difference between the mortgage and the sale price, the financial gurus would say that I have $87,000 dollars of wealth. Because you have seen the numbers you know better. In fact I lost $18,715 dollars. When I take into account the money I borrowed out to buy my first investment property, I broke even. I am assuming that I sell my home myself. Using a realtor would increase my losses by 6% of the sale price.
How can I call home ownership the greatest financial scam of the 20th century? I call it a scam when you buy something (a house) expecting it to lead to something (wealth) when that purchase can in no way produce that result. I call it a scam when the brokers who sell you the house know it won’t.
Sound financial habits will lead to wealth but home ownership in and of itself will not. Home ownership can in fact lead to poverty as people struggle to make payments and find that they are unable to maintain their homes. Sell and they risk owing more than the home is worth. Stay and their standard of living is reduced to pay for the house. Sounds like a winning formula for wealth to me.
While 20% of the homes in this most recent real estate bubble went to investors who were speculating in the markets, 80% of the homes went to people who believed that home ownership, not sound financial habits, were the first wrung on the ladder to wealth creation. They just believed what the gurus, the realtor, the mortgage broker and the banker told them. In a consumer society where everything is reduced to the lowest common denominator, they believed that a home could be purchased for little more than a moderately-priced flat screen TV and that down payments were a nuisance. They did not understand that as a worse case scenario, down payments are actually insurance against downside fluctuations in the housing market. Many people are finding that they don’t have wealth at all. What they have, instead, is a financial nightmare.
Perhaps moving forward into the 21st century, we will decide that sound financial habits and financial education are the first steps on the road to wealth. Maybe we will decide that wealth is created through work and due diligence and not by betting on the financial product of the day.
David Bach, author of Automatic Millionaire, not only says that your home is an asset, he asserts that home ownership is the first wrung on the ladder of wealth creation in America. He encourages everyone to buy a home as soon as possible to begin building their wealth.
CNN Money does their Millionaire in the Making profiles and I am shocked to find that in almost all cases 50-75% of the wealth of the families profiled is locked in their home. Given that people have to have a place to live, this is a problem.
In science, we have a term, “true, true and unrelated.” Does one thing cause another or do they simply occur together in time and space? Does home ownership produce wealth or are wealth and home ownership produced by sound wealth-producing financial habits?
The Economist, tracking real estate over the past decade, has concluded that the economics no longer support home ownership.
I bought my first home in 1991. The housing market in the North East had not recovered. The savings and loan collapse of the mid 1980’s depressed home prices and brought the condo market to a halt. Multiunit condominium properties were vacant. Many of the properties were very cool, but they continued to sit vacant because banks had strict owner occupancy ratios for condominiums. Mortgage money was tight. First-time home buyer programs were coming on the market and the minimum down was ten percent. I was raised to think that a home was an asset, an investment. My mortgage broker sat me down and said, “it is best that you think of your house as a roof over your head, not as an investment.” That was incredible advice. Prices dropped another 10% after I moved into my home. After 3 years of living in my home and 2 years of renting it out, I sold it for what I paid for it. After closing costs and realtor fees, I received a check for 447 dollars, significantly less than the $14,000 dollars that my family gave me for closing costs and the down payment. I always intended to pay them back with the proceeds from the sale. All told the housing market was depressed in the North East for over 10 years.
Even in an appreciating market, home ownership is no bargain. And a home is not an asset.
Most people will try to argue the point, so we will look at some numbers in just a moment.
Let’s tackle the issue of equity as a component of wealth first. Let’s say you buy a $100,000 home and put money down. Let’s say that down payment is 20%. In real terms at the time of closing you have 20% equity in your home. If you had $20,000 dollars in your bank account, you had $20,000 in wealth. If you move that money to your home in the form of a down payment, you may have $20,000 in wealth as long as the market at least stays flat. For this illustration, we will say that is the case. You have $20,000 wealth stored in your home. Now what can you do with that?
If you borrow against your home, you erode your equity and your wealth.
If you sell your home and get your $20,000 back, then what? You have to live somewhere and living somewhere costs money. The equity in your home is essentially dead. You cannot do anything with it. Sell your house and you reinvest that money into a new home, borrow against your equity and you lose it.
In short, the equity in your home, once in your home, will remain there. Useless to you in real terms, but that equity will do something that is quite dangerous. It will cause you to feel wealthy, wealthier in fact than you are and spend money, money that you, in reality don’t have.
It might be helpful if I defined an asset here. Kiyosaki calls an asset anything that retains or appreciates in value that pays you. For Kiyosaki a house does not fit that definition. I define an asset as anything that retains or appreciates in value that I can sell and dance around my house throwing the proceeds of the sale in the air and have a jolly good time. Can’t do that with a house because, once again, I need someplace to live.
Someone might say that they want to downsize. Sell their home, pick up something smaller and bank the rest of the profits.
The numbers don’t support it. One of the columnists for the WSJ wrote that he doubted that he had made much money on his home although it was valued at half a million dollars. He had lived in his home for 10 years and paid just under $300,000 dollars for it. When he factored in taxes, insurance and maintenance, he figured that he broke even. Broke even!
What that means is that he actually spent the $200,000 on his home in other ways and the sale of the home would just result in returning that money to him. Two hundred thousand dollars equity and wealth gone when you actually look at the numbers. So much for great profits! So much for down sizing.
The example on my home is just as concerning. My example is what happens when you refinance or draw equity out. For the amount of time that I have actually lived in my home I have made $82,800 dollars in payments. These payments went primarily to interest so let’s deduct the top tax rate. For tax rates lower than the maximum the numbers don’t look any better, in fact ,the top tax rate is the best-case scenario, so we’ll use that. Deduct $27,324 and get $55,476. Taxes and insurance paid amount to $20,460.
Now the total paid is $55,476 + $20,460 = $75,936. Maintenance, landscaping, updates, repairs total $29,779. Add the two, $75,936 + $29,779 and get $105,714. I refinanced the house in order to take money out and buy my first investment property. Add in the mortgage balance and the total owed, paid and put into the house is $188, 715.
Now this is a critical concept. Improvements on a home don’t necessarily increase the value of that home. Every neighborhood has a trading range. The trading range for an area is based on location, size of the homes in that area and amenities. Homes will trade at the high end or low end of a neighborhood based on those factors. Let’s say my home sold for $170, 000. Based on the difference between the mortgage and the sale price, the financial gurus would say that I have $87,000 dollars of wealth. Because you have seen the numbers you know better. In fact I lost $18,715 dollars. When I take into account the money I borrowed out to buy my first investment property, I broke even. I am assuming that I sell my home myself. Using a realtor would increase my losses by 6% of the sale price.
How can I call home ownership the greatest financial scam of the 20th century? I call it a scam when you buy something (a house) expecting it to lead to something (wealth) when that purchase can in no way produce that result. I call it a scam when the brokers who sell you the house know it won’t.
Sound financial habits will lead to wealth but home ownership in and of itself will not. Home ownership can in fact lead to poverty as people struggle to make payments and find that they are unable to maintain their homes. Sell and they risk owing more than the home is worth. Stay and their standard of living is reduced to pay for the house. Sounds like a winning formula for wealth to me.
While 20% of the homes in this most recent real estate bubble went to investors who were speculating in the markets, 80% of the homes went to people who believed that home ownership, not sound financial habits, were the first wrung on the ladder to wealth creation. They just believed what the gurus, the realtor, the mortgage broker and the banker told them. In a consumer society where everything is reduced to the lowest common denominator, they believed that a home could be purchased for little more than a moderately-priced flat screen TV and that down payments were a nuisance. They did not understand that as a worse case scenario, down payments are actually insurance against downside fluctuations in the housing market. Many people are finding that they don’t have wealth at all. What they have, instead, is a financial nightmare.
Perhaps moving forward into the 21st century, we will decide that sound financial habits and financial education are the first steps on the road to wealth. Maybe we will decide that wealth is created through work and due diligence and not by betting on the financial product of the day.
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