[Thanos]

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

Thanos Thanos:

Enough people have been so egregiously ripped off by investment professionals over the last twenty years, especially during the collapse of 2008, that the bloom is probably off the rose for the next generation. Saving in a manner that ensures your principal money is protected is entirely the correct thing to do, especially in a financial market that is so overwhelming dominated by grifters and thieves that the odds of getting ripped off are dozens of times greater than the chance of making any meaningful profit through stock or fund growth

As much as I normally don't mind your 'damn the man' mantra, that just doesn't apply here.

My stocks and funds have grown to the point of being able to stop my contributions at 40. GIC's would have been an epic waste of time and a ton of money.

Thanos Thanos:

If I had it all to do over again I would have bought nothing but GICs and government bonds. No potentially large interest bonanza to be made with those kind of things but at least the original investment amount wouldn't have been completely destroyed or blatantly stolen in fees/losses like happened when I made the mistake of venturing into what I was 'assured' were responsibly managed mutual funds. |

Your experience isn't the norm.

You got lucky then. Had I been brighter I would have used the initial experience to forever sever myself from any relationships with the banks (especially BMO) that wasn't about basic banking or sole-purpose saving accounts.

My major mistake was in trusting the advertising, in that I actually was stupid enough to believe that they were managing my investment for me because I didn't have the knowledge to do so myself. When the principle began to get hammered by the same fees that chewed up most of the interest I should have acted sooner. Just part of my natural and devastating lifelong tendency to listen to the wrong kind of people I guess.

[BartSimpson]

andyt andyt:

Of course a person with a broader view understands that their interest extends beyond their narrow well being and involves participating in creating a more cohesive society.

The problem with your vision of the world is that you want to force people to participate.

I like how Canada and the USA were up until about thirty-some odd years ago when if you wanted to have your own little Utopia out in the backwoods you were free to do so. Now everyone is ultimately forced at gunpoint to participate in the growing socialist experiment.

Give me liberty with all of its warts and foibles any day over the cradle-to-grave monolithic state that people like yourself always seem to gravitate to in order to enforce your vision on everyone else...except the moslems, of course.

[OnTheIce]

Thanos Thanos:

You got lucky then. Had I been brighter I would have used the initial experience to forever sever myself from any relationships with the banks (especially BMO) that wasn't about basic banking or sole-purpose saving accounts.

My major mistake was in trusting the advertising, in that I actually was stupid enough to believe that they were managing my investment for me because I didn't have the knowledge to do so myself. When the principle began to get hammered by the same fees that chewed up most of the interest I should have acted sooner. Just part of my natural and devastating lifelong tendency to listen to the wrong kind of people I guess.

I would say that you were unlucky, rather than me being lucky.

This is why we need more education on this at the high school level so people can make better decisions. I had the benefit of some fantastic teachers at the elementary level that were very big on compound interest and my parents were avid investors as well.

[BartSimpson]

My problem with encouraging people to 'save' money or invest it anymore is that too many Western governments are implementing or proposing 'haircuts'. A 'haircut' is where the government just arbitrarily seizes a percentage of your capital reserves.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-07-1 ... ing-crisis

$1:

The most important thing I want you to focus on is the speed of these events once things hit the fan. Cypriot banks formally requested a bailout back in June 2012. The bailout talks took months to perform. And then the entire system came unhinged in one weekend.

One weekend. The process was not gradual. It was sudden and it was total: once it began in earnest, the banks were closed and you couldn’t get your money out (more on this in a moment).

[Thanos]

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

Thanos Thanos:

You got lucky then. Had I been brighter I would have used the initial experience to forever sever myself from any relationships with the banks (especially BMO) that wasn't about basic banking or sole-purpose saving accounts.

My major mistake was in trusting the advertising, in that I actually was stupid enough to believe that they were managing my investment for me because I didn't have the knowledge to do so myself. When the principle began to get hammered by the same fees that chewed up most of the interest I should have acted sooner. Just part of my natural and devastating lifelong tendency to listen to the wrong kind of people I guess.

I would say that you were unlucky, rather than me being lucky.

This is why we need more education on this at the high school level so people can make better decisions. I had the benefit of some fantastic teachers at the elementary level that were very big on compound interest and my parents were avid investors as well.

I was well aware of the basics and on my mom's side of the family they've always been a long line of respectable savers. My problem was investing with people that looked at my accounts as just another number. My money was good enough to serve their fees but my amounts weren't big enough for them to have any concern for me when the hammer came down in the 2008 crisis. Have a million invested? Then they'll serve you like a king. Have something like the $50K I had invested? Fuck you chump, yer on yer own. I was told that my funds were in the low to middle range of risk but they all got clobbered anyway with the managers basically doing nothing to protect them. By the time I got involved they'd been wiped out down to about $15K. I switched what was left to GICs but had to use those to survive because in 2010 I didn't work for the whole year after I ripped up the tendons in my left hip.

I also look at it as being made a sucker thanks to the kind of people running the financial sector the last thirty-plus years. My mom and grandma had saving that moderately grew and the principal was never damaged. But that was under different regulations when the grifting and theft was minimized. Post-Reagan the financial sector, including in Canada, is now dominated by short-profit seeking thieves that will throw everyone, including all their customers, off a cliff if it means they can personally make that much more. Previous generation of my family never had to deal with this, at least not to the egregious extent that my generation and the ones after me have had to learn to live with, because the laws prior to Reagan weren't so lopsided in favour of the sector and the wealthy. And this includes Canada because the disease that spread out from Wall Street infects the entire planet now. The basic financial course in high school wouldn't be enough. It's almost like an intensive two-year course in just knowing how to spot white-collar criminals and understanding how changes to the law since the 1980's has allowed these criminals to thrive should almost be mandatory for everyone to take.

[martin14]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

My problem with encouraging people to 'save' money or invest it anymore is that too many Western governments are implementing or proposing 'haircuts'.

Anyone who keeps more than 100k in any single account is an idiot just asking for it.

Cyprus also had this 100k minimum ' guaranteed secure deposits '; anything over 100k
was at risk, just like in Canada, the US, or elsewhere in Europe.

I remember reading about 1 family, where grandpa had a million euros insurance money
for the grandkid sitting in the bank; father died in an accident.

Grandpa said, "they told me at the bank it was safe ". Uhhh, wrong.
Someone at the bank should have been jailed for giving out that kind of advice.




What got people really riled up was Cyprus proposing to hit accounts under 100k,

and the troika agreeing to it.




Just remember, that 100k guarantee is valid only because the government says it is.
There is no real insurance policy taken out by government to insure those deposits.

And when the government says the guarantee is off the table, oh well.


It's why people in Greece are cleaning out their bank accounts.

[BartSimpson]

It's also why Mrs. Bart and I have gradually reduced our traditional bank accounts over the years and moved the funds into things like real estate and fungibles.

Having your money concentrated in the banks is too great an exposure to risk.

[martin14]

Thanos Thanos:

If I had it all to do over again I would have bought nothing but GICs and government bonds.

Remember the 80's ?
Interest rates at 20%, but GICs at 20 as well.

Oh, if I had had money back then.

$1:

My major mistake was in trusting the advertising,

I still remember the Freedom 55 ads.

Wonder how many of us are actually heading towards that now, doesn't look like many.

[OnTheIce]

Thanos Thanos:

I was well aware of the basics and on my mom's side of the family they've always been a long line of respectable savers. My problem was investing with people that looked at my accounts as just another number. My money was good enough to serve their fees but my amounts weren't big enough for them to have any concern for me when the hammer came down in the 2008 crisis. Have a million invested? Then they'll serve you like a king. Have something like the $50K I had invested? Fuck you chump, yer on yer own. I was told that my funds were in the low to middle range of risk but they all got clobbered anyway with the managers basically doing nothing to protect them. By the time I got involved they'd been wiped out down to about $15K. I switched what was left to GICs but had to use those to survive because in 2010 I didn't work for the whole year after I ripped up the tendons in my left hip.

How were they to protect them?

Everyone took a shit-kicking during that time. Low-Medium-High risk, it didn't matter. I recovered and have made a killing since.

Pulling your money out was a huge mistake, IMO.

[uwish]

as a member of 'class' that could use this extra limit on TFSA I welcome it. Fuck everyone else, go pick up my dry cleaning!

[uwish]

andyt andyt:

$1:

"The great majority of Canadians would enjoy no benefits," Kesselman concluded.

"In fact, they would bear the burdens of an expanded TFSA by enduring the reduced public services or bearing the increased taxes needed to offset the lost revenues."

The rich don't need an incentive to save.

its attitudes like that which make people poor. Ever read the Wealthy Barber?

Stop propagating wealth as a dirty word.

[DrCaleb]

Thanos Thanos:

I was told that my funds were in the low to middle range of risk but they all got clobbered anyway with the managers basically doing nothing to protect them. By the time I got involved they'd been wiped out down to about $15K. I switched what was left to GICs but had to use those to survive because in 2010 I didn't work for the whole year after I ripped up the tendons in my left hip.

I have some mutual funds I had invested in 'raided' by managers who earned commissions on trades - even bad trades. I lost tens of thousands in a single year, before I had been sent a yearly investment update. I was incensed that I had actually lost money in that market.

The managers and managing company actually were brought up on charges. There will probabally be a fine, and someone might get fired. I, or none of the other investors will ever see any of that fine, and someone probabally got a six figure bonus that year for their hard work.

They will be first against the wall when the revolution comes.

[BartSimpson]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

They will be first against the wall when the revolution comes.

I suspect that the wall repair industry will see a boom time when the revolution comes.

At the first sign of insurrection I'm going to drop a bundle into spackle and drywall repair stocks!

[DanSC]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

It is not a 'cost' to government when people are allowed to keep their own money. I loathe that kind of wanton abuse of language by the left.

Language is a social construct!

And we socially constructed that you can only spend money you already have acquired either through gifts, production, or credit. Lost income is not spent money.