For many years various pressure groups around the country have been trying to have legislation brought in to ban the payment of commissions from superannuation accounts. Pressure has mounted even further as links are drawn between commissions generated and the recent failures of MIS scheme operators Great Southern and Timbercorp, as well as the demise…
Tag Archive for understanding money
Common sense is not so common – Timbercorp/ Great Southern
by Michael O'Hara •
The demise of Timbercorp and Great Southern has highlighted the difficulties of running an investor-focussed regulatory environment in a capitalist based system. For once, i will be brief. The agricultural projects operated by Timbercorp and Great Southern on behalf of grower-investors are presided over by a “RE”, or Responsible Entity. It is the job of…
How do Financial Advisors assess and apply risk strategies?
by Michael O'Hara •
Take a deep breath, ’cause this is a deep one. i have set out below a bit of information on one of the core “tools” that is used in the financial planning industry in an attempt to apply some measure of science to the selection of approriate investment assets. It is actually only a superficial…
Bias in action
by Michael O'Hara •
Having just spent a bit of time setting out the relative aspects of bias that exist in the Financial Planning industry, i thought it relevant to highlight just how prevalent and deeply ingrained this tendency for bias is. Please bear in mind that i am not making a value judgement here – bias will always…
Sources of Bias in the Financial Planning Industry
by Michael O'Hara •
How to start in an area that is so little understood, even by those who set out to regulate or administer the laws of advice? Let’s start in a place called Mar-a-Lago, a Donald Trump owned private club in the salubrious Palm Beach in the good ol’ US of A. The cream of the local…
Pidgin Economics
by Michael O'Hara •
“pidgin strives to be a simple and effective form of communication” and i like simple… With the massive stimulatory efforts of Governments and central banks throughout the world, mainstream media is starting to use once-fantasy-world terms with a flippancy that does little to portray the intensity of what it being done. For example, if the…
The word “independent”
by Michael O'Hara •
This is a very special word in the area of financial services. At least, it is legislatively important in Australia and a good starting point when you begin to consider money, advice and how they interact. Let’s get technical for just a moment… In Australia, the word “indepedent” and its use by financial intermediaries is…
