On 2014-01-02, SteveB wrote:
On 1/1/2014 2:51 PM, Ignoramus27233 wrote:

I have a fair amount of money to manage (I mean liquid investments
outside of business), and realistically do not think that it would be
much harder to manage, say, 10 times the amount. I certainly would not
consider any exotic vehicles or "hedge funds".

i

You would be amazed at the amount of people who do have sizeable amounts
of money, yet are taken to the cleaners by every snake oil salesman on
the block. Why? Because they are not content to take the lower risk,
lower yeild, guaranteed long term investment, but want the unrealistic %
returns guaranteed by most slicksters. Know more than one person who
ended up losing a wad, who should be in good shape today, had they just
taken the low road.

The problem is not the amount of risk they wanted to take, but their
vulnerability to slicksters. The "risk equation" was not in their
favor, because of who your friends dealt with. You cannot make a good
deal with a bad person.

I figured, long ago, that if I avoid all financial salesmen and
planners, I will automatically stay away from slicksters also.

Many dogmas of financial planning, such as the asset allocation
theory, dollar cost averaging, etc, are badly flawed. I do not think
that I would benefit much from a typical financial planner.
However, I hold my accountant in high regard.

i