Senator Marco Rubio in the WSJ: Everyone in Washington knows how to cut spending. The time to start is now.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704425804576220670543010068.html

"Americans have built the single greatest nation in all of human history. But America's exceptionalism was not preordained. Every generation has had to confront and solve serious challenges and, because they did, each has left the next better off. Until now.

Our generation's greatest challenge is an economy that isn't growing, alongside a national debt that is. If we fail to confront this, our children will be the first Americans ever to inherit a country worse off than the one their parents were given...


Whether they admit it or not, everyone in Washington knows how to solve these problems. What is missing is the political will to do it. I ran for the U.S. Senate because I want my children to inherit what I inherited: the greatest nation in human history. It's not too late. The 21st century can also be the American Century. Our people are ready. Now it's time for their leaders to join them."

---

The lesson here?  Cut spending on investment costs.

Start today. 

Airplane for Sale

Kim Strassel in today's Wall Street Journal online writes about a Missouri politician "who used to be a state auditor and who has pitched herself to Missourians as a transparency watchdog for the Senate." 

Read the story and think about your investment advisers and any mutual funds you own.  What do you really know about the costs they charge that waste your wealth?

"The senator recently reimbursed the government some $88,000 to cover the taxpayer-paid cost of 89 trips she took in the plane, at least one of which she has acknowledged was to attend a purely political event. Congressional ethics rules and federal law forbid using taxpayer dollars for political events...

"But reporters have dug in and this week the senator was forced to hold a conference call in which she acknowledged that she had failed to pay a whopping $287,000 in property taxes on the plane since 2007. "There should have been a reporting to the county of the existence of this airplane," she said. "There are people I could blame for this, but I know better. As an auditor, I know I should have checked for myself. I take full responsibility for the mistake." She added that she had convinced her husband "to sell the damn plane.

The story isn't ending there either.  Yesterday the Kansas City Star reported that Ms. McCaskill will owe another $32,000 on top of the $287,000 after St. Louis County calculated four years' worth of unpaid personal property taxes on the plane, plus the interest, penalties and fees."

What do you know about the costs you pay that are not revealed in specific dollar amounts? 

We teach investors at all levels how to uncover, detail, and then keep the costs that are hidden and disguised in the investment products you own.  We also show investors how to compare the costs of the services they pay to the savings you get when you own the lowest cost ETFs.

ESPN: NFL wants TV money info confidential

Where is the love?

"The NFL asked a federal judge Wednesday to deny the NFLPA's bid to release details in a $4 billion TV revenue dispute, saying information should be kept confidential because it is commercially sensitive.

Two weeks ago, U.S. District Court Judge David Doty ruled -- rejecting a special master's previous decision -- that the NFL illegally secured the money from TV contracts for 2011, money the players contend was arranged to fund a lockout.

A week ago, the players association requested that all exhibits, testimony and transcripts be unsealed.

The league filed its response and included redacted versions of exhibits cited in Doty's decision totaling more than 800 pages. Much of the information was blacked out to protect information the NFL considers sensitive, harmful to future negotiations if revealed and damaging to business relations."

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=6226018 
----------------------------------------------


How confidential are your investment costs? 

Are your costs hidden - and why?  What you don't know will hurt you.

----------------------------------------------

Unsustainable budget threatens nation

By 10 EX-CHAIRS OF THE PRESIDENT'S COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISERS

As former chairmen and chairwomen of the Council of Economic Advisers, who have served in Republican and Democratic administrations, we urge that the Bowles-Simpson report, “The Moment of Truth,” be the starting point of an active legislative process that involves intense negotiations between both parties.

There are many issues on which we don’t agree. Yet we find ourselves in remarkable unanimity about the long-run federal budget deficit: It is a severe threat that calls for serious and prompt attention.

While the actual deficit is likely to shrink over the next few years as the economy continues to recover, the aging of the baby-boom generation and rapidly rising health care costs are likely to create a large and growing gap between spending and revenues. These deficits will take a toll on private investment and economic growth. At some point, bond markets are likely to turn on the United States — leading to a crisis that could dwarf 2008.

“The Moment of Truth” documents that “the problem is real, and the solution will be painful.” It is tempting to act as if the long-run budget imbalance could be fixed by just cutting wasteful government spending or raising taxes on the wealthy. But the facts belie such easy answers.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0311/51864.html

Is there a tsunami in your future?

The devastation in Japan from the earthquake and resulting tsunami reminds us that risk is often out of our control.  Upsetting events happen.

You don't have to be wiped out.  You don't have to worry.  Plan.

Diversifying among broad investment categories, most easily done through the lowest cost, highest quality ETFs, can help all investors remain calm, confident, and comfortable through all market cycles.

Learn how to avoid the biggest risk the investment industry refuses to admit: how much wealth you waste to costs in detailed dollar amounts.

Learn to control the things you can.  Like cutting costs deeply and permanently.   And for those things you cannot control?  Plan.  Plan using the lowest cost ETFs that you can buy and keep for life.

Don't let costs steal your future.  Cut costs and keep that money instead - just make sure you measure the amounts in detailed dollar amounts.  We can show you an effective lifelong cost saving alternative. 

We call it Refinance Your Investments.

If the banks face no risk, we shall all go down // They are the trade unions of the modern era, sick dinosaurs that crush ordinary citizens

From The Telegraph, London, England:

...But then came the "too big to fail" problem. We couldn't let the banks collapse because they would bring us all down. In 2008-9, we performed an appalling, but necessary rescue. And now it could very well happen all over again! Banks which we, the taxpayers, rescued are doing the same business once more, and paying themselves the same piles of money, because they still have no "downside" risk...



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/charlesmoore/8362464/Mervyn-King-is-right.-If-the-banks-face-no-risk-we-shall-all-go-down.html

Washington Post: "Government pension funds underestimating shortfall by $1.5 trillion or more"

Today's Washington Post:

'The pension funds for state and local workers in the United States are understating the amount they will owe workers by $1.5 trillion or more, according to some economists who have studied the issue, meaning that the benefits are much costlier than many governments and taxpayers previously believed.

Doubts about government pension accounting have been voiced by analysts for years, but with shortfalls in state and local pension plans exacerbated by the recession, the push to refigure pension fund shortfalls has gained political momentum.

The trillion-dollar gap arises from the government method of accounting, which several experts say significantly underestimates the cost of future pension payments.

"It's been a perfect storm," said Alicia Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. When the pension liabilities are correctly tallied, "you get a very, very large number."'

Wow.  This has been written about for years - Forbes, Fortune, Wall Street Journal - and yet it seems like new information.  Here is more:

"Even under current accounting methods, state and local governments are facing massive pension shortfalls - at least $344 billion, according to calculations by the Center for Retirement Research and other groups.

But when the accounting is revised to value future payments more accurately, in the critics' view, the amount that pensions are underfunded grows to more than $1.9 trillion, according to Munnell's calculations for 126 large plans, which in part have been published in a working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research. "

Those are COSTS.  If you invest, you have big costs, too.

Figure out your costs in actual dollar amounts.  From now on, every time you review your investment accounts, review your costs first.  Get the numbers in actual dollars amounts.  That should wake you up.

We teach a better way to invest that allows you to keep most of your costs.  It is simple to understand and easy to implement. 

Contact us: BroderickETF at gmail dot com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/03/AR2011030302918.html

"A new social contract" - how it applies to investing your dollars

John Fund of the Wall Street Journal has an insightful profile of the Wisconsin governor, a former county executive in Milwaukee:

"It's unclear who will benefit as this debate drags on, but his own experience in Milwaukee County suggests that a lengthy debate clarifies issues for the public. "I would go on reality tours," he told me. "Critics would call them 'gloom-and-doom' tours, but in the end people came to agree with me on what needed to be done."

"His record bears that out. Milwaukee County is a Democratic bastion, having given John McCain only 31% of its votes in 2008. But Mr. Walker won with convincing majorities three times, winning 59% in his last re-election in 2008.

"I won because people will ultimately respond to the truth," he says. "There is an unseen reservoir of support out there for leaders who will do the right thing."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704150604576166034245532792.html

_________________________________________________________


Life Keepers was created to do the right thing for investors by showing how to save large, serious amounts of money by cutting investment costs and keeping the difference.

Hidden in your mutual funds and other products are costs that appear as seemingly small percentages of the money you have invested.

When the truth comes out - something that we at Life Keepers translate into real dollars so you can see what the real dollar truth is about the costs you pay - investors are surprised to learn how much of their wealth is wasted by costs.

If there will emerge a "new social contract" for taxpayers, whose money pays for government worker salaries and benefits, then it makes sense that investors forge a new social contract for their investment costs.

We teach how to stop costs from wasting your personal wealth and keep that money in your accounts.  "People will ultimately respond to the truth," says Governor Walker about his experience in politics at the county level. 

Life Keepers is leading a quiet cost revolution for investors.  You can take control over the investments you own, cut your costs deeply and permanently, and keep the difference.  We explain how to measure that difference in actual dollars.  Once you see what that means for you - both for today and tomorrow - you will realize how important it is to get to the truth about all the costs you pay.

Not only can you make a dramatically positive difference for you and your family, but together with others you can impact how Washington and Wall Street behaves by simply bypassing them and showing the nation your independence is not something to abuse and take for granted.

U.S. Leads in Nobels, Trails in Alleyway Sex

Caroline Baum, a columnist at Bloomberg.com, is a terrific writer with a very good sense of humor:

"Before you sell the house, auction the family heirlooms, gather up the kids and book passage on a boat to anywhere to escape the decline of the American Empire, take a deep breath. Things aren’t as bad as some would have you believe.

Perhaps you’ve read articles or seen statistics that claim the U.S. is among the worst of the worst when it comes to things like income inequality, life expectancy and student performance in math and science... 

One widely cited statistic during the health-care debate was how much the U.S. spends compared with how little it gets in return. That return was measured by life expectancy, which at 78.1 years put the U.S. 50th among 223 nations.

Yikes! Like many statistics, the numbers don’t tell the whole story. Health and health care are two different animals. If you eat and drink too much and smoke, it reduces your life expectancy.

Once you suffer a heart attack or are diagnosed with cancer, your chances of survival are best in the U.S. Isn’t that why millionaires and monarchs seek treatment in the U.S.? 

...As far as the number of people who have had sex in an alleyway, the U.S. was tied for a lowly 24th with such sexually progressive countries as Sweden and Finland...

For every number homegrown America-haters spit out to show our best days are behind us, there’s an offsetting statistic that points to our underlying strength. The solution isn’t a war of words or statistics. It’s the recognition that many of the characteristics that made the U.S. the envy of the world are still intact or begging to be resuscitated.

The naysayers don’t appreciate American exceptionalism and never will." 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-24/u-s-leads-in-nobels-trails-in-alleyway-sex-commentary-by-caroline-baum.html

Public unions force taxpayers to fund Democrats, Michael Barone, washingtonexaminer.com

Michael Barone writes:

"Everyone has priorities. During the past week Barack Obama has found no time to condemn the attacks that Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi has launched on the Libyan people.
 
But he did find time to be interviewed by a Wisconsin television station and weigh in on the dispute between Republican Gov. Scott Walker and the state's public employee unions. Walker was staging "an assault on unions," he said, and added that "public employee unions make enormous contributions to our states and our citizens."

Enormous contributions, yes -- to the Democratic Party and the Obama campaign. Unions, most of whose members are public employees, gave Democrats some $400 million in the 2008 election cycle. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the biggest public employee union, gave Democrats $90 million in the 2010 cycle.

Follow the money, Washington reporters like to say. The money in this case comes from taxpayers, present and future, who are the source of every penny of dues paid to public employee unions, who in turn spend much of that money on politics, almost all of it for Democrats. In effect, public employee unions are a mechanism by which every taxpayer is forced to fund the Democratic Party."

__________________________________________________


Are your investment costs funding other enterprises in addition to your retirement?  

Of course they are.  Follow the money.  Costs waste your wealth.  Cutting costs, and keeping more of your money, increases your wealth.  


Follow our simple way to save seriously large amounts of money by cutting costs deeply and permanently.  We know how investors waste money they don't even know they are wasting.  We teach how to keep that money instead.   Once you learn how to measure your costs in actual dollars, you will see what we mean.

Forbes blogger Victoria Barret: Is Pure Journalism Unaffordable?

"Dan Frommer of Silicon Alley Insider is in Barcelona this week covering the Mobile World Conference. In a post about the event, he mentions this aside:

Disclaimer: Samsung was generous enough to sponsor our trip to Barcelona. So we’re feeling pretty warm and fuzzy about Samsung right now! That said, we will continue to strive for editorial accuracy and fairness, and we don’t think that our Mobile World Congress coverage will be different as a result.

Woah. Let’s be clear, here. Samsung is buying influence. If they didn’t think they were, why would they bother buying journalists’ airplane tickets and putting them up in hotels? (Frommer, I’m told, is not the only one being “sponsored”.)  Then again, the likely alternative is that Frommer would be covering the event from his desk."


From a comment posted on the blog:

"This kind of thing is routine in the automotive industry, I’m afraid. Carmakers like to unveil their new models in gorgeous places with great roads (unlike Detroit’s) and pay journalists’ airfare and four-star hotel accommodations. At Forbes, we always pay our own way, as do many other mainstream news organizations, but sometimes we can’t afford to go. But freelancers and bloggers don’t have a travel budget and they are dependent on the car companies to pay their expenses. Of course, that results in favorable coverage. If they trashed a car in a review, they wouldn’t be invited back. It’s a sad state of affairs for journalism."

http://blogs.forbes.com/victoriabarret/2011/02/17/is-pure-journalism-unaffordable/ 
 _______________________________________________________

Where else do you think this is practiced?

Conflicts of interest are everywhere in the investment world.  As an investor, you need to consider how to bypass all conflicts of interest.

We teach you how to cut costs deeply and permanently and keep that money instead.  We explain why you should own the best quality, lowest cost ETFs and keep them for life.  We call them Life Keepers.

From Scientific American:

Financial Flimflam: Why Economic Experts' Predictions Fail

As Princeton University economist Burton G. Malkiel elaborated on the show, over the past decade “more than two thirds of actively managed funds were beaten by a simple low-cost indexed fund [for example, a mutual fund invested in a large number of stocks], and the active funds that win in one period aren’t the same ones who win in the next period.”

....Equating managed fund directors to “snake-oil salesmen,” Malkiel said that Wall Street is selling Main Street on the belief that experts can consistently time the market and make accurate predictions of when to buy and sell. They can’t. No one can. Not even professional economists and not even for large-scale market indicators. As economics Nobel laureate Paul Samuelson long ago noted in a 1966 Newsweek column: “Commentators quote economic studies alleging that market downturns predicted four out of the last five recessions. That is an understatement. Wall Street indexes predicted nine out of the last five recessions!”

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=financial-flimflam

__________________________________________________________________

Guess what?  You can more comfortably invest by ignoring the experts - including the people who advise you - and learn how to keep their costs instead.  We show you how.  It is simpler than anyone wants you to know because the cost savings are also larger than anyone wants you to know.

Contact us and book a seminar or speaking engagement.  Save large, life changing amounts of money by controlling, and keeping, the costs you no longer have to pay.