Wednesday, October 2, 2013

The Personal Financial Planning (Non) Philosophy of 99.9999% of All Personal Financial Planners




The Personal Financial Planning Philosophy of 99.9999% of All Personal Financial Planners = MORE
(Written to A Personal Financial Planner who asked for 'others' personal financial planning philosophy relative to annuities, and other other products and investment approaches. This planner confuses tactics with philosophy - content with process - which is 99.999% typical)

The unsaid reality - reflective of the culture & probably genetics - of  -99.999% -of all - YES ALL - personal financial planning firms - despite assertions otherwise - and irrespective of compensation method - is MORE. Oh it may be euphemized spun - or rationalized in the cloak of life planning (see my writings prior to all 'the so called personal financial life planners' etc going back to 1977) but the philosophy is MORE.

And here is 'an' explanation - not 'the explanation' of my assertion.

Man fears his physical extinction which he identifies as himself. This goes back to the story of Cain and Abel. Cain, and, in Hebrew means Acquisition. (Think about it: was The Citizen Kane - the choice of the name Kane - a coincidence?) In any event, acquisition (be it money, fame, etc) is the primary strategy to delude or palliate ourselves from the inevitable. The main derivative of acquisition/Cain is MORE.

Now what does advertising reflect - (the 100's of thousands messages)? More - dissatisfaction  you are not enough - or More to have enough. And the word satisfaction is derived from the Latin 'satis' which means 'enough.' So dissatisfaction is 'not enough' and therefore the need for MORE. And, think back to the words that are adjacent to a mere 'C' on a report card ---- satis-factory. Enough isn't enough.

Thus, the cultural backdrop - is MORE, MORE, MORE (derived from acquisition) to palliate fear of physical extinction which many most take as their being (irrespective of soul talk)

Accordingly, MORE, Better, Now has a habit of becoming Less, Worse, Later and 99.99999% of personal financial planner's and their philosophy implicit, explicitly, in denial or not - is about MORE. Ironically from a pun standpoint, planners are  MOREons (especially the so called life planners many of whom are just using life planning ((yakedy yak)) to hold their AUM margins via being a best friend.

Before you (the planner whom this was written to) reject this as out of hand, as over generalization - let the above sit awhile - before just rejecting or minimizing via confirmation bias.

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