retirement advice from the experts

I could not help but notice that three "eminent" financial institutions sent me invitations to retirement planning and wealth management seminars last week. I have received many such invitations before, and they come in a variety of "packaging."

Some are mere cardboard flyers sent out to everyone and their brother as part of our daily dose of junk mail. Others are printed on fine stationary and seated in thick padded envelopes. Some even include handwritten sections. All are there to let me know about seminars that will teach me how to manage my (non-existent) wealth or to plan my (still-far-off) retirement.

Isn't it somewhat ironic that the very people who are either teetering on the edge of bankruptcy or who have already gone over, are proposing to show me how to manage my money? The very same people who are now screaming for a government bail-out. Presumably, their track record speaks for themselves? It speaks louder to me than their gilded names, exquisite logos, copperplate, and stylized images that are supposed to evoke a sense of security, stability, and wisdom.

Here are a posy of "experts," certified with MBA's from the finest business schools in the country, who could not even manage to keep a financial firm going. An entity with no real operations, no equipment or hardware to take care of, no elaborate labor contracts, no complex logistics. A firm where people bring money in the back and you lend it out to someone else in front, reaping fees, commissions, interest, and other benefits for simply moving funds around.

Not only do the fat cats on Wall Street need my tax money to survive in their moment of need, they have simply have no shame. They have the audacity to want to teach something they obviously do not understand. Which goes to show you that their one and only skill and the source of their riches, is deception pure and simple.