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	<title>Financial Planning and understanding money</title>
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	<link>http://www.michaelsmusings.com.au</link>
	<description>Thoughts from a Perth Financial Planner</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Fri, 18 May 2012 04:11:00 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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		<title>Financial advisors are cheating you</title>
		<link>http://www.michaelsmusings.com.au/financial-planning/financial-advisors-are-cheating-you/</link>
		<comments>http://www.michaelsmusings.com.au/financial-planning/financial-advisors-are-cheating-you/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 18 May 2012 03:45:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>michael</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Financial Planning]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[advice]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bias]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[financial planners are cheating you]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[financial planning bias]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[personal financial planning advice]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.michaelsmusings.com.au/?p=1971</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[At least, that is the impression you can get when tuning in to some sections of the media. As covered in previous posts, the post-GFC world is a tumultuous one, with many long cherished &#8220;laws&#8221; of investment being turned on their head, and many investors feeling helpless in the face of small, zero or negative returns. Some are abandoning financial advisors in favour of a &#8221;do-it-yourself&#8221; approach to their finances and investment. It&#8217;s already the case that it is only a minority of Australians who regularly deal with a financial advisor, so i&#8217;m wondering if this is the best outcome overall. It&#8217;s not a simple question though, so i thought it best to tackle the issue by working through some of the areas in which confusion as to the role of a financial planner can arise.  This post looks at some of the limitations as to what a financial advisor can or cannot do for you. Remember, this is simply my opinion. I&#8217;m biased because i am a financial advisor, and i am a part owner of a financial planning business. Feel free to ignore any aspect of what i have to say but regardless, there is a lot of misinformation, bias and distortion [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.michaelsmusings.com.au/financial-planning/financial-advisors-are-cheating-you/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Managed funds, Listed Companies or ETF&#8217;s?</title>
		<link>http://www.michaelsmusings.com.au/financial-planning/managed-funds-listed-companies-or-etfs/</link>
		<comments>http://www.michaelsmusings.com.au/financial-planning/managed-funds-listed-companies-or-etfs/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 11 May 2012 09:49:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>michael</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Financial Planning]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Exchange Traded Funds]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Fund Managers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[listed investment companies]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.michaelsmusings.com.au/?p=1960</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[One of the debates raging in the post GFC financial world concerns the relative advantages and disadvantages of investment structures. For example, many people have decided that &#8220;managed funds&#8221; are expensive, opaque and have bad returns. At the same time, there has been a substantial lift in the funds being invested into &#8220;Listed Investment Companies (&#8220;LIC&#8217;s&#8221;) and what are called &#8220;Exchange Traded Funds&#8221; or ETF&#8217;s. We are going to look at some of these issues. Keep in mind that it is Friday, so i&#8217;m likely to pontificate on a point here or there. Feel free to let me know if this is too verbose! Price vs Value This has been the great argument between labour and capital in the centuries since the agrarian revolution first heralded the impending onset of the Industrial Age, reaching an apogee in the Haymarket Massacre of  1886.  We&#8217;d all like to be paid what we think we are worth &#8211; but there is usually a differece in perceived value, depending on whether you are handing over the money or the one providing the labour. In this post, it&#8217;s a lot easier. We are talking about &#8220;net worth&#8221;. When is a dollar worth 100 cents, and when is it [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.michaelsmusings.com.au/financial-planning/managed-funds-listed-companies-or-etfs/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Another Budget, another yawn&#8230;</title>
		<link>http://www.michaelsmusings.com.au/investor-corner/pidgin-economics/another-budget-another-yawn/</link>
		<comments>http://www.michaelsmusings.com.au/investor-corner/pidgin-economics/another-budget-another-yawn/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 09 May 2012 03:59:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>michael</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pidgin Economics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Federal Budget]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[understanding money]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.michaelsmusings.com.au/?p=1923</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The good news is that the budget is going into surplus. Small yay! for prudent financial management and responsible government. Big &#8220;what the?&#8221; for the usual smokes and mirrors that seem to appear any time a Treasurer releases a budget update. So far this morning, i&#8217;ve received many, many, many pages of insight, research, analysis and repitition of the 2012 Budget, and will post some of the better ones to the base of this note in the next day or so. Another Budget Fail&#8230; However, my personal interest is to see whether the hype and rhetoric is reflected in the actual dollars on the table, and it&#8217;s no surprise that it is not. The headlines shout about Australia achieving a budget surplus. What they do not shout about, is the guaranteed increase in instability for Australia&#8217;s longer term finances that will be caused by this budget. Doubt me? How about going to the actual government Budget website, and looking through the actual black and white print&#8230; Here&#8217;s the bit that i am interested in&#8230; While it&#8217;s great to see expense estimates being reduced for the year, has anyone noticed that the ACTUAL EXPENSES are not being reduced at all? The [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.michaelsmusings.com.au/investor-corner/pidgin-economics/another-budget-another-yawn/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Will my children be able to afford a home?</title>
		<link>http://www.michaelsmusings.com.au/financial-planning/will-my-children-be-able-to-afford-a-home/</link>
		<comments>http://www.michaelsmusings.com.au/financial-planning/will-my-children-be-able-to-afford-a-home/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 01 May 2012 04:54:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>michael</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Financial Planning]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[planning for children]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[understanding money]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.michaelsmusings.com.au/?p=1898</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[This is a common question i am asked by parents who are keen to see that their children get the same (hopefully better!) opportunities in life that they had. It&#8217;s not one of my worries, and i&#8217;ll share with you the reasons why i consider home affordability to be one of the least concerns for my children&#8217;s future. House prices are only going up! No, they are not. House prices are a function of cost, supply and demand like any other widget. There may be special &#8220;warm and fuzzy&#8221; reasons why people tell you housing is different but they are emotional responses &#8211; not based on good old cold, hard logic. Perth is an island of calm in a stormy global ocean when it comes to house prices. Try to not be fooled by localised mythology. In fact, even here in sunny Perth, comfortably insulated by one of the biggest mining booms of our history and the influx of large numbers of high-income mining specialists, housing prices are not as concrete as they appear. Here in the office, we are regularly confronted by stories of people trying to sell houses who are then discovering that the prices they had in their heads are nowhere [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Good news &#8211; Australia&#8217;s inflation is down! Or is it up?</title>
		<link>http://www.michaelsmusings.com.au/investor-corner/pidgin-economics/good-news-australias-inflation-is-down-or-is-it-up/</link>
		<comments>http://www.michaelsmusings.com.au/investor-corner/pidgin-economics/good-news-australias-inflation-is-down-or-is-it-up/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 24 Apr 2012 05:19:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>michael</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pidgin Economics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[inflation]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.michaelsmusings.com.au/?p=1889</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Here&#8217;s a little thought&#8230; The RBA announces inflation outcomes. If quarterly inflation falls, and the annual rate falls, is inflation higher? As Simon in our office has today pointed out, it depends on who you read, and what they are trying to say. BBC News suggests inflation is easing, so i guess it&#8217;s lower. The Age suggests prices are up, so i guess inflation is higher. Perhaps it&#8217;s all a matter of perspective. For the average Australian family, you&#8217;d have to suggest that inflation is higher. The cost of buying food, paying electricity bills and filling the car with petrol are all higher. And my favourite version of &#8220;doublespeak&#8220;&#8230;? Telephone &#8220;Cap Plans&#8221; that have a cap which is the minimum price you are going to pay. Since when did a &#8220;cap&#8221; become a minimum? Truly, you have just got to admire marketing campaigns that convincing us to change the meaning of basic words. &#160;]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Your children, and the world of money</title>
		<link>http://www.michaelsmusings.com.au/financial-planning/your-children-and-the-world-of-money/</link>
		<comments>http://www.michaelsmusings.com.au/financial-planning/your-children-and-the-world-of-money/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 18 Apr 2012 05:35:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>michael</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Financial Planning]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Australia 2020 Summit]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[family finances]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[international finance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[trends]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[understanding money]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.michaelsmusings.com.au/?p=1878</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[With all the gloomy news about falling retail sales, declining house prices, and small business access to credit, the average person can be forgiven for thinking that &#8220;things are bad&#8221;. In times such as this, it is natural for a parent to worry about the world that their children will inherit, and the financial problems that they will face. This post is the start of a series of articles that will focus on financial planning for those with or planning to have, children. My children will never afford a home! As a financial planner, i get to see this worry play out in a wide range of actions. The more affluent will seek to buy a home &#8220;for the child/ren&#8221;, to ensure that they do not get locked out of the property market. After all, the average Perth established house price 20 years ago was around $130,000¹.  Established house prices are currently somewhere around $469,000. In the face of price increases at that scale, how on earth can the babies of today afford a home when they eventually enter the workforce? If home prices keep growing at this rate, in 20 years time it will cost $1,692,007. How on earth is [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.michaelsmusings.com.au/financial-planning/your-children-and-the-world-of-money/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Very Clever People are on the rampage!</title>
		<link>http://www.michaelsmusings.com.au/financial-planning/very-clever-people-are-on-the-rampage/</link>
		<comments>http://www.michaelsmusings.com.au/financial-planning/very-clever-people-are-on-the-rampage/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 05 Apr 2012 04:07:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>michael</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Financial Planning]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bias]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[media]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.michaelsmusings.com.au/?p=1863</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Is it really essential to bag all financial planners just to improve the market for your own service offering?]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.michaelsmusings.com.au/financial-planning/very-clever-people-are-on-the-rampage/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Financial Planning for the &#8220;me&#8221; in You</title>
		<link>http://www.michaelsmusings.com.au/financial-planning/financial-planning-for-the-me-in-you/</link>
		<comments>http://www.michaelsmusings.com.au/financial-planning/financial-planning-for-the-me-in-you/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 26 Mar 2012 07:57:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>michael</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Financial Planning]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bias]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[understanding money]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.michaelsmusings.com.au/?p=1848</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[With all the access to information and compelling voices of authority of the modern world, it can be hard to work out what you need to know, and what is just "noise".]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Financial Planning &#8211; DON&#8217;T PANIC</title>
		<link>http://www.michaelsmusings.com.au/michaels-soapbox-rants/financial-planning-dont-panic/</link>
		<comments>http://www.michaelsmusings.com.au/michaels-soapbox-rants/financial-planning-dont-panic/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 20 Mar 2012 08:43:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>michael</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Michael's Soapbox]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[financial]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Financial Planning]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Fund Managers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[money]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[people]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[understanding money]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.michaelsmusings.com.au/?p=1843</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Famous words, made all the more famous&#8217;er by the late but very great Douglas Adams, in his 4 book trilogy &#8220;Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy&#8221; (although the actual number of books that make up the trilogy is subject to some dispute). Douglas Adams was referring to the great cosmic guidebook produced by Megadodo Publications. &#8220;It is said that despite its many glaring (and occasionally fatal) inaccuracies, the Hitchhiker&#8217;s Guide to the Galaxy itself has outsold the Encyclopedia Galactica because it is slightly cheaper, and because it has the words &#8220;DON&#8217;T PANIC&#8221; in large, friendly letters on the cover&#8221; *. Very handy, should you ever be confronted by one or more of the Silastic Armourfiends of Striterax. Of course, Douglas Adams was writing for intergalactic hitchhikers, whereas this blog is dedictated to terrestrial humans, and their issues financial. So, &#8220;DON&#8217;T PANIC&#8221; is a suggestion related to the unexplained increase in the level of Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation that has plagued all discussion of money strategies since the advent of monetary forms of exchange. More specifically, to the increase in reach and volume of The Very Clever People since the advent of the internet, and to the ability of these Very Clever [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Investment Market Turning Points</title>
		<link>http://www.michaelsmusings.com.au/financial-planning/investment-market-turning-points/</link>
		<comments>http://www.michaelsmusings.com.au/financial-planning/investment-market-turning-points/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 15 Mar 2012 01:46:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>michael</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Financial Planning]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Markets]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Trading]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[trends]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[understanding money]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.michaelsmusings.com.au/?p=1816</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It is so easy to forget that investment markets change direction in a way that can only be identified in hindsight.]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
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