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19 Sep
16 Sep

Now That’s Awkward!

6a01b8d0a6271d970c01bb086d83ed970d-500piAn awkward part of estate planning is telling your kids how much — or how little — they’ll get. Here’s how a financial planner can help. For clients, one of the most stressful aspects of estate planning — already an emotionally difficult process — is the prospect of telling heirs what they plan to do with their assets. Because conversations about legacy plans can be terribly difficult, clients may avoid them at all costs — and the costs can indeed be substantial. read more

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15 Sep

Can the Outcome of the Presidential Race Impact Your Investments?

This year’s presidential race will surely be one for the record books. Already, the media coverage, the drama and the voter turnout during the primaries are all breaking records. One connection that investors are trying to make is how this election will affect their money. Many people are trying to predict what will happen to their investments depending on which candidate wins. But is this a senseless process, or is there real truth in worrying about who will win the election and what it will do to your investments?

Here are a few points that might help you determine just how much of an impact the outcome of this Presidential election might affect your portfolio, as well as what you can do about it.

Predictions Can Fail

No one can really predict just how one event, such as a Presidential election, will impact another event, like the financial markets. There are numerous factors that come into play that can affect the outcome of something as influential as the state of the economy or its impact on your financial portfolio. Even if there is a Nostradamus among us, it is difficult to know just who to believe with so many experts weighing in with their own opinions.

One major point to consider is that many predictions made by financial advisors and other market experts end up being wrong. Just look at the recent Brexit drama, where many of the world’s leading financial market experts agreed that there would be major stock market crashes around the world for months. While it’s fair to say they were right for about three days, the reality is that almost all of the global markets have recovered since then and some have even recorded new highs, like the markets in the U.S.

Go back even further in time to the Y2K scare. Many leading experts were on edge thinking that markets would fail to open, businesses would be shuttered and the world would descend back to the dark ages because of a simple computer software glitch. Of course, nothing happened that time either.

The point is that expert predictions are often wrong, then everyone forgets about it until the same experts move on to another topic of interest or their next prediction. If the experts can’t get it right, then why should you try to make a prediction about what will happen either?

Instead, Come Up with a Strategy for Good Times or Bad

Instead of trying to gamble with your money, regularly review your long-term plan and consider how you will adapt your portfolio to different outcomes in the market. Why not come up with a general strategy for minimizing short-term market performance? By mapping out your goals, risk tolerance, and time frame you have a plan to protect yourself in any type of market. This way you don’t have to worry about getting predictions right, just follow your plan.
Investing is not about emotion, it’s about following a long-term, strategic plan and reviewing its progress. Most predictions tug at our emotions and can cause us to make poor investment decisions. Isn’t it a better idea to just plan ahead so you know your portfolio can weather any storm? Don’t let the hype of this Presidential election steer you in the wrong direction or diverge from a well-constructed, long-term financial plan.

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14 Sep

The Basics of Estate Planning

draft_lens6229982module49470302photo_1249598396business-manToo often, the need for the most basic estate-planning documents is overlooked or misunderstood. While many people would admit they should have a will, 50 percent of Americans with children and 41 percent of baby boomers age 55 to 64 don’t have one, according to a survey from online legal services company RocketLawyer.com. If you want to stay in control of your money and medical decisions until the end, here are the five most important estate-planning documents you need to have. read more

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12 Sep

Who Gets What?

Senior Couple on Computer - VerticalThe murkiest part of estate planning is discussing when and how to distribute your assets to your heirs. This process requires a series of considerations and trade-offs to avoid emotion-laden family problems… when it comes to these issues, things get gray because emotional factors drive decisions now. There is no correct answer on how to distribute your estate. read more

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09 Sep

Where There’s a Will …

6a01b8d0a6271d970c01b7c7cc7b7b970b-320wiThere are a multitude of mistakes that people make when it comes to putting together their wills.  These include naming of executors and custodians, trying to write their own wills, and not considering items such as liquidity. One of the colossal failures in estate planning I witness when people make their wills is not coordinating the will with the overall beneficiary designations they have chosen. read more

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07 Sep

Political Correctness is not Spiritually Correct

It doesn’t take much review of current headlines to wonder if we’re truly going to hell in a handbasket. Even I, who firmly believe we’re headed in a positive direction of global unity and spiritual evolution, find it challenging to remain upbeat in the face of such unrelenting negativity. Since the scope of pernicious news topics is so broad, I’ve chosen to address a personal pet peeve, political correctness. The latter is spiritually offensive to me because it fundamentally denies or skews truth. More, it inhibits thoughtful consideration of complex issues and aligns self-righteousness with repressive behavior to quash free speech, thought, and action. Rather than facilitate mature policy reformation, political correctness’ shame-&-blame M.O. hounds anyone willing to consider the highly textured, multi-factorial nature of complex social scenarios and, instead, favors emotional diatribes that usually misrepresent facts, discount context, and justify myopic, self-serving biases.

Social modification requires meaningful dialogue and action based on perceiving levels of cause and outcome. Grasping causation, therefore, is often a key component to crafting reform. Without clarity of insight, the ability to mend situational wrongs is blunted or misdirected. Political correctness undermines such by decrying critical thinking and misrepresenting origins of issues. Case in point: If a person persists in overeating or eating wrongly – for whatever reasons – they will gain weight. This is simple biology. Until they accept responsibility for this cause-effect relationship and undertake necessary steps to alter their habits of thought, activity, and eating, the problem shall remain. Spinning scenarios to blame others or glorify unhealthy body types won’t change reality. When pressure exists to replace facts with revisionist beliefs, as championed by PC protocol, such behaviors undermine societal health and become systemically problematic.

Political correctness fundamentally rejects notions of personal responsibility preferring sanitized versions of life which appease its ideological doctrines. Conversely, the esoteric route to problem solving lay in thoughtful self-reflection. Much in life happens mysteriously, yet justifiably, due to subtle causative principles. From a spiritual perspective, we’re not hapless victims of unknown forces foisted on us by ‘others’ but architects of outcomes arising from choices and actions made consciously or unconsciously overtime. That is why when unpleasant life events occur it is advised to contemplate our possible role in fashioning such, then, devising ways to remedy situations – including by changing ourselves. Consider these statements of Paramhansa Yogananda:

The habits you cultivated in past lives have substantially created your physical, mental, and
emotional makeup in this life. You have forgotten those habits, but they have not forgotten you.”

“A man (person) takes birth in a certain family, a particular social and national environment,
owning to specific causes—his own past actions. Therefore man is the architect of his own destiny.”

“Your failure or sickness or other troubles started with unwise actions in past lives, and the effects of those causes have been brewing within, waiting for the right time to bubble over. Disease, health; failure, success; inequalities, equality; early death, long life—all these are outgrowths of the seeds of actions we have sown in the past…Each person has made himself the way he is.….Don’t blame God or anyone else if you are suffering from…upsets. You created the cause of the problem in the past and must make a greater determination to uproot it now.”

The reason I put all this forward is because I recoil at the decline of truth, understanding, and moral backbone so prevalent today. Like everyone else, I wish for a more just and equitable society. However, that doesn’t mean we can overlook the subtle infrastructure which contributes to its makeup. Dharma, or cosmic righteousness, won’t be trifled with nor tolerate fools. Life operates precisely and mathematically not by ungoverned whimsy. There are consequences to actions made in accordance with, or in disregard of, cosmic laws. As such we must realize that whatever exists in our lives does so by subtle principles like cause-effect and energetic-magnetic affinity. Individual, societal, and global activities are governed by these universal laws. Therefore, we must be willing to at least consider the potential contribution our own actions have wrought while also compassionately seeking to correct whatever is amiss. This commentary is not meant to deny the wrenching impact of life tragedies nor substitute PC thinking with spiritually-flavored blame doctrines. That is neither intended nor proper. Karma is too complex a doctrine for such simplicity. Nor are we victims of unalterable fate. As souls we possess free will and the inherent potential to modify karmic outcomes in ways to our liking. That said, we must also accept that every event has it roots in diverse energetic components. When the reflex to deny accountability is replaced with thoughtful consideration of our potential role in shaping life, we begin to approach and remedy life imbalances in ways that are more spiritually correct, and, enduring.

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07 Sep

Just One Question: What is Estate Planning?

6a01b8d0a6271d970c01b7c7c93159970b-500piWhat is estate planning? Do you think it is only for the rich? One of the greatest gifts you can leave your loved ones is an organized estate. The time that you spend now will help your loved ones cope later, and ensure your wishes are carried out. An estate is all the rights, titles and interests that a person (living or deceased) has in any property. Estate planning is the process of planning for the accumulation, conservation and distribution of an estate to effectively and efficiently accomplish tax and non-tax objectives. read more

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05 Sep

Estate Planning Lessons from Hollywood

6a01b8d0a6271d970c01b7c7cc7927970b-500piCelebrities seem to live a charmed life, but for all the advice they can buy, they’re still not immune to estate planning issues and the consequences of ignorance and bad planning. Several recent celebrity estate issues in the news highlight how important it is to plan ahead and get professional advice when setting up your estate plans. read more

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02 Sep

Keep Up Financially with the Changing Seasons

MP900262644As the summer comes to an end and we head into the fall, a parallel can be drawn between the seasons of weather and the seasons of money. Just as you have spring, summer, fall and winter, there are four financial seasons of life that include accumulation, preservation, distribution and succession. Approaching your finances with these four seasons in mind can help to keep you on track toward reaching your long-term financial goals. read more

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