Financial Samurai

This is a guest post by the Lean Life Coach who writes at Eliminate the Muda! [mooda] about how to improve life and personal finance through the application of proven business management techniques that originated with great Americans such as Henry Ford and Benjamin Franklin.

Fighting to Survive

Would you gargle with a floor cleaner?

Originally invented in 1879 as a surgical antiseptic, Listerine was later diluted and sold as a floor cleaner. The Lambert Pharmacal Company, maker of Listerine, was not a wild success, selling a little more than $100,000 per year of their concoction. In 1921 Jordan Wheat Lambert initiated a new marketing campaign advertising Listerine as a cure for “cronic halitosis.” In less than 7 years annual revenue exploded to $8 million.

Just as a small side note, “Cronic Halitosis” was a fake medical term! No doubt, a few of us have an occasional issue with bad breath, but it was not considered a major societal issue until this groundbreaking marketing plan. Not only did the Lambert Pharmacal Company create a new product they even created a new medical term that is commonly accepted to this day.

The objective of any business, big or small, is not only to make a profit but also grow. Doing so requires a focused approach towards obtaining and more importantly retaining a customer base. This of course requires marketing and advertising.

Years ago a company would develop a single marketing campaign and blast it to the world at large; “Buy our widgets.” A successful campaign might be profitable for decades while a failed effort could doom a company.

How Far Will They Go? Read more…

Kaneshiro Takeshi

“Why won’t he marry me?” pops up a lot nowadays.  Seemingly beautiful, smart women can’t find the love of their lives, and when they do, they can’t lock them down.

Women have it tougher today.  It amazes me how some can juggle career and motherhood so well.  Those who do deserve a gold star because there are only so many hours in a day.

What’s less talked about is the pressure society puts on men to succeed.  Women need to know that men have it rough too.  Society expects us to provide, and provide some more!  Ever since I was a kid, my parents stressed the importance of education, so that I can make enough money to support a family and support them.  The pressure was latent, but immense making each poor grade or non-promotion that much more stressful.  When you’re a teenage boy, frankly all you want to do is chase girls and not plan out the next two decades of your life!

The Super Motivated Boyfriend (SMB) is a curious being.  He is a potential gem to any women out there with enough polishing.  Polish him too much and he loses his edge and rolls away. It’s important to understand his ambitions, for once you do, wedding bells won’t be far away!

FIVE TIPS FOR GETTING YOUR SMB TO MARRY YOU Read more…

Author: Phil Villarreal was a syndicated film critic (one of the best jobs on earth) and is a general reporter for the Arizona Daily Star.  Phil contributes to OK! Magazine and blogs at becauseitoldyouso.com.

Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.  244 pages in soft cover.  $12.95.

Summary: “Secrets of A Stingy Scoundrel” is a hilarious book that has been reviewed by many personal finance sites already.  Hence, I’ll take a slightly different approach.

First of all, Phil is one proud cheapo who is potentially helping millions of Americans (if they buy his book) save thousands of dollars a year.  Second of all, the breadth of stinginess is impressive, with nine chapters: Personal, Eating, Relationships, Household, Finance, Leisure & Entertainment, At The Workplace, Corporate Cataclysm, and Gross, Mean and Just Plain Wrong. Read more…

Everybody was quietly watching the puppet show at the Asian Art Museum when I hear a “boooooooP!” What was that, I think to myself as a stench waffles in the air.  Someone must have farted!  I look around to see if I can identify the culprit.  Then I notice others looking around, with some staring right at me!

“Not me!” I silently voice with my lips as I point towards a kid rolling around on the floor in front of the stage.  “Probably the kid!” I mime again with each crease of my lips extending more exaggerated with every word.

Once the show was over I tap the kid on the shoulder and say, “Hey buddy, you got me in a lot of trouble with the adults.  The bathroom is over there!”

“Sorry sir, I was just farting.  Everybody likes to fart right?” replies the kid with a big, teethy smile.

“You’re right buddy, listen to this one!” KABOOM!  I let one rip right next to him.  We laugh and go on our separate ways.

THE MORAL HAZARD OF AMERICA Read more…

The government introduced new legislation to tax all “big banks” 0.15% of their assets to recoup about $120 billion in TARP money.  What’s interesting is that the government is also taxing banks who did not receive TARP money, while conveniently leaving out AIG and the auto industry!

Three Takeaways From Asymmetric Regulation:

1) Because the government is imposing a tax on assets for all big banks, they are encouraging all banks to take excessive risk and accept hand outs in the future.  If a non-bailed out bank is getting punished, why not join in on the fun too?  Friends at government-owned Citibank all went down to the Rose Bowl using free $500 face value company tickets ($1,000+ in the after market) with tax payer’s blessings.  Meanwhile another friend who works at a non-TARP bank can’t spend more than $100 for a client dinner total, without having to get approval.  Message to friend: tell your bosses to party it up if Citibank is having a great time!

2) AIG is exempt from new taxation because AIG is 80% owned by the government.  If the government punishes AIG, they are punishing themselves.  Federal government employees are raking it in, and I’ve spent about one hour so far learning how be a $170,000 a year Department of Transportation employee if my blogging career doesn’t make it in three years.  So exciting to have such a lucrative back up!  Back off people, the job is mine!

3) The auto industry, which has paid back absolutely nothing, and is the biggest contributor of the $120 billion in tax payer losses is protected because the rank and file auto worker is deemed more precious than the rank and file finance worker.  I’m all for helping out hard working people who had nothing to do with the collapse.  But, what did your local TARP bank teller do? Nothing, just like the factory man at GM had nothing to do with the latest horrible design and corporate strategy of the 2010 Buick LaCrosse.  Remember when GM executives flew in their private jets to the Congressional hearings?  We need to support private jets for auto execs like we need to support higher taxes for more pork spending.

CONCLUSION Read more…

If I read one more biased article pushing people to convert to a ROTH IRA I’m going to lose it!  Not to be melodramatic or anything, but the lack of unbiased analysis is like seeing a sea of zombies instructed to walk off a cliff. Wake up zombies, wake up!  Don’t make a decision without seeing what lies down below.

The ROTH IRA conversion idea is that those who have pre-tax funded retirement accounts such as a 401K or Traditional IRA pay taxes UPFRONT in 2010, so as to not pay taxes when you retire.  This is just absolute hogwash donkey dumb for a large majority of people out there.

Proponents of the ROTH IRA conversion argue:

1) Tax rates are low and are just going to go up in the future.

2) You will likely make more money in your retirement years, and hence pay more taxes.

3) Paying taxes now improves performance in the long run all else being equal.

THE SAMURAI REBUTTAL: Read more…

Raging against the machine is in my nature.  It annoys me to no end when I read about injustices such as government raises during our recent implosion.  I once skipped a morning of work to demonstrate against an apparel company which used racist slogans.  Up yours Abercrombie!  As I age, I’m discovering a more peaceful side that just accepts things the way they are.

There’s a lot of messed up things in the world such as war, poverty, and corruption.  Some things we can try to explain, and some things we can’t.  And yet, I wonder if every irrational thing has a rational reason?  Let’s look at some examples and decide for yourself.

The Kid Who Just Wants To Have Fun

Everybody knows that grades start accumulating in the 9th grade, and without good grades and SAT scores, the chances of getting into a good college, and therefore landing a desirable job goes down.  Is it really so bad that Johnny High doesn’t go to Yale, and become a rich physician?  What’s so bad about community college and working for $20,000/yr at a dead end job which he enjoys?  Nothing at all!

Johnny High’s decision to not study hard in high school is perfectly rational.  He chose to have a whole lot of fun, while other kids were miserable studying and participating in extracurricular activities to boost their resumes.  When he’s 35 years old and still working at his job with the same salary, he’ll think back at all the fun he had in high school and smile.

Who’s to say that being a multi-millionaire physician and going to Yale is good anyway?  He could end up incredibly miserable, with tremendous amounts of anxiety everyday as a doctor. Instead, Johnny High chooses to live a more relaxing life, and doesn’t care about money.  If he did care about money, he would have studied harder.  And if Johnny starts to care about money, he may go to grad school and give himself another shot.

The Lady Who Loves To Eat Read more…

The answer depends on if your name is Saddam Hussein, although proponents would say no proof was ever found!  You hear so many stories of consumers up to their eyeballs in credit card debt, and I’m just wondering WHY?  Credit card debt is the most expensive debt out there, second only to usurious rates of loan sharks.

Perhaps the reason why is because credit cards are ubiquitous.  According to the US Census Bureau, there were 173 million credit cardholders in the US in 2006, using 1.5 billion credit cards?  That’s right, the ratio is almost 10 credit cards to every one user, with transaction volumes of over $2 trillion a year!  No wonder the US consumer gets in trouble, and why credit cards are such big business!

My view on credit cards is quite simple: Use credit cards only to your advantage, and never let them take advantage of you!  Whenever you see your credit card misbehaving, you should think to yourself “Bad boy!  Bad, BAD!”  I think my wife tells me this sometimes, but I try and tune it out.

Joel is hosting a $500 American Express giveaway, and gosh darnit, I’m entering to give myself a chance to win.  In “You’re Rejected!  How I Use Rejection To Motivate Me Every Single Day,” we discuss how success is a numbers game.  The more you put yourself out there, the higher the chance you have to succeed.  Here’s my attempt to win and use the proceeds to buy toys and clothing for underprivileged children this winter in San Francisco.  The program is called “Toys 4 Tots.”

TWO MISSLES IN MY WALLET Read more…

Want to get happy?  Here’s a lovely article highlighting that over the past 18 months, the percentage of Federal Government employees making over $100,000 jumped from 14% to 19%!

An even more astonishing fact is that 1,690 employees at the Department of Transportation now make over $170,000 vs. only one before the recession started.

My grand plan now is to build my retirement nut in the private sector for 20 years, and then live it up with a fat salary and pension from the public sector for the next 20 years!

I’m going to the local library today to learn all I can about being a great DOT employee.  I will be the best planner, analyst, treasurer, whatever there is, so I too can make $170,000 too.

Anybody else dreaming about joining the Federal Government to take advantage of all the benefits?  After reading Jane White’s “Welcome To The Poorhouse” book, I was doubtful about my chances of making $174,000 in government because I’d have to be elected as a Congressman or Senator.  Now I’m ecstatic to discover there are 10,000+ Federal Government positions which pay just as well!

As a government official, I promise to support tax hikes for all income classes no matter how horrible the economy is.  After all, tax hikes are important to keep our guaranteed annual pay increases going.

Remember, only the government is allowed to persecute others and tell them how to spend their money.  As long as they focus the public’s attention on Wall St., maybe nobody will notice their ways.  “We’ll spend your money however way we damn feel like it!”  Go USA!

Readers, which public sector job do you dream of having?  Why would anybody ever want to join the private sector given all the insecurity, volatility, and pay differential?

Related Post: “Fortunes, Fortunes, Everywhere”

Keiju,

Financial Samurai – “Slicing Through Money’s Mysteries”

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Ouch

This post is dedicated to a friend of mine who is a single mother of one. She inspires me because of her will, her positive outlook, as well as her ability to do it all and never complain.  I want equality for our mothers, daughters, sisters, girlfriends and wives.  Don’t you?  Best, Sam-urai

I was at a cocktail party the other night, and after several stiff vodka tonics, a female manager-level friend, “Julia”, began complaining about one of her staff.

She came up to me and said, “Sam, what am i going to do?  Nancy keeps getting pregnant!  She’s having her third child in the past 5 years, and now I’ve got to find cover for her again!” After Julia’s rant, she twirled her way to a slick looking fella at the bar and began chatting him up.

Initially I tried empathizing with Julia, given I do remember the feeling of having to cover for someone when they’re “sick“. But Nancy’s case is different.  After all, someone has to give birth, and after seeing one too many sex ed video’s from the 9th grade with images of globulous placentas seared in my mind, i’m glad it’s not me!  The Europeans would argue a 3 month maternity leave is not long enough given they practice a 6 month healing process.

Julia’s complaint brings us to the great debate:

Is it fair or even true that women are discriminated against and make less money than men on average? Read more…