ENOUGH(sm) Jewish Personal Financial Planning©: A Chiropractic Process of RE-aligning Means with Meaning

ENOUGH(sm) Jewish Personal Financial Planning©:

A Chiropractic Process of RE-aligning Means with Meaning

Number Cruncher or Goal Cruncher & Adjuster?

Personal financial planning is first & foremost managing goals. Financial planning, in contrast & in the disguise of personal financial planning is foremost managing assets for More, More, More (2)

The ‘Planner’s Role in ENOUGH: Jewish Personal Financial Planning is Chiropractic: (re-aligning means with meaning IN one’s life INside out) i.e. via fiscal adjustments for life and spiritual values & mission (assignment)

The role of the financial planner is evolving (actually being forced) to change due to demographic shifts and the compression of the assets under management compensation model. To fend off additional commodization of the compression of the traditional 1% of assets under management many planners (1) (really asset managers in personal financial planner clothing) are turning to ‘life planning’ and ‘financial therapy.’

This life & financial therapy planning, at best, is playing Mr. Rogers ‘can’t we be friends’ to minimize fee compression via ‘value added.’ The re-alignment of means – financial resources – and meaning (goals, objectives, mission – meaning) is done within empirical – actionable context – rather than ‘I feel your pain…can’t we be friends.’ (Note any planner doing ‘life planning and financial therapy’ ask for their financial plan (if they have one) and don’t accept ‘it’s in my head, now let’s talk about you.’

For real personal financial planning chiropractic re-alignment of means with meaning (putting the person back in personal financial planning) with output – see my Soul Resume: After Life Insurance and the Personal Prospectus in the 2^nd edition of Enough.

1.- by the robo planners etc (notice I don’t use the term personal in this financial planning as it is typically just financial techniques applied to personal assets not personal financial planning)

2.- more, more, more – what are we all more-ticians – e.e. cummings. More, better, now has a habit of becoming ‘less, worse, later’ - schwartz

The Will To Meaning & Enough Personal Financial Life Planning: Why We Seek More Beyond Enough (Financial)

The Will To Meaning & Enough Personal Financial Life Planning:

Why We Seek More  Beyond Enough (Financial)

Shaddai: God, God Almighty, God All Sufficient, Enough

          What is the impetus behind the hamster wheel pursuit of More beyond Enough (financially)?

There are haves, have nots, and have little want some more

(which is never Enough)

          As a retired fee only planner and author in personal financial life planning, I’ve heard many of the following ‘presentational’ rationalizations & justifications for seeking More, More, More beyond already having enough or being on track to enough (and taking additional risk):

·         Just in case ‘I need more to have Enough’

·         You never know (the fear of deprivation)

·         Enough? – just a little more (and more, and more, and more)

·         To redirect to other purposes: political, charitable, etc

·         If you are not growing you slowing

·         Invention of potential low low low risks with high seriousness (that  more wouldn’t save in any case)

·         Habituated behavior - It’s what I do and know

·         Relative comparative status

One could theorize More (and more-onic behavior) is:

• Acculturated (more is better, more solves the fear of deprivation) and thus more becomes habituated – consciously or unconsciously and or
• A function of external comparison (‘status’) pecking order for one’s validation ‘I did better than The Dow Jones therefore I am’ or ‘to beat the Dow Jones or not to beat the Dow- that is the question – tis nobler to endure the slings of outrageous market swings…”

But what is really the drive behind this ‘more – moreon – imperative’ that  it avoids while seeking means beyond financially enough (even putting enough at risk fiscally)?

Having to deal with the will to meaning (Frankel) – ‘why am I?’ and derivatively finding meaning IN one’s life to matter

Man insists not only being satisfied (enough in Latin- jds) but also on being able to satisfy; on being a need, not only having needs.

Abraham, Heschel, Man Is Not Alone, p 193

A Story 1972

          Contemplating going to be fee only personal financial planner, I interviewed many in the financial services business. I would bring up the subject of linking personal financial resources to life goals.

          In one interview with a then manager of Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance, I was stopped short before I could expound on the question with the gentleman responding:

          “You are making more of life goals and financial resources than really is the reality. The reality? We are born, we grow up, go to school, get married, retired and then we die.’

          PS Connecticut Mutual was subsequently merged out (really saved from going under)

Everything, by its nature, desires to complete itself

Learning from the Tanya, Volume 2 p122, Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

Stipulation: Original Incompletion - the following is this writer’s foundation assumption of concept which it is man’s task is continuing to complete the incompletions of his soul INside out (spiritualizing the material, materializing the spiritual) which is in contrast to the Originals (1):

Where ideally does personal financial life planning and Enough (both financial as Shaddai) interconnect? At the ‘crossroads’ of Meaning be it @ 777 Meaning Parkway, 40 Meaning Causeway, or 18 Meaning Becauseway??

Meaning (satisfying (2)) to manifest one’s will to meaning.

In particular, this meaning is: Meaning IN one’s life to matter INside out – harmonizing & aligning meaning and the means for enough & one’s will to meaning.

Enough doesn’t guarantee meaning but rather the means if required for the pursuit of meaning INside & INsight out.

The personal financial planning business/industry (notice  profession is absent in this labeling) has failed – double crossed against ‘the light’  at the boulevard. It neglected (other than a wink if that) linking, harmonizing, let alone meaning, enough, and personal financial life planning – preferring ‘more, more, more – the ideology,’ per Edward Abbey ‘of a cancer cell.’

Who is rich? One who is satisfied with his lot.

Who is strong? One who overpowers his inclinations (3)

Ethics of the Fathers 4:1

          Finally Yaakov (Jacob) and Esau met. Both were in biblical terms wealthy. Having avoided Esau all the years for fear of Esau’s retribution for Yaakov’s finagling – conning Esau out of the birthright and blessing, Yaakov prayed, prepared for war, and now sought to appease with gifts to Esau of great great value. Initially, Esau demurred but finally accepted. When Esau inquired why the large bequests to him by Yaakov, Yaakov answered to paraphrase, ‘I have plenty – I have ENOUGH.’

          Yaakov’s ENOUGH?

          Shaddai

1.- The Originals:

• Original Defectiveness (Orthodox & Conservative Judaism) – man is deficient, lacking, flawed
• Original Dreck (Reform, Reconstructionist Judaism etc)– man is a piece of crap (inadequate) around which the world revolves
• Original Sin – I am wrong, ‘missing the mark,’ transgressing, even bad or malevolent’
• Original Innocence (Progressives – snowflakes, crybullies) - man is good – it’s the system that is bad, fix the system and all will be right in the world (OUTside In

2. – satisfied, satisfying, satisfactory  derives from the Latin for ‘enough.’ Notice how culturally we disdain ‘statis as in satisfactory’ by a ‘C’ on a report card isn’t excellent, isn’t good, it’s just average. Thus enough is imbued with merely be average which doesn’t even quality for Lake Wobegon “where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.".

3. – including his or her ‘more-on’ inclination

Personal Financial Pornography III – Haleria Yentas

Personal Financial Pornography III – Haleria Yentas

September 11, 2019-09-11

Yenta – gossiper, meddler, busy body – (also see Paul Krugman, academia, being ‘a contributor’ on cable news & financial news)

The market (The Dow Jones Industrial Avg) closes 27,137.04+227.61 – an all time high up from August 14^th (the world is coming to an end by the hate anything trump including the personal financial pornographic media) of 25, 479 up 1658 points – or 6.5%. Where is the hallelujah courses from these same  The Personal Financial Media Pornographers – Chalerias?.

Prediction (other than muted reporting and the patch not proportionate to the hole & holier than thou they dug – thus buried unlike their chicken little 800 point decline August 14th): they will invoke ‘not yet’ or ‘as of yet.’

Well life has a predetermined ending --- the not yet/as of yet response is dishonest spin to buy time from being accountable, responsible, and yes ‘experts’ at alarming stupidity.

These ‘experts’ – haleria yhentas.

PS: There are clawbacks in executive compensation for non performance, fraud, and failure: where is the clawback (in compensation, tenure and awards) in academia, nobel and pultizer prizes, and government for failure, non performance, and fraud for the likes and  of Krugman, Pocohauntus, CNN, Rachel Madcow, and the haleria financial media (CNBC, Bloomberg etc)???

A reminder below of my thoughts on Personal Financial Pornograph on Sept 5, 2019

Personal Financial Pornography in The Cable Media II

From:james schwartz (manofdog01@yahoo.com)

To:cavuto@foxnews.com

Cc:mediabuzz@foxnews.com; mcgurn@wsj.com; gretchen.morgenson@wsj.com; kim@wsj.com; gerard.baker@wsj.com

Date:Thursday, September 5, 2019, 8:35 AM MDT

Chaleria/Haleria – Yiddish "wreck," in the phrase "nervous choleria." A person who behaves wildly or badly.

On August 14th, during the day, the Dow Jones was as much as 800 points 3% closing down 800 points to 25,479.

The financial cable media (CNBC, Bloomberg & even Fox Business to a lesser extent) - was in a chorus - dread, horror, the world is coming to an end. If the Dow Jones was 1000 and the market was down 30 - would the financial cable media be in a lockstep ready to slit its collective wrists?

And yet today the Dow Jones on 9/5/2019 is up over 400 points to 26650 or up 1171 points since the market was 25,479 down 800 points.

Where is the champagne and hallelujahs in the cable financial media's reporting when the market is up 1171 points (oh, that's right the media, in particular, The New York Times, Washington Post are talking up recession, recession, recession for their political agenda)?

When there is a market decline - it is typically faster than the market recovering and going up and past the decline.

The stupidity of the cable financial media - is breathtaking - personal financial pornography.

Where is the scorecard - and accountability on the more, more more MOREonic pornographic financial media - crying less, less, less - the world is coming to an end - being wrong, wrong, wrong. Where is the termination of these either idiots or agenda driven per their political persuasion so called journalists?

There probable response: if it bleeds it leads blaming all but themselves.

The Personal Financial Media Pornographers – Chalerias.

Trust Is The Currency of The Personal Financial Planner; AUM (Assets under Mgmt Compensation) Devalues Trust

Trust Is The Currency of  The Personal Financial Planner;

AUM (Assets under Mgmt Compensation) Devalues Trust

Maslow famously stated, ‘if all you know is a hammer, everything looks like a nail’ and the client gets nailed (Schwartz) in personal financial planning compensation.

Behavior is a function of its consequences

Tenet of Behavior Modification

In the practice of personal financial planning, the compensation method of assets under management compensation (AUM) inherently relegates the other the other elements of personal financial planning  to second class citizen status even orphans as personal financial planning just becomes just a gateway asset gathering. Constructively, the asset manager is masquerading as a personal financial planner.

Asset protection (home, auto, blanket liability, income replacement due to disability long term care insurance), asset conservation aka estate planning (income replacement for spouse, asset disposition (giving to whom you want, what you want when you want), liquidity, estate conservation) get a wink and a nod. That said income conservation (taxes) – is a focus as the less taxes the ‘more’ assets for the asset under management compensated ‘personal’ financial planner to be remunerated from.

Furthermore, at is implicitly, assets under management, is a contraindication to personal financial planning – as it inherently seeks more – taking more risk – in the name of getting more relatively – often at the expense of making the goals with the lesser risk. Too often more, better, now becomes less, worse, later – and the goals are not met or deferred – as the result of a more-on orientation per compensation method and, therefore, managing assets instead managing goals.

Rather than being on the same side of the table as the client (mutuality of interest – the basis of trust for the client) – the trust currency is devalued by AUM compensation (regardless of the pitch ‘when you win, we win.” In AUM personal financial planning, the client is further conditioned to focus on external comparison (i.e. Dow Jones, S&P etc while maybe a wink and a nod to goals. As a result in down markets, in particular, clients forget comprehensive planning – let alone do we still have ‘enough’ relative to each goal – and concentrate on how their portfolios are doing relative to ‘the market.’ Note: complaining is not unusual.

External comparison becomes the natural perspective & filter of AUM compensation – rather than goals being the basis of comparison. Thus the planner inherently – consciously or subconsciously – focuses on managing assets rather than managing goals.

Side Bar: Trust Me

How do you say ‘f**k you’ in Yiddish?.....

Trust Me

(Trust Me: is also a ‘60’s date movie theatre game with a high school date beginning with arm around the shoulder moving towards …. while at each movement asking permission via the question ‘trust me?”)

          Assets under management compensated planners will counter: if you lose – we lose (lower fees). That is a point of comparative more or less as the scorecard becoming the focus rather than on track, not on track (to meeting the goal(s)) and or goal preserved or not. Further’more,’ getting more at the expense of higher unneeded risk – jeopardizes the goal for the upside of planner AUM compensation which may not have been necessary. Consciously or unconsciously, AUM can be contrary to: the essence of trust: mutuality of interest, being on the same side of the table, and objectivity – the currency of trust – the very essence of the concept of fiduciary. This does not mean an AUM compensated planner cannot be trusted & objective – but rather the AUM compensation method is not inherently congruent to trust and objectivity.

There is no compensation method without conflicts or bias – apologists would say. Granted – if anything:

·         hourly compensation can lead to clients’ not calling for fear the meter is always running – and to the detriment after the fact to their goals.

·         Transaction (commission or fee & commission so called planning) is often just a delivery system for sales.

·         A flat fee or bracket fee compensation method gives client’s the assurance – that the planner, whether in cash or securities or whatever gets the same compensation, and therefore not motivated to take more risk or to do more transactions than necessary – but it too is assurance of a planner not having bias.

One could argue the bracketed fee (between x and y – if fee – based to hours - goes over hours allotted, the planner received no additional compensation. However, if the hours expended are less than allotted, the planner benefits. One could argue that is in the planners best interest to under utilize his or her hours. But, if the bracketed fee is such that the client knows – the bracket would be reexamined next year – that minimizes but does not the problem in either over and under utilization.

To compare the inherent conflicts of flat fee, bracketed fee with AUM  to is analogous to going 60 in a 55 mile an hour zone (flat fee, bracketed fee) with the potential of going 120 mph (AUM or transaction based compensation) There is no equivalency. As Thomas Sowell once said, there are no solutions only tradeoffs.

Regardless, the days are coming to an end for AUM personal financial planning compensation due to compression of percentages charged by competition even robo advisors. Now on the horizon is even subscription personal financial planning.

A True Story

          Years ago (in the late ‘80s), a commission based planner asked my advice as to how to transition to fee only planning. And in particular, what to say to this commission based clients.

          I gave him to alternatives:

          1) – tell the clients 12 months from now – you will be fully compensated on a fee only basis – but they had a choice to continue paying by commissions or going to fee only now but in 12 months regardless you will be fee only charging a quarterly fee OR

          2) – tell them you are sorry that you have been shtupping them all these years– and do not wish to do that any long. So you are immediately going to fee only personal financial planning compensation hoping they will understand get on board. Offer a jar of Vaseline™ concurrent as an ‘I’m sorry’ – literally and metaphorically.  

********

So, the challenge and choice for AUM compensation personal financial planners’ is whether they immediately lead the charge (and change of compensation charging from AUM) or be charged (with client retention loss) in effect becoming a rotary phone in the smartphone era.

Personal Financial Pornography in The Cable Media II

Personal Financial Pornography in The Cable Media II

From:james schwartz (manofdog01@yahoo.com)

To:cavuto@foxnews.com

Date:Thursday, September 5, 2019, 8:35 AM MDT

Chaleria/Haleria – Yiddish "wreck," in the phrase "nervous choleria." A person who behaves wildly or badly.

On August 14th, during the day, the Dow Jones was as much as 800 points 3% closing down 800 points to 25,479.

The financial cable media (CNBC, Bloomberg & even Fox Business to a lesser extent) - was in a chorus - dread, horror, the world is coming to an end. If the Dow Jones was 1000 and the market was down 30 - would the financial cable media be in a lockstep ready to slit its collective wrists?

And yet today the Dow Jones on 9/5/2019 is up over 400 points to 26650 or up 1171 points since the market was 25,479 down 800 points.

Where is the champagne and hallelujahs in the cable financial media's reporting when the market is up 1171 points (oh, that's right the media, in particular, The New York Times, Washington Post are talking up recession, recession, recession for their political agenda)?

When there is a market decline - it is typically faster than the market recovering and going up and past the decline.

The stupidity of the cable financial media - is breathtaking - personal financial pornography.

Where is the scorecard - and accountability on the more, more more MOREonic pornographic financial media - crying less, less, less - the world is coming to an end - being wrong, wrong, wrong. Where is the termination of these either idiots or agenda driven per their political persuasion so called journalists?

There probable response: if it bleeds it leads blaming all but themselves.

The Personal Financial Media Pornographers – Chalerias.

Risk Tolerance Horse Manure

Risk Tolerance Horse Manure

From:james schwartz (manofdog01@yahoo.com)

To:intelligentinvestor@wsj.com

Date:Saturday, September 7, 2019, 2:07 PM MDT

The only risk tolerance of use is within the context of the personal financial goal and the goal relative to the accomplishment of other goals.

When I was in practice as a fee only personal financial planner, a geologist who was the key to then the largest discover in the lower 48 -- had 95% + of his assets tied up in royalties.

Now as much of the resources were converted from royalties via cash flow - actually he required about 2.5% after tax and inflation - when the market was in the teens - but why risk (sacrifice )what you need for what you don't need. Thus, outside of his oil stream (now protected by trusts etc), having large blanket liability policies etc etc, and the estate planning of gifts and private annuities etc etc ---diversified with less volatility was the answer - as he became independent of his independent business

And this was a wildcatter - and they in business were big risk takers

So risk tolerance is within the context of the goals ---- and most of so called risk tolerance is an add on to avoid or minimize the asset under management % compression - by being the client's understanding best friend.

The real risk - not making the goal - context and the goal is everything

But most planners manage assets instead of managing personal financial goals - and better yet harmonizing and aligning the financial resources to financial goals and life values.