Notes From Gordon 250115: Sarah Visits Her Financial Planner

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Reading time: 713 words @ 238 wpm = 2 minutes, 59 seconds

TONE: amusing yet sadly true

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Sarah Visits Her Financial Planner

With each stock market crash, franchised financial planners from coast-to-coast escort their trusting clients to the bottom of Wall Street and leave them there as so much retirement road kill.

Why? No serious risk management in place. Can you sue the advisor? Nope. Their license immunizes them. They were simply following the best practices of the financial planning industry which relies upon the client’s lack of sophistication.

The following is a transcript of a conversation between Sarah Bellum (S) and the receptionist at her financial planning firm (P).

S: Is this Dewey Pickum & Howe?

P: Yes, this is Dewey Pickum & Howe. How may I help you?

S: My name is Sarah Bellum and my assets are sagging.

P: I was thinking they look pretty good from here.

S: Get your mind out of the gutter. I am here to see my financial planner.

P: I am sorry, but none of our financial planners are available. They have all entered the Witness Protection Program. Perhaps I can help you.

S: The stock market looks like it’s going to crash again and I am still paying my financial planner fees to grow my money.

P: The fees you pay your financial planner have nothing to do with growing your money. Those are the fees you pay for his advice to grow your money, whether you grow your money or not.

S: That is amazing. Don't financial planners study difficult courses and take special examinations in order to become licensed?

P: Yes, and those exams are very difficult.

S: What do they learn?

P: They learn the definition of a stock, how to put your money into a mutual fund, and the different ways to bill your clients.

S: Do they learn how to actually make money in the stock market?

P: Yes, but only when it is going up.

S: What about when it is going down?

P: When the market is going down everyone loses money. You can only hope that you do not lose as much money as you made when it was going up.

S: This is why financial planners have to be licensed?

P: Yes, otherwise you can go to jail for giving your clients advice without a license.

S: Even when the advice you give doesn't make your clients any money?

P: Making money has nothing to do with having a license. It has to do with giving advice without a license.

S: Even when the advice you give doesn't make your clients any money?

P: We are stuck in a recursive loop.

S: What advice do financial planners give their clients when stocks are going down?

P: They tell their clients to be patient because stocks always go back up again some day.

S: But that could be decades later!

P: Yes, but it is still a true statement.

S: Thank you. This has been most helpful. Now I know what I need to do.

P: What is that?

S: I need to get a license.

P: A license to become a financial planner?

S: No, a license to carry concealed.

An Invitation From Gordon

Your author has been consulting and coaching with families for many years on the fine points of protecting capital in the face of financial and economic risks.

Today we face the Great Reset, the Great Taking, a looming financial depression, the advent of digital currency, civil unrest and the inevitability of World War III.

How much riskier can things get?

Yet most Americans continue to keep the majority of their life savings in banks and financial institutions.

Why?

• Fear of change.

• The normalcy bias.

• Indecision as to available options.

Although semi-retired from active consulting these days, I am happy to get on ZOOM with anyone concerned about the escalating risks to their nest egg and discuss options and strategies.

Get in touch and we’ll schedule a call so I can get to know your situation and answer your questions.

Our first meeting is always on the house.

Remember, the retirement you save could be your own.

Gordon