Investing

I was rudely introduced to the world of stocks, bonds and investing when my mother  decided to sue my father for the fourth time for all he was worth!  And, that wasn't much mind you!  The poor guy was literally going to starve to death if my sister and I did not intervene.  Sommer has always had a business mind and good with numbers, so she hatched a plan where her and I would start a shell corporation, hire father and then he would have nothing and if mother sued anyone it had to be us kids.

Well, that was the idea.

Father of course was a sociopath, so unpredictable.  He expanded the company from a shell company to a real international concern, zillions of employees - even one of my ex-girlfriends, married the sister of my girlfriend in high school, which really pissed me off big time!  I just walked away.  Eventually he got snookered in a mining scheming in Australia which cost us $57 million in losses!  I did not even know that Sommer and I had gained that much in value, much less could have lost that much without so much as a howdy-do from father.  As I said, he was a documented sociopath.  He really did not care.  It seems he had hidden some funds for him, told us to write the loss off and as far as he was concerned it was all history - and utterly bankrupted me.  Yeah, there is a reason we did not talk for 30 years.

The next time I played with stock, I thought I did extremely well.  I sold it for 3 times what I paid for it.  The next day however it shot up by 500% and stayed for years.  Great, just great.

All this while there was a trust fund waiting for me to turn 25.  I got it, bought a house and was very happy.  Well, until the IRS decided that my trust fund was not tax free and I owed taxes and penalties going back to 1955!  There was simply no appealing this one, nor logic in the face of bureaucrats.  Sigh.  I had to sell everything I had to save the house!

And, I never touched another piece of stock again!

So I am doing taxes for retirees.  It is painful - I hate math, I hate the lack of logic behind taxes, I really hate the IRS!  And here I am trying to help elderly people whom should be cherished and cared for but we have a tax code and system built to make them nothing but blind cash cows!  It angers me so!

Almost everyone of them has invested per 1960 and 1970's investment logic.  The logic was bad, the advice wrong, the elderly now pay the cost for those "experts" egotism.  Add a social security system which is at best abusive and these people are trapped.

There are about 5 big investment firms, I now shudder when I see their paperwork.  How can you justify your job when you are charging $13k per year to manage money and oh by the way, you are losing that same amount per year for your clients!  Not just one return but every elderly return I have looked at!  These people are nothing but cash cows eating losses for the big 5!

Swede tells me that the markets were bad in 2015, really?  Then why are they short selling solid stock, taking their commissions and reinvesting in what turn out to be losers?  And it is this way for almost all of the elderly!  But, I have younger people's returns and they are not showing the same loses nor cash cow treatment ... interesting.

Well, all I can say, if you have an IRA or stock dependent retirement account,  you might want to rethink your investment strategies ... savings accounts at least have an insurance available.

For me I invested heavily in natural gem stones decades ago ... whom could have thought they would be all but worthless now due to the flood artificial stones ... stones .... argh!  My best stone is a 1923 cut Himalaya Mine Morganite - there is so much fake stuff on the market, I do not even know how someone could go about proving it natural these days!

As the Bible says, do not lay up treasures on Earth, but in Heaven ... best advice there is.  Invest in people and yeah you might not die rich but you will live rich in Heaven.