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Do you like Dilbert?

I think he’s onto something.  Which mutual fund company do you think is run by Dogbert?  You are allowed to answer more than one.  Isn’t this what you see in the advertisements.  Most companies have a ton of mutual funds and they advertise the rates of returns of the best funds.  Is it worse that people buy them?

It has been shown that the biggest inflows into the market is when things are going well and the biggest outflows are when things are bad.  That goes against rule number 1: buy low, sell high.  How do so many people miss rule #1?  Is it the advertisements?  Is it the investment companies?  Is it psychological?  Emotion drives so many things in our lives.

Or maybe it’s the “imaginary expertise” that’s got you thinking.  Then that puts us in the Trust Agents conversation with Chris Brogan and Julien Smith.  How do you distriguish between ‘imaginary’ and real in today’s world?

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As Chris Anderson, Seth Godin, Malcolm Gladwell, Mark Cuban and Chris Brogan all gave their thoughts regarding the “Free” debate, I couldn’t help but think of what people do pay for.  In the financial world people are constantly paying and constantly trying not to pay.  Where is the line?

As newspapers try to control the information they provide in an attempt to stay in business, financial institutions push their information onto the consumer.  The financial institutions pick and choose the information they flood you with hopes that you will be drawn to them.  They know you are going to put your money somewhere.  Just as a newspaper knows you are going to look for the news.  The difference is that money is made off of other money where news is free.  Our world has developed to the point where payment is built in to any place you put money.  Most of this is in the form of fees: management fees, overdraft fees, inactivitiy fees, transaction fees, etc.  They have come up with fees for everything and that’s where the money is made.

Seth Godin argues that, “People will pay for content if it is so unique they can’t get it anywhere else.”  Is this what you pay your stockbroker for?  Aren’t you looking for ‘unique’ information before anyone else?  Is this a false hope?  The SEC is and will constantly be taking steps to keep a level playing field in the way in which information about investments is conveyed to the public.  In no way is this a perfect system but is it right to look to profit off of it?  Of better is it niave to think that the average person can make a big enough profit off of it?  Or is any positive worth the excitement?

As Mark Cuban focuses on the music industry and Chris Brogan adds his take with a personal prospective, they both only begin to touch upon the animal that is the financial industry.  The scaries thing is the ‘free’ information that they push.  They take it one step further by controlling the push of information.  Or should I say the big businesses control that push.  It is the big banks and financial istitutions that fund the media outlets.  It is their funding that has the newspapers and tv shows pushing information that benefits them.  This is scary because as a consumer you jump on this opportunity of ‘free’ information.  Sometimes we jump to quickly to realize that it isn’t the best information for you as a consumer.  So the financial industry is ahead of the free game.  They provide and push free information knowing that the average consumer will jump on it because it is free.  They know that they average consumer won’t dig deeper into the information because it’s free.  They know that the average person will want to take advantage of this ‘free’ stuff.  It is the people that need to realize this.  They need to see that what is pushed might not be right.  In an industry flooded with ‘free’ information it becomes harder and harder to discern which of the information is most useful to you and your situation.

Chris Brogan is probably on the best track to deal with this.  How in the financial industry do you determine who is offering the best free information for you?  Ask.  See what they will give you for free.  People, like Chris, will give you their ideas and general information for free.   This is my take on it as well.  I give you the information on this site for free.  My hope is to provide you with a new insight, a new way to look at things financially that you might not get otherwise.  I want to help you sift your way through the misinformation that is out there.  There are a lot of places to get free information.  Try them out.  Read, research, do whatever it is you do but figure out which ones have the trust and credibility to make it the most useful for you. 

Times have changed.  Trust and credibility is no longer a given with numbers.  Marketing dollars do not mean validity.  Twitter is the best example of this.  The number of followers does not guarantee useful information.  Anyone on twitter sees the how to earn $10,000 per day messages or how to get 1,200 followers.  You can pay for anything today.  What money doesn’t necessarily by you is credibility, trust and useful knowledge.  People will always try to buy these attributes though.

As Chris Brogan says “I don’t want your money for me.”  What I want is for you to thirst for more.  What I want is for you to want to better your family’s and your own financial situations.  What I want is for you to know that you can succeed and if you want my help in doing that I’ll be here for you.

Here is a list of the people I referenced and their writings:

1. Mark Cuban’s “Free vs Freely Distributed”
2. Seth Godin’s “Malcolm is Wrong”
3. Chris Brogan’s “I Believe Mark Cuban is Right”
4. Malcolm Gladwell’s “Priced to Sell”
5. Chris Anderson’s Free

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