Monthly Archives: April 2017

Don’t panic, Mom’s money is safe with an “advisor”

Posted By Graham Bodel | April 4, 2017

Toronto’s big banks: CBC puts focus on misleading job titles

“Integrity has no need of rules.” – Albert Camus

“If it is not right, do not do it. If it is not true, do not say it .” – Marcus Aurelius

Words to live by, no? Unfortunately, the financial services industry in Canada doesn’t tend to screen for existentialists and stoics. I’d take Marcus Aurelius or Seneca as my financial advisor any day, even if they weren’t one of the rare advisors in Canada who are required by law to act in their clients’ best interest.

The headlines have been ablaze in the last few weeks with furor over alleged mis-selling at Canada’s banks. Most recently, CBC’s Go Public investigators published a piece about misleading job titles: a grand conspiracy perpetrated by the Canadian financial services industry in which the English language is manipulated to dupe unknowing consumers. (See: ‘I feel duped’: Why bank employees with impressive but misleading titles could cost you big time)

“What’s in a vowel?”

Specifically, the authors suggest that by calling their employees “advisors” with an “o” instead of “advisers” with an “e”, banks are intentionally granting staff license to engage in all sorts of nefarious product mis-selling and conflicted behaviour. Continue Reading…

Banks, Blockchain & Economic Liberty: A follow-up

Posted By Financial Independence Hub | April 3, 2017

By Adam Goldman

I wrote a piece last September titled ‘Why Our Economic Liberty Depends on the Blockchain’, providing an analysis on why I am certain distributed ledger technology is important to securing our rights under the law in the digital age.

In an ever-increasing realm of technology that is meant to improve (in positive ways) facets of our lives, the imperfection of humanity still exists while greed heavily plagues the banking world. As a firm advocate for the rule of law, I find recent revelations by CBC’s Go Public , that highlighted rampant fraudulent activity occurring amongst Canada’s largest financial institutions (TD, BMO, RBC, CIBC, and Scotiabank) disturbing to say the least.

‘This is why the only solution really is to have government step in and look after the Canadian people.’ says lobbyist Stan Buell as quoted in the CBC article.

Ultimately directives from above led to not only immoral, but also illegal tactics that chased their bottoms lines. Adding more bureaucracy at a government level will only exacerbate the climate.

Blockchain is the answer, not government

In my previous article I had given several broad examples of current institutions that could improve themselves, one being quasi-relevant to the financial fraud currently being exposed in Canada.

How Small Businesses can leverage SEO & the Internet for marketing

Posted By Financial Independence Hub | April 2, 2017

By Mike Carroll

(Sponsored Content)

Big company or small, marketing isn’t what it used to be. In fact, it isn’t what it was last week. Marketing and sales are so tied to technology that they are evolving almost faster than you can manage.

So businesses move quickly to find the consultant or manager to assume the demands of SEO, SEM, social media, and more of the contemporary tools available. Businesses simply don’t have the time or experience to optimize the business’s branding and identity.

What to look for?

Small businesses, perhaps through cost concerns, make the mistake of leaving these issues to an employee with some internet experience or some third party tech-savvy freelancer.

What they need is a full service consultancy, experienced in the intricate and specific tools and capabilities. You want experts who are ahead of the curve in technology and content. You want the firm with a demonstrated history of building and optimizing traffic to a company’s website.

What you want is a higher ranking for your website that sells candy. You want your Sweet Services online store to appear early when people use their browsers. The higher it appears, the more likely your site is to sell. Boosting your ranking takes skill and real time management.

Search Rankings

Adam Heitzman wrote in Inc.com that no one and no SEO firm can guarantee you #1 rankings. You can’t take the SEO firm’s word for it, but you can demand they show proof of what they have done for other customers.

Expertise

Rockstar Finance’s review of Victory Lap Retirement

Posted By Financial Independence Hub | April 1, 2017

By Hélène Massicotte, Rockstar Finance

Mike and Jonathan walk the talk. They both have made sound financial decisions that enabled them to leave their corporate lives (either through retirement or redirection), allowing them to shift their focus toward what they wanted to do next without having to have money be the primary driver.

How can we start stacking the deck in our favor to do the same? By:

Following the “Seven Eternal Truths of Financial Independence”
Focusing on one important formula
Forgetting traditional notions of retirement

#1. The “Seven Eternal Truths of Financial Independence”

When it comes to managing money, most of us want to improve our odds of success. That means ensuring we behave in a way that reduces the financial obligations that work to limit our personal and professional choices. The authors suggest the following behaviors can do a great deal to help us increase our financial flexibility:

Live below your means
Pay yourself first
Get out of debt
Buy a home and pay it off as soon as possible
Be an owner, not a loaner
Never say no to free money from your employer
Take the government up on its few offers of free money

Two of these include interesting twists on the theme beyond what is usually covered in what’s considered mainstream financial advice:

#4. Buy a home and pay it off as soon as possible. This is great advice for those among us who want to own a home, but the authors take it one step further: we should look at our home as part need and part want. Need is the bare minimum of what we need in a home: shelter, basic utilities, safety, minimum square footage, proximity to other needs, etc. Want are the extras beyond what we need: extra space, extra features, better privacy, less noise, better outdoor space, better-than-needed neighborhood, etc.

Looking at housing this way can help us consider the appropriateness of the largest physical asset class we’re likely to ever own. It’s easy to justify buying too much house, thereby turning a good purchase into a bad one, and this “need vs want” can help us keep the inflation in check.

#5. Be an owner, not a loaner. This suggests that, though bonds are lower-risk investment vehicles, they won’t offer the returns that equity can, even when these are risk-adjusted. The authors suggest a diversified portfolio that includes high-quality dividend paying stocks and stress that qualifying dividend-paying stock income also offers some tax advantages over bond-related income for investments that are held in non-tax-sheltered accounts.