When the facts change

John Maynard Keynes also famously once said "when the facts change, I change my mind.  What do you do, sir?"  The retort was in response to a questioner who pointed out that Keynes had been wrong about an economic prediction made some time earlier.  There is a difference between predicting the future of complex systems with random variables when human emotions are involved, and understanding why the system works the way it does.  Keynes, like all good skeptics, realized dogmatically defending an earlier position which turned out to false would be, well, intellectually dishonest.  His quote emphasizes what all good skeptics understand: the truth is bigger than your ego.

It is my goal to help de-mystify finance and economics.   One can easily be overwhelmed with jargon, acronyms or unfamiliar concepts which render trying to learn these subjects from context difficult. At least in America, financial decisions are becoming more complicated and more important to one’s well-being at the same time. Traditional pensions are are disappearing while self-directed 401Ks are on the rise. Businesses, salespeople and politicians twist, bend and contort economic statistics to sell you products or ideas. How can we tell fact from fiction?

Tools people; its all about tools!  Much like logical fallacies in skepticism, there is a toolkit of economic maxims which can cut through the ideological spin, commentary and marketing fluff to show a financial proposal for what it really is; but it becomes your job to push emotion, bias and sacred cows to the side and view things clearly.

What qualifies me to do this?  Besides a degree in finance and being a card-carrying skeptic, I have been interested in economics since middle school (duh, who wasn't? You mean you like the opposite sex better? Sheesh) and have been involved with Wall Street since working on the floor of the NYSE at age 19 (uh, that's almost half my life, sigh).  Now I run a financial planning firm as a practicing CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER professional and assist people through life's economic decisions.  Prior to starting my firm, I helped make investment decisions for a $15 billion mutual fund complex- you know, interrogate CEOs and figure out whether to buy or sell hundreds of millions of dollars of their stock and when.

We hope to help you understand what financial actions maximize your odds of success and why, instead of listening to those who claim magical ability to find the next Microsoft and make you rich.  Scams, frauds, “fear sales” and stupid ideas be warned.