The Future is Your Decision

From our July 2011 Creating Confidence Newsletter.

Last Tuesday the 12^th, I spent the morning at the Vistage All City meeting. Our speaker was Brian Beaulieu, a respected economist from the Institute for Trend Research. Brian’s talk, The Future is Your Decision, offered perspectives for CEOs and individual investors based on his trend research.

I found his information useful and have summarized his thoughts below.

Overview

There are 3 mega-trends to be considered when making decisions about your businesses or when investing:

1. Demographics, the World and the US have increasing population. More people = economic growth
2. Inflation, not hyperinflation, but easily 4.5% to 6%
3. Taxes are going up

2011 and 2012 will be periods of modest growth, with continued high unemployment. At the same time, it will be increasingly difficult to fill certain knowledge based positions because our workforce is a) immobile due to being unable to sell their existing homes and b) inadequately trained for the type of jobs available.

2013 and 2014 will likely be a modest recessionary period like the early 1990’s but not as deep as 2008.

Commodity prices are on a temporary rest. 2012 will see increasing commodity prices on items such gold, copper, oil and agricultural products.

The US represents 26% of the world economy. While we are the largest economy in the world, our share of the pie is growing smaller and opportunities exist in emerging economies for investment and doing business. Think Brazil, Australia, and India.

There will be ongoing weakness of the US dollar.

Housing will no longer be in recession but will not be in recovery. Over the next 5 years people will rent and not buy.

Interest rates will remain low and may creep up in 2012 and 2013. A 2014 recession may provide a temporary restraint on rates. Currently we have the lowest rates we will see in our lifetime. Borrow long term, taking advantage of fixed rates now and repay with cheaper inflated dollars.

Remember that normal today is tomorrow’s abnormal.

For Businesses

Look for customers in these growth segments:

• Exporters
• Alternative Energy
• Health care
• Professional services such as law and accounting
• Higher education
• Overseas in India, Brazil, Canada and Australia

Inflation will hit the labor market in 2012. You will need a strategy to employ a mobile workforce. Training programs are more critical than ever, given that you may not be able to find the skill you want in the workforce.

This is a good time to buy other businesses. If you have not positioned your business for sale, you likely do not have time to do so before the next recession. The next good selling season will be 2017 and 2018. Position now to be ready.

Do not let the pain of the past color your vision for the future. Find a sector of your business that is entrepreneurial and expand that segment.

In periods of inflation, metrics and monitoring are critical.

If you cannot raise prices, sell that business unit. Raise prices more frequently and in smaller increments. Think 1% to 1.5% per quarter instead of 4% a year.

For Individuals

The stock market will continue to be volatile thru 2011. Brian is bullish on 2012 and then expects a lackluster market. Position portfolios to take advantage of the 3 megatrends noted earlier.

Invest globally and position your portfolio to include commodities and other investments that do well in periods of rising interest rates and inflation.

Refinance your home if you have not already done so. If you are young and have equity in your home, consider borrowing the equity and investing it outside your home.

Summary

Brian closed with a quote from Dr. W Edwards Deming. “It isn’t necessary to change, survival is optional.”

That sort of says it all. If you can’t love change, at least accept it and position yourself for it. As with any of these ideas, it is best to a) run the numbers for your personal situation and b) consider the impact based on your personal goals.

As your Wealth Advocate, we are here to guide you and your business thru the coming changes. If you have questions or need our assistance, please contact me at Mackey@MackeyAdvisors.com or our team at 859-331-7755.

May prosperity be yours,

Mackey

The Rip Off

Two weeks ago, I was in Washington DC speaking to a CEO roundtable. At the end of my talk, one of the participants said to me “I am sure you are worth every penny you charge, but I have been ripped off by a financial advisor and don’t know if I can ever trust another one. Do you have a case study on how to recover from a bad advisor?”

Great question. If you don’t want to be ripped off by an advisor or the financial system in general, you first have to start thinking about these things differently. Finding the right advisor is about personality, communication and knowing what you need. Do you need a wealth advisor to assist you in creating sustainable wealth? Or are you your own wealth advisor, and just looking for some special expertise in a narrow discipline?

Most of us are unknowingly looking for wealth advisors and hire specialty advisors. Let me explain.

Here’s a common scenario. I need tax advice, so I seek out a tax specialist, i.e. a CPA. My need for insurance is met by a specialist - my insurance agent. My new will is drafted by my legal specialist – my attorney. My investments are handled by another specialist – my stock broker. Question: Who is handling my wealth?

We treat all these facets of wealth management as separate…and they’re not. Creating sustainable wealth is most effectively done by beginning with the end in mind – the end being the freedom that comes with planning for a prosperous future.

If asked “Do you want to leave a legacy for your children?” your answer might be “Yes, absolutely.” But what if funding that legacy means you have to shave 10% off of your annual spending? Is that really what you want? The answer may still be ‘yes’, but without looking at the whole wealth picture, you would not have considered all the consequences to answering one narrowly focused question.

A good wealth advisor begins the process with a plan. He or she may call it a financial plan, a wealth plan, or in our case, The Prosperity Experience®. This plan is not a one-size-fits all; it must be tailored to meet the goals and intentions of the client. It includes a decision-making model that supports the person or couple in reaching their full wealth potential.

Specialty advisors like insurance agents, investment advisors and estate planning attorneys are brought in as needed to provide detailed expertise in a focused area. The wealth advisor may have these professionals in-house or they may be available via contract. Either way, the wealth advisor coordinates their work and uses the planning process with the client to facilitate decision making.

If you have been ripped off, there is nothing to do but get back on your horse and begin again, with the wisdom you gained from the experience. Take it slow. Trust your intuition. Do your homework. Find out who you are talking to.

Sustainable wealth creation is a lifelong process. While no single decision may change the trajectory of your wealth and prosperity, any single decision can. Don’t wait until you have made that one big, bad decision to begin again.

Mackey McNeill

The Scream of the Lizard

I recieved this e mail from Bob Veres (more on Bob below) and felt it was on target .. and puts yesterday's market in perspective.

I hope you enjoy it.

I don't know about you, but I'm feeling just a little beat-up at the moment, and not totally because of the stock market.

Today's returns, trickling in all day, reminded me of a time years ago when I foolishly allowed my children to talk me into accompanying them on a roller coaster ride at a theme park called Sea World. For most of the day, we had been staring at sharks that were safely housed behind thick glass, and polar bears behind even thicker glass, chilled in the penguin area and splashed while watching the killer whales throw their trainers 20 feet or more in the air.

It was a good day, and I still felt good about it as the roller coaster ominously rose into the air, but the people who built it were really clever, and after we crested and fell, nobody noticed that the dip was only about half of the distance we had climbed up, and I was breathing a sigh of relief while my children were pouting in disappointment.

Then the rollercoaster climbed again, and as we crested this secondtime, I looked down and saw that the rest of the park was inhabited by tiny creatures who were either ants or fellow humans who were dangerously far below, and I had just enough time to consider the implications of this and work up a good anticipatory fear when our car crested the top, and fell straight down and--this is the truly scary,fiendishly clever part--WE COULDN'T SEE ANY BOTTOM. The designers had created a fall where the bottom was invisible to us until we actually splashed into the water.

The park had an automatic camera which took pictures of the people in the cars on the way down, and the expression on my face closely resembled that of a heart attack victim, except for the greenish skintone. My kids looked overjoyed.

After the concerned woman from in a park uniform had helped me into a seat and asked me if I thought I needed medical attention, I remember thinking that, in retrospect, it was obvious that there WAS a bottom,and that I would survive, and that nobody had reported a large pile of blood and bones that was the remnant of others who had experienced this particular ride. So why was I so scared? Couldn't I have told myself that I would survive, that everybody else who had ever gone into this particular fee-fall had survived, and simply enjoyed the trip?

No, I couldn't--and I think that's what I'm remembering now. As soon as the roller coaster car crested the top of the tracks and I looked down,the lizard-like part of the back of my brain took over total control of my thought processes, and it screamed, against all logic and against many things I knew to be true, that I and my children were about to die,and it sent a surge of adrenalin and signals of dread into my system so strongly and thoroughly that it was a few minutes before I could standup, shakily, and go pet the sting rays.

This, of course, is what virtually all investors are feeling right now as we ride the roller coaster that is the investment markets, and whoever designed this particular free-fall was even better than the designers of that Sea World ride. I know that there is a bottom somewhere in front of me, and I know that the relentless tide of bad news will end and I know that at some point in the not-too-distant future, I will look at a graph of the markets and see a blip that started last Fall and ends somewhere, hopefully soon, and it will look as inconsequential and trivial as the October 1987 crash looks today, or the little jiggles that represent the 1930s, and I will wonder why we were all so damn worried.

And I will have forgotten--because we always forget this--that the lizard-like base of our brains sometimes decide to take control, and all our knowledge and all our intelligence is neutralized by a little lump of tissue that has no understanding at all of what's going on, no perspective, nothing except an "on" switch which, when triggered,activates a complex, instantly powerful native algorithm which screamsinto our brains and throughout our bodies that there is a saber-toothed tiger right behind us and we should be running for our lives.

This, of course, is the voice in the ears of investors all over the world today and, to some extent, for the last several months. All of us know, in the cortical part of our minds, that we signed on for a rollercoaster ride and that we will not die as a result of taking this ride down. But for most of your clients, for many investors, the game has suddenly gotten too tough, and their lizard's shout is winning the contest against your calm, reasonable, measured tones, your facts and figures, your perspective and experience.

The hell of it is that we, ourselves, design these roller coasters; they are a product of mass psychology. When the lizard's shout finally drowns out the last bit of reasonable perspective, the markets hit bottom because that is precisely when there is the maximum fear--by definition.
Then, again by definition, the markets begin to rally into what may be the next bull market or may be a sucker's rally opportunity to sell a little bit at a little less of a loss in hopes of recognizing the nextbull. The lizard's shout becomes less loud, people become hopeful, they buy back in at a higher price than they sold, the market moves upward until either the lizard screams again in panic or--the sure sign of a bull market--it starts tickling peoples' minds with a kind of panic that MAYBE THEY'LL GET IN TOO LATE as the roller coaster climbs again.

This, too, is our own creation, more tracks created by more mass psychology, aided and doubtless magnified by the echo chamber of the financial media and a thousand pundits who know no more than the lizard about where the markets will go tomorrow or next week.
I'm one of those financial media types, and also a pundit on occasion,and I can tell you that I can hear the lizard's scream echoing across the financial landscape, so loudly that it's hard to remember that stocks are on a fire sale now and they are certainly a hell of a lotless risky than the were last August, and that these rides are seldom fatal to those who stay in their seats, and they are usually at least harmful to those who panic, unhook their seatbelts and jump over the side toward the distant ant hill below.

I can hardly wait to look back on those charts and wonder what the hell we were thinking getting so panicky about a blip, and I know at that time that the lizard will be giving me a different message: that if only I'd had the sense to buy when everybody else was selling...

This too shall pass, and 99% of your brain knows it. The market belongs to the lizard now, and I am ashamed to admit that I, the pundit, the media guru, still feel that sense of panic on the way down, irrational as I know it is. I feel it so much that sometimes I can barely hear the rational part of my mind over the screaming that echoes that are calling up from a deeper part of my consciousness. I would curse the designer of this roller coaster, as I did the fiend who put that damn thing up at Sea World, but I'm afraid this time it is us, collectively, who designed our own fear machine.

And this is the moment, here and now, when the picture is taken.

Best,
Bob VeresInside Information HYPERLINK "http://www.bobveres.com" http://www.bobveres.com

Bob Veres is a nationally recognized leader in the independent advisory community. He is the author, creator and founder of, Inside Information is a master study group whose members are the leading practitioners in the financial planning profession.