Just over a year ago my wife, youngest child and I had the privilege to travel to London and then to Paris.
While we were in France we visited the lavish Palace of Versailles. The property was incredible with so much attention to detail. It was really over the top luxury with gold plated gates, golden turtles in the fountains and a garden so large you needed to rent a golf cart just to try and get a chance of exploring it all in one day.
We learned a little bit about the story of Marie Antoinette and her infamous execution. It was apparent that the royalty did not want to give up their wealth that they earned by the burden of taxes put on the people. It was only a matter of time before the people rose up in rebellion.
So why am I reminiscing on this story.
Over the past month we have seen what will become very historic times. One of concerns that I have is how this stimulus is going to affect us down the road and future generations.
When you create that much money out of thin air something else is going to have to give.
What do you think will happen???
– Will prices of goods and services go through the roof as we experience massive inflation?
– Will taxes have to increase just to cover the interest payments on all the new debt put in the economy?
– Will markets find stability and growth as some receive “stimulus” funds and others don’t?
A mixture of all of the above and more??
Unfortunately, nobody has a crystal ball. Although sometimes I wish that I had a copy of “Grays Sports Almanac” like Biff got his hands on in “Back to the Future 2”, ha ha.
There are many things that are out of our control and the media wants us to live in chaos, panic and fear.
However, I don’t believe that we can reach our God given potential if we don’t find a way to live in a state of peace.
So how do we find financial peace? We have to take control of our future by overcoming the 4 giant threats to our personal economy.
I call them the 4 Enemies to Your Wealth:
1. Market Volatility – the market should not be in charge of your future…you should
2. Taxes – we have no control over taxes being raised … we must plan for this
3. Inflation – prices of goods and services will go up so we must have our assets work for us. We cannot stick them in the bank earning little to no interest or even worse under our mattress (on a separate note I had call from an individual who did this and his apartment burned down, poof $50k gone)
4. Interest – there are those that earn it and those that pay it … you must become someone that earns it
I stress test all my clients models to make sure they can overcome these 4 enemies.
I hope you have this in place already, but if you don’t …
There’s a popular Chinese proverb that says: “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”
As we are all experiencing this uncertain time I hope we can help you find a little certainty and peace. That’s my mission.
Take care…be safe.
Remember — It’s Your Time…