Money, Myths, and Morasses
Curing Our Monetary Malaise
By Steven Wightman, CFP
Investors are mesmerized into markets based on misunderstanding of information and pure myths. During the past ten years millions of investors have lost more than 50% of their savings – largely in retirement funds, according to July 14th article in both the NY Times and the Boston Globe. Why? Because they have been sold a false bill of goods by so-called money experts who were nowhere to be found when markets and the wisdom of their advice collapsed.
Major myths:
If investors could learn a valuable lesson from a meltdown it is not to “pennywise and pound-foolish” as the wise Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine often said. The majority of people continue to loose tens of thousands of dollars each and every year, expose their families and estates to enormous risks. Risk wise, they are not unlike JFK, Jr. flying in the dark with his family on the fateful Martha’s Vineyard trip - but many won’t pay a fraction of what they’re loosing in markets for the unbiased advice of a Certified Financial Planner professional.
Myths make morasses and more asses make myths. Money myths are like religious beliefs: People hold them dearly and reticently closely to their chests – even when their finances are in a death spiral. These common myths are our gossamer wings on which we ride superficially blissful of the growing storm. Instead of carrying us to our desired sunny levels of a secure retirement, they shatter in downdrafts, leaving us and our futures in a free fall. Take a lesson from Shakespeare’s legacy; don’t let your money control you, but take control of your money – and your life. That’s the cure for monetary malaise.