Outstanding Financial Pornography

Asset allocation, risk, diversification and rebalancing. Pros/cons of hiring a financial advisor. Seeking advice on your portfolio?
Flaccidsteele
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$10M Net Worth + $215K income, No Tax

Post by Flaccidsteele »

Sweet! :thumbsup:

How a couple with a net worth of $10 million and annual income of $215,000 can pay $0 in income tax
So where does this leave the $10-million couple when it comes to tax time?

The good news is that they pay a grand total of $0 in income taxes. Yes, you read that correctly: Zero.

The sort of bad news: They each get $4,800 of their $6,800 OAS clawed back. But they still get a total of $4,000 from OAS after tax.
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Re: $10M Net Worth + $215K income, No Tax

Post by Peculiar_Investor »

The article belongs in the Outstanding Financial Pornography topic. IMHO there is no educational value in the article. Look at all the nice round numbers in the article, certainly looks like data mining to me.

Even the writer acknowledges
Tom and Mary have paid a lot of taxes in their working years. They clearly made good incomes in order to attain the wealth that they have, and because they didn’t get aggressive with tax planning, every year they would have been paying a good percentage of their income in taxes.

In addition, just because Tom and Mary are paying $0 in income taxes in 2015 doesn’t mean that they will be able to do this for too much longer. They have several tax issues coming up in the years ahead.
It appears that the stars have aligned specifically in 2015 and probably won't repeat again. Nothing to see here, moving on.
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Re: $10M Net Worth + $215K income, No Tax

Post by HardWorker »

Peculiar_Investor wrote: It appears that the stars have aligned specifically in 2015 and probably won't repeat again. Nothing to see here, moving on.

I agree. It's just a sensational and attention grabbing headline for the most part. Lots of sizzle, little steak. I'd rather have a bigger spotlight pointed at the KPMG tax sham.
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Re: $10M Net Worth + $215K income, No Tax

Post by Insomniac »

$40K in investment council fees for "plain vanilla" planning!
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Re: $10M Net Worth + $215K income, No Tax

Post by SQRT »

Agree. Was stuck with not much to read on a flight yesterday. Right off the top we learn that $3million of their net worth is personal use real estate. Right. Timing of article a little suspect too, right before election? Stir up that wealth envy. Make the "filthy rich" pay their fair share.
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Re: Outstanding Financial Pornography

Post by Koogie »

I may be quibbling here but the first paragraph annoys me. That is not my idea of asset allocation.
..and from a Bloomberg writer no less... (emphasis mine)


ASSET ALLOCATION
The year stocks, bonds and cash went nowhere
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-in ... e27946515/

""The idea behind asset allocation is simple: When one market struggles, it’s okay because an investor can jump into another that is thriving. Not so in 2015.""
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Re: Outstanding Financial Pornography

Post by SkaSka »

I mean, it is just some blog churning out fantastically terrible "stock tips" on highly speculative and risky companies, but I found some of the "analysis" being offered up truly, truly terrible.

On SunEdison written at the beginning of March 2016:
While SUNE has been dealt a bit of a heavy hand as of late, the stock is recovering. Personally, I believe that we’re seeing the beginning of a strong recovery that will last for the long term. So, if you want to get involved in a great solar stock, you may want to take a close look at SUNE.
Well, SunEdison is about to file for bankruptcy and I shudder to think of anyone naive and stupid enough to have bought following this brilliant piece of advice.

On Blackberry written near the beginning of March 2016:
Moving forward, I have an overwhelmingly bullish opinion of what we can expect to see from BBRY. The reality is that the company has unlocked the door to smartphone sales with the Priv, and since they plan on continuing with the Android operating system, I’m expecting to see more strong movement in that area.
Oops, the Priv was a disappointment and the stock took a big hit on lackluster sales of the device.

And most recently, on Valeant:
While VRX declined in a big way following the issues with Philidor, we’re starting to see a change in momentum surrounding the stock. Lately, watching Valeant has been a lot like watching a roller coaster. There have been plenty of downs, but there also have been plenty of ups as well. In fact, today, we’re seeing strong gains in the value of the stock as investors start to change their opinions of the company.

While there are still several analysts saying that VRX is a bad move at the moment, I don’t think that is the case. The reality is that we’ve seen a tremendous price drop on the company, leading to a valuation that’s seeing strong support in the market. While I do agree that VRX was likely in the wrong, I also have to say that the company is making big strides toward improvement. As a result, I’m expecting to see strong gains in the long run from the stock.
My God.... I just.... I just can't even.

I shudder at the thought of any fool reading and following this sort of "advice" :shock:
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Re: Outstanding Financial Pornography

Post by Insomniac »

What is the "Franklin Independent"? I keep getting messages such as "iShares DEX Universe Bond Index Fund Gap Up Today Means Lower Risks Forward".

The link they provide: http://www.franklinindependent.com/isha ... s-forward/

The story is laughable. Clearly they have no idea what they are doing.
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Re: Outstanding Financial Pornography

Post by zeno »

Insomniac wrote:What is the "Franklin Independent"? I keep getting messages such as "iShares DEX Universe Bond Index Fund Gap Up Today Means Lower Risks Forward".

The link they provide: http://www.franklinindependent.com/isha ... s-forward/

The story is laughable. Clearly they have no idea what they are doing.
I could be wrong, but that has the tone of an AI generated article. I've been seeing them lately appearing as "News" in Google Finance charts. There's plenty of technology out there that can take a bunch of numbers and generate a story out of them. Automated Insights is the best known exemplar of this. Associated press uses it to "write" a ten thousand stories a year. My impression is that some sites are using this technology to essentially spam Google Finance.
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Re: Outstanding Financial Pornography

Post by Insomniac »

zeno wrote: My impression is that some sites are using this technology to essentially spam Google Finance.
I think you are correct. It looks like their software cannot tell the difference between a common stock and an ETF. :roll:
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Re: Outstanding Financial Pornography

Post by Descartes »

Retire at 45, or even 40? It can be done
By the time he’s 40, Timothy Stobbs hopes to realize his Canadian dream – to retire from his engineering job and enjoy life with his wife and two sons in Regina.

“Retiring would be my 40th birthday present to myself, if everything goes according to plan,” says the 37-year-old, who carries no debt, has hefty savings and says his family isn’t lacking for anything.

And no, he didn’t win the lottery. By day, Mr. Stobbs is a chemical engineer for SaskPower.
Goal of 750K for retirement. In his blog, he says he is at 420K in investments (not 600K as stated in the Globe) with 3 years to go.

Snapshot a year ago:
RRSP $42,430 ($0), [+$1210]
LIRA $15,350 ($0), [+$490]
TFSA $56,510 ($2500), [-$830]
Pension $117,690 ($887), [+$2222]
Wife’s RRSP $75,260 ($500), [+$2000]
Wife’s TFSA $48,010 ($0), [+1350]
High Interest Savings Account $2320 (+$600),[+$10]

Investment Net Worth $361,280 ($4477), [+$6,452 or +1.8%]
This is pornography from the Globe's perspective, but it seems to be either delusion or dishonesty (retirement subsidized by continuing income-producing "hobbies") or a future of abject poverty for the guy in question.
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Re: Outstanding Financial Pornography

Post by FinEcon »

Descartes wrote:.....this is pornography from the Globe's perspective, but it seems to be either delusion or dishonesty (retirement subsidized by continuing income-producing "hobbies") or a future of abject poverty for the guy in question.
Ahh, the rise of the life coach (in all of its forms) and the endless supply of shitheels peddling some form of salvation if you follow their method which often consists standard of mom wisdom suited for a 8 yr old. In the past few years, it seems various online community members have capitalized on the incestuous circular nature of the interwebs and the herd like nature of people as there seems to be a high number of people peddling ebooks via blogs. And as a bonus to my ebook, I can teach you how to become a location independent entrepreneur.

I've obtained a few out of sheer morbid curiosity and they tend to be very basic, poorly written, highly repetitive, and full of filler and errors both factual and logical. In one example, approximately 1/3 of the book is the notes section......one citation or link on each page. I'm guessing there is also a lot of gaming Amazon sales reviews and rankings going on.
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Re: Outstanding Financial Pornography

Post by kcowan »

Since the internet has gone totally commercial, even reviews are for hire!
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Re: Outstanding Financial Pornography

Post by Profit not Prophet »

Woody Allen quote or not still applicable to the Globes half a million dollar man story

'Sincerity is everything. Once you can fake that, you’ve got it made!'

Oye....also Fincon your'e right on the money there.
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Re: Outstanding Financial Pornography

Post by zeno »

Descartes wrote:Retire at 45, or even 40? It can be done
By the time he’s 40, Timothy Stobbs hopes to realize his Canadian dream – to retire from his engineering job and enjoy life with his wife and two sons in Regina.

<snipped>

This is pornography from the Globe's perspective, but it seems to be either delusion or dishonesty (retirement subsidized by continuing income-producing "hobbies") or a future of abject poverty for the guy in question.
I'll cut the guy some slack. He's trying to live frugally and save for retirement. His retirement age goal is optimistic, but there are worse sins. As for the publishing, if he can make money selling home truths, then more power to him, but I suspect there's a limited market.

The king of the frugal early retirement bloggers is the money mustache guy. He's got an amusing shtick and he staked out the market early. The great irony of money moustache man is that he planned a frugal early retirement, but he's now making 400k a year in ad revenue from his blog. He says he's not spending the ad revenue and will give it away some day, but in the meantime that nest egg and revenue stream must be a great comfort in case things don't go to plan.
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Re: Outstanding Financial Pornography

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enjoy life with his wife and two sons in Regina.
Uh,. 'enjoy' life in Regina? Ok some people don't aim too high :rofl:
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Re: Outstanding Financial Pornography

Post by Flaccidsteele »

We should create a Outstanding Financial Jealousy thread :rofl:
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Re: Outstanding Financial Pornography

Post by kcowan »

twa2w wrote:
enjoy life with his wife and two sons in Regina.
Uh,. 'enjoy' life in Regina? Ok some people don't aim too high :rofl:
If you have never lived there, your opinion does not count!
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Re: Outstanding Financial Pornography

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kcowan wrote:
twa2w wrote:
enjoy life with his wife and two sons in Regina.
Uh,. 'enjoy' life in Regina? Ok some people don't aim too high :rofl:
If you have never lived there, your opinion does not count!
Humour notwithstanding, I suspect that opinions such as the one given are really rooted in the deep seated regionalism that was/is still present in this country. I remember travelling to the west when I was younger and being taken aback by some of the attitudes that were displayed based solely on where I came from. I suspect a lot of that was based on the political reality of the day.

Last weekend my wife and I went out for dinner in Dundas following a pottery show and we met up with a couple that had just moved here from Chilliwack. I'm sure we looked dumbfounded as we asked in unison: why? They had retired and were going to move anyway. Their son had found work in the GTA and had moved east with his young family. That's pretty easy to understand, I think.

They chuckled at our use of the word mountain to describe the escarpment, but by-in-large were pleasantly surprised by the community they had moved to with the only real complaint being roads and traffic, but if you're not commuting, you can work around that.

In the end it's all about the communities no matter where you choose to put down roots. The geography can change and the climate, but it's really all about the people. Worth remembering I think in light of on-going events in Alberta.
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Re: Outstanding Financial Pornography

Post by kcowan »

My wife's cousin lives in Chilliwack and I can attest that they made a move up to the Hamilton area. WADR any current residents of Chilliwack. And 407/403 has made that area very accessible (unlike the Highway 1 parking lot)!

There are also some nice mountains in the east. Unfortunately they are all in Quebec. :lol:
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Re: Outstanding Financial Pornography

Post by OnlyMyOpinion »

kcowan wrote:There are also some nice mountains in the east. Unfortunately they are all in Quebec. :lol:
I'll grant you they are scenic, but calling them big, furry hills "mountains" seems awfully generous of you. :)
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Re: Outstanding Financial Pornography

Post by kcowan »

Camp Fortune skier. I was brainwashed at an early age. Tremblant much later.
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Re: Outstanding Financial Pornography

Post by Descartes »

How to find $10K to shift to your retirement funds

Boils down to:
1. buy the used Mercedes not the new one
2. scale back on spending 90K a year to send your kid to soccer club
3. have Mom join the kids in their private tennis lessons to get the group rate
4. audit those "for fun" college courses instead of paying to get the credits

This was linked via Rob Carrick at the Globe who is truly a class-A pornographer ..yet a failure as a serious journalist.
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Re: Outstanding Financial Pornography

Post by scomac »

Descartes wrote:How to find $10K to shift to your retirement funds

This was linked via Rob Carrick at the Globe who is truly a class-A pornographer ..yet a failure as a serious journalist.
Maybe this isn't so far fetched for those living and working at the Centre of the Universe! It just goes to show that common sense isn't all that common. :roll:
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Re: Outstanding Financial Pornography

Post by skepticus »

Descartes wrote:This was linked via Rob Carrick at the Globe who is truly a class-A pornographer ..yet a failure as a serious journalist.
Interesting comment about Carrick. I'm no expert on these matters, so if you don't mind--would you explain why you classify Carrick as a pornographer and a failure as a journalist? :)
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