General

Managing Inflation in Retirement

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Roger Wohlner, The Chicago Financial Planner

By Roger Wohlner,

Special to the Financial Independence Hub 

Inflation may seem like a tame or even non-existent threat. We are actually witnessing deflation in the price of oil and other commodities as I write this. Even so, it’s highly unlikely that inflation is dead. The U.S. economy continues to recover from the financial crisis and times of economic recovery are often a trigger for higher inflation.

An annual inflation rate of 2 per cent or 3 per cent over a period of years can seriously erode the purchasing power of your retirement nest egg.  At 2.5 per cent inflation, US$1 today will be worth approximately 78 cents in 10 years, 61 cents in 20 years, and 48 cents in 30 years. This could have a major impact on those entering retirement and those already in retirement.

Managing inflation in retirement is crucial;  here are some thoughts you need to consider. Continue Reading…

Retirement, Findependence or Unretirement?

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Chad Smith (FinancialSymmetry.com)

Certified financial planner Chad Smith has written a piece called Retirement, Findependence or Unretirement. Which path are you on?

Safe to say we all know what the word Retirement refers to. Those coming to this website will also know Findependence, a contraction for Financial Independence. Smith credits financial planner and blogger Michael Kitces for pushing for Financial Independence as a more useful term than Retirement, especially for Millennials.

This observation was also made by Alan Moore of XY Planning Network at this blog here at the Hub late in 2014.

I had also made a similar recommendation at a blog I wrote about the same time for Roger Wohlner’s The Chicago Financial Planner.  And on the same theme, I gave a little talk for Toastmasters on this, which I later expanded here at the Hub. Continue Reading…

How the falling loonie affects U.S. equity ETFs

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Depositphotos_40901151_xsAfter the loonie plummeted 2 cents to 81 cents US after yesterday’s surprise interest-rate cut, it seems an apt time to address a common misunderstanding about how the falling Canadian dollar affects US equity ETFs denominated in either country’s currency.

This was nicely tackled a year ago by Dan Bortolotti in his Canadian Couch Potato blog here.

Dan — who is both a consulting editor with MoneySense Magazine as well as an investment adviser with PWL Capital — had been chatting with me about the upcoming MoneySense ETF All-Stars feature in general and about the much-misunderstood topic of currency hedging in particular.

Personally, I believe international securities exposure provides diversification both for stocks or bonds but also currencies. I agree with Certified Financial Planner Fred Kirby (see Getting Help section)  that the first 20% or 30% of foreign currency exposure doesn’t need to be hedged back into your home country (loonie if you’re Canadian, greenback if you’re American). Of course, American investors who bought US stocks then are laughing. Similarly, if a Canadian invested much of their RRSP directly into US stocks or US equity funds denominated in US$ soon after the 2008 financial crisis and didn’t hedge currencies,  they’re probably a happy camper today. Continue Reading…

Rocco Galati’s grass roots movement against Global Financial Powers

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Editor’s Note. First, in the spirit of full disclosure, the guest blog below is by my brother Graham. Second, as the short bio at the end indicates, he is a successful businessman who thinks for himself and isn’t fussed about being perceived as “politically incorrect.” The issue he raises below tends to be ignored by the mass media (he would term them the “corporate media, lamestream media or lackeys of capitalism”).

The Financial Independence Hub is happy to live up to its name and provide a platform to air this intriguing issue. We’d like to think this is the sort of “challenging content” referred to in Tuesday’s blog by Chartered Financial Analyst Andrew Teasdale that’s relevant but seldom found in “ normal channels.”  Findependence.TV plans to run the resulting video of the upcoming event after it is held this Saturday.

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Graham Chevreau

By Graham Chevreau,

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

A Brief Summary of the National Debt

A couple of months ago I watched a YouTube video created by Bill Abram entitled “The Crime of the Canadian Banking System.” In the video, Bill makes use of a very informative Statistics Canada graph showing Canada’s national debt over the period of 1940 to 1987.

The graph shows that Canada’s national debt was below $20 billion over the period of 1940 to 1974. After 1974, however, the graph headed dramatically upwards and, by 1993, the national debt was $423 billon. Bill Abram pointed out that of the $423 billion; $386 billion was interest on debt! Continue Reading…

What do you seek in online financial content? A good night’s sleep, a rude awakening, challenging content?

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Andrew Teasdale (photo: Bruce Redstone)

By Andrew Teasdale, CFA

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

What do people look for in online financial content, especially a site dedicated to Findependence?   Are they looking for technical information on pensions, investments, private equity, complex products, opinion pieces, confirmation of their own decisions or their advisors/advisers, reassurance in times of financial crisis, or something else?

Personally I find basic technical information, beyond a point, boring. You can find basic information anywhere:  just type in the key words into your browser and bam!  Likewise, there are now books galore on every facet of personal finance, so much so that I fear we have long ago overloaded on dry rudimentary comment. Continue Reading…