Progressive libralism and sound Investing, they're not mutually exclusive

Hello dear cherubs:



I am an investment professional, I guess you would say to me that fact should make me a conservative, at least fiscally. Ummmm it does and it kind of doesn't.

I am a progressive liberal who believes in investing. How bizarre is that? But it's true. I am a progressive liberal who believes in investing. Investing and being careful and smart and informed does not collide with being a progressive liberal. Unbeknownst to most people, liberals don't just know how to spend other people's money. We also know where to spend the right amount of money at the right time. This may mean that the money we spend doesn't have an immediate effect. Good investing takes patience. To those who tell me now that the stimulus is not working, I will say to them the facts: the stimulus bill is 90% unspent, hung up in bureaucracy. And it's not the federal bureaucracy, it's the individual state's bureaucracy. So we have no idea whether it's working or not. My thought is, it is working but not quickly enough to suit most Americans. Americans have very little patience for anything.


If I could make enough money doing it, I would teach poor folks how to invest. I would think about investing for them. If brokers were really doing their job, they'd be thinking about poor folks too. I think that's what the government should be doing, paying brokers to help poor people learn about investing.

For a while, I was able to beat the S&P 500 by a goodly percent in my 401(k). (Many thanks go to my former colleagues who taught me about investing.) But the fact that I was confined to investing in a single fund company worried my investments into losses beyond my control.



But now I am back in control. And what do you all think I am doing in my 401(k) account dearest cherubs? I'm buying! I'm buying! I'm buying! There are values out there that are unbelieveable and if you're not buying you're crazy.



However, in my non-contributary accounts dearest cherubs, my roll over IRA, what do you think I'm doing? I'm protecting myself. I'm in bonds and precious metals and other safe investments. I'm being careful. Because I can't contribute to those accounts and so therefore, there's only one way to mitigate risk and that is to be in less lucrative but "safer" investments.


Now you're all smart folks, and so you know why I'm making these choices. I'm 53 years old and I have to save what I can save, and grow what I can grow. Also, I have a wonderful financial advisor who cares what happens to me. I'm unusual in this respect.




I really do not have a problem with the losses I suffered recently. That's the way the market works. But it's all a loss on paper. I have sold nothing and bought nothing that can be valued now. If I were to sell, then, I would suffer. But the fact is I will recoup my losses over the next 20 years or so. This is how one must think. For the people just retiring now, I am sorry, but I hope they had a wise broker who saw it coming and got those investments into safety. Because if that broker truly acted in his client's best interest, then folks just now retiring who were fortunate enough to be that broker's clients, they would be just fine. But we all know there are people out there who know what they're doing and others, well, let's hope this environment squeezes many of the bad ones out of business.



Here is what my progressive liberal self hopes. I am hopeful that we have learned something about what unchecked greed and unmitigated risk can do during this crisis. I hope that we have learned that when you don't restrain the market, the market will not restrain itself. My investor self hopes that the regulatory community will be wise in its imposition of new regulations (and we all know these are coming) and not prevent the market from achieving reasonable growth based on real value and solid deal making and not silly and stupid ideas like "the housing market will always go up".



See, we liberals know about money, yours and my money, other people's money. We know alright. We know that if you're investing for retirement, it's all about "hurry up and wait". If you're getting close to retirement age, consult a professional with a good ethical reputation and that professional should put you in the right place at the right time. That's her job. If she's not doing her job, fire her and get somebody else.



Who's in charge here? You, that's who.

Ok enough about that. Thank you, as always, for listening.

Warmly and with all my love, Margaret