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."

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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 
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How confidential are your investment costs? 

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

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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