PiggyBankWritingPersonal Money Planning's

e-Newsletter for March 14, 2009

(to look at past issues, click here)
Also In This Issue
Just a Thought
Retirement, part 1 (reprint)
Small Business Facts (reprint)
parting thoughts: Wisdom
 
 
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Just a Thought
It was as bad as it felt:

Of the 500 stocks in the S&P 500 only 31 made money in 2008.

Of the 2800 diversified U.S. equity mutual funds tracked by Morningstar, only one made a profit for its investors in 2008.

Of the 2.6 million jobs lost in 2008, fully 2 million of them occurred in just the last four months.

 
On the bright side of things, my curling team made it through the first round of our club's playoffs.
 
--Gary




 

Disclosure

 

This newsletter is produced by Gary Silverman, dba Personal Money Planning, a registered investment advisor located in Wichita Falls, Texas.

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Personal Money Planning does not make any representations or warranties as to the accuracy, timeliness, suitability, completeness, or relevance of any information prepared by any unaffiliated third party, whether linked to Personal Money Planning's web site or incorporated herein, and takes no responsibility therefore. All such information is provided solely for convenience purposes only and all users thereof should be guided accordingly.

 
 Gary Silverman, CFP  
Last weekend I was privileged to attend the Seabee Ball. For those who aren't versed in what aSeabees are, they are the Naval construction batallions. Their motto tells the story: "We build, we fight."
 
From the island hopping of World War II and the cold of Korea, to the jungles of Vietnam and the mountains of Bosnia, the Seabees have built entire bases, bulldozed and paved thousands of miles of roadway and airstrips, and accomplished a myriad of construction projects. This is often done while people try to kill them.
 
At the close of the ceremonies, the oldest active-duty Seabee at the Ball (a 48-year-old Master Chief) and the youngest (a 17-year-old recent graduate of the Seabee school) cut the celebratory cake.
 
Both looked at each other in admiration. As they go off to their duty assignments, give a prayer for both of them and their comrades. And don't forget, there's still a war going on.
 
Gary
 
Gary Silverman, CFP
 
Retirement: Part One
In our series on financial planning we've been looking at cash flow. Now onto one of the biggest flows of cash people will ever experience: affording retirement.
 
This first in a series of four parts looks at how to establish your retirement budget. After all, it is difficult to figure out how to prepare for an expense if you don't know how much it is going to be.
 
Read Retirement Part One by clicking here.
 
(This article was previously published in the Wichita Falls Times Record News.)
  


Small Business Facts

Small business is big business both in the creation of jobs, the employment of workers, and sheer numbers.
 
Learn the statistic about small business in America and, for those of you thinking of starting one of your own, a place to go to increase your likelihood of success by clicking here.
 
(This article was previously published in the Wichita Falls Times Record News.)

 
parting thoughts 
Energy Wisdom 
I, for one, would like to see the United States get all of its power (and transportation fuels) from renewable resources. I'm even in favor of increased taxes to fund some of the infrastructure costs. Yet I'm also realistic and know that my dream for this is many decades in the future, probably well past my own mortality.
 
In the meantime it seems that the current administration wants to get rid of two problem components of electrical generation in this country: Nuclear Power and Coal.
 
Coal is messy. It kills people. And getting it out of the ground leaves an ugly scar across the earth.
 
Nuclear, which is the industry I grew up with, has the problem of what to do with all the spent fuel. (What's kinda silly is that it has just been announced that the government is scrapping the only national spent fuel repository that was being developed.) 
 
However, the reality is that coal supplies about 50% of the current electrical generating capacity in our nation. Nuclear power provides 20%. That means that we have to replace 70% of our generating capacity with renewable resources to make those two "problem children" go away. And that assumes our electrical usage doesn't increase, which it does every year.
 
So, while I am quite in favor of an all-out effort to move toward renewable resources, I don't think we should be too quick to punish our current providers. We also shouldn't kid ourselves to think that we can have energy that is non-polluting, cheap, and now.
 
That's all for this week.
 
Gary Silverman caricature
 
 
 

Gary

 
Gary Silverman, CFP
Personal Money Planning  
 
 

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