Rick Kahler's Financial Awakenings

Last month, in a hotel gift shop in Athens, Greece, I started talking with the clerk about how expensive things were for Americans in light of the dollar’s plunge against world currencies. My visit to the corner Starbucks for a latte, bagel, and two morning papers had set me back $23. She remarked in her best English, “It’s so confusing, your currency. The U.S. is the best in everything, so why is your money worth so little?”

Certainly, the dollar is not in good shape. It is at a 26-year low against the British pound, having fallen 44 percent since February of 2002. It’s at a 30-year low against the Canadian dollar and an all-time low against the euro.

I associate weak currencies with weak countries and strong currencies with strong countries. Why, then, has the greatest economy on earth watched its net worth as a nation decline by nearly 50% since 2000?

If America is still “the best in everything,” the current weakness in our currency is probably temporary. Ten years from now we may see the dollar once again strong on a global basis. But what if we are no longer “the best?” What if our falling dollar is the beginning of a new trend?

Could it be our nation’s economic greatness is more a perception from the past than a fact of the present? Some alarming new statistics suggest this may be the case. A number of trends would indicate the rest of the world has embraced the economic thinking and policies that made America great.

According to an article in USA Today, eight of the 20 largest global initial public offerings in 1996 were listed on a U.S. exchange. So far in 2007, not one of the top 20 global IPOs is listed in the U.S.A. “Things are bad and getting worse,” says Hall Scott, a Harvard Law School professor. He blames the trend on the regulatory environment and excessive litigation risk.

We are beginning to get beat at our own game. Capitalism is slowly becoming a politically obsolete theory in America, while it is on the rise globally. One example of this is that Americans are becoming more and more nationalist in their thinking.

A recent Pew poll asked respondents their opinions of growing trade ties between countries. Those from the U.S. ranked dead last (59 percent) in regarding such ties as “very good” or “somewhat good.” The next lowest ranking, 69 percent, came from Egypt. Americans believe, more than any other country on earth, that foreign goods and services are unnecessary and even unwanted.

This is a paradoxical attitude from a country that is a net importer, relying on foreign oil and goods to fuel its consumer-driven economy. If anything, one would think that Americans would be leading the global parade in supporting trade. We once were, but no more.

So it should come as no surprise that, when the Pew survey asked if trade with foreign companies had a positive impact on a country, only 45% of Americans answered positively, placing us in the bottom five nations. “We expect the world to welcome U.S. companies with open arms and yet do not reciprocate the hospitality,” writes Fareed Zakaria in Newsweek’s October 22 issue.

Maybe the clerk in Athens was mistaken about the U.S. still being “best in everything.” If so, I hope we quickly wake up to that fact so we can do something about it. Unfortunately, social anthropologists tell us it takes 15 years for society to integrate the recognition of a change. My fear is that we’re in for a rough ride before we begin to regain our economic strength.

The authors of The Financial Wisdom of Ebenezer Scrooge, Ted Klontz, Brad Klontz, and Rick Kahler, were featured on the Washington Post’s live web chat with Michelle Singletary, syndicated personal financial columnist for the Washington Post and radio correspondent for NPR.

This live chat with Michelle, Rick, Brad and Ted will took place on Thursday, December 20th at Noon EST. To view the web log click here.

Ms. Singletary chose the book for her “Color of Money” pick of the month because of her frustration over people who “repeatedly make the same bad choices” about money, despite knowing better. She said, “I’m telling you the book provides several weeks of therapy in 151 pages. Our money complexes are deeply rooted.”

As a kid, I always wondered why Santa Claus never ate the cookies and milk we left for him. A few years ago, a physics teacher friend explained why. Here is a repeat of the column I wrote based on his information.

Tradition tells us Santa visits every child around the world on Christmas Eve. Now, understand that Santa’s Christmas Eve is 36 hours long. That’s 7 pm to 7 am, plus time to travel around the globe as the Earth spins on its axis. This adds up to about 129,600 seconds. So if one-fourth of the roughly six billion people on this planet are children, Santa could spend less than 9/100,000 of a second, on average, at each one’s house. This is not enough time to eat cookies or drink milk.

In order to visit the more than one billion houses in the world during his long night’s work, Santa would have to travel at a rate of about 13,000 times the speed of sound. Can you imagine the frictional heat that would be caused by a plump gentleman and a team of reindeer moving that fast? It would burn Santa, his sleigh, all the reindeer, and the Christmas presents into cinders in something less than a millionth of a second.

Also, a Santa-sized object moving through the air that fast would in all likelihood dislodge electrons from the air molecules. As a result, a giant bolt of lightening would follow the sleigh. Since lightning travels much faster than 13,000 times the speed of sound, one could surmise that Santa would be zapped from behind by the biggest lightning strike of all time.

Further, if Santa’s sleigh were loaded with one medium-sized toy for every child, it would weigh about the same as a herd of ten million buffalo. The force needed to accelerate the sleigh to cruising speed would be something like 500,000,000 space shuttles blasting off at the same time. It would take the combined energy of ten thousand simultaneously exploding nuclear weapons to get the sleigh airborne—and then the same amount of energy to get it stopped next to the chimney of the next house. This would continue for each of the billion-plus houses on his trip.

Another little problem would be the sonic boom. In the same way that water forms a wake behind a speeding boat, air pressure waves would spread from the sleigh. This would create the loudest sonic boom ever heard, and no place on earth would be spared from the blast!

In addition to minor consequences like breaking every window in the world as well as the eardrums of almost everyone who forgot to wear ultra-heavy-duty ear protection that evening, the boom would result in the frantic stampeding of all domestic and wild animals. Can you imagine a great herd of panic-stricken cats thundering in a desperate stampede down Main Street? The mind boggles at the thought.

Thank goodness that the real Santa is not limited by the laws of physics. Oh, yes, as I tell my children, there is indeed a real Santa. I explain that he’s not the one they see dressed in red and white, sitting in a department store promising every kid the latest toys. The Santa Claus that really exists is the Spirit of Peace, a symbol of the sharing and caring that makes Christmas a blessed season every year.

And so, to everyone, my wish is that you will experience the richness of this Christmas season with those you love, as I have the great good fortune to be doing. Merry Christmas to you all.

The Financial Wisdom of Ebenezer Scrooge is a best seller at The Boulder Book Store in Boulder, CO. And apparently, copies are difficult to find. A report on the store’s blog says that book requests have been “eclectic, to say the least, but two books rose above the muck and were in heavy demand yesterday. The Financial Wisdom of Ebenezer Scrooge and The Brain that Changes Itself were both on many people’s lists. The bookstore was unable to satisfy their desires on either count. We had a few special orders for the book right after Thanksgiving, and in desperation of finding a hot title, we ordered in fifteen copies. By the time this order arrived, however, more special orders had come in, and there was only one copy left to put out on the shelf.”

We’ve received word that our publisher has rushed a new printing of the book in order to help the pre-Christmas demand, created in part by the multiple mentions of the book by Michelle Singletary, syndicated financial columnist for The Washington Post.

Last Thanksgiving our Eastern Mediterranean cruise was cancelled the night before we were to leave due to a case of the chicken pox. We rescheduled the same trip for this Thanksgiving and crossed our fingers. At least we knew, if anything stopped us, it would not be the chicken pox.

We did make our sail time and had a wonderful time visiting faraway places that I had long dreamed of visiting, like the Acropolis in Athens, Ephesus, and The Great Pyramid of Egypt. Our children went with us, and while I doubt they fully appreciated what they saw, I am sure it is an experience they will remember for a long time. Just last night London was watching a documentary on the wonders of the world and remarked, “It’s so cool watching this having been to some of these places!”

However, our trip wasn’t without its travel challenges. This year it wasn’t health problems that threatened our vacation, it was cancelled flights. Prior to our departure, NWA called to let us know they had cancelled our returning flight and we would have to overnight in Minneapolis. The day we were to leave, our initial flight and third flight were cancelled, resulting in us missing a day of sightseeing in Athens. Upon returning from Barcelona, our transatlantic flight out of Amsterdam was cancelled, meaning we had to overnight in Amsterdam rather than Minneapolis.

The final tally was that four out of our six flights (three going and three returning) ended up being cancelled. This was a new personal record!

The story here is not the terrible delays and inconveniences that are ubiquitous when traveling, but how differently cancellations are dealt with by the European carriers versus those in the US.

For example, when KLM cancelled our transatlantic flight, we were paged while still in Barcelona and informed prior to leaving that the flight from Amsterdam to Minneapolis was cancelled and our only option was to overnight in Amsterdam. This allowed us to settle into the change of plans (though admittedly, after four cancellations, acceptance starts getting a lot easier) and go directly to the customer service desk rather than race to the gate only to find out about the cancellation then. At customer service, the agent, without any hesitation or hassle, presented us with vouchers for a four-star hotel, transportation, dinner, and breakfast. They also gave us the most complete overnight kit I’ve ever seen, which included everything you would need for an unplanned hotel stay, including an XXL tee shirt. We also received a questionnaire asking us to rate the experience.

Contrast that experience with our outbound cancelled flight on NWA. We found out about this cancellation through an independent site I use to track flights, www.flightstats.com. We received no phone call or email from the airline, even though I was signed up on the website to receive both in the event of a cancellation. Without the independent notification, we would have found out about the cancelled flight at the airport and would have had to arrange for transportation back into town or spend 5 hours hanging around RC Regional. I spent two stressful hours on the phone (international rebookings cannot be handled at RC Regional) trying to rearrage our flights to make our cruise. I only wish they would have given me a questionaire to rate my experience with their service!

After all was said and done, my wife and I almost simultaneously wondered aloud if the wonder of discovering new places and cultures is still worth the stress of travelling. Ten years ago we would have said a resounding “yes.” Today we are a hesitant “kinda.” Staying around home is looking better and better all the time.

Kahler Financial Group office will be closed for business Monday, December 24, 2007, to let our staff celebrate Christmas with their friends and family. We will resume our regular business hours at 8 AM on Wednesday, December 26, 2007. If you are aware of any special needs prior to next Wednesday, please give us a call or drop us an email prior to Friday, December 21st.

We wish you all a merry Christmas and holiday season and look forward to a prosperous New Year in 2008!

What is the most expensive single item on your list of Christmas spending? That special gift for your spouse? The latest electronic gizmo for your teenager? Your family’s holiday travel?

Or could it be something you didn’t even know you bought? For some Christmas shoppers, the most expensive holiday purchase could be interest.

It’s all too easy at this time of year to hit the stores, plastic in hand, and end up spending more than you had planned. The crowded stores, the sense of urgency to find the right thing for everyone on the list, the barrages of advertising, and the tempting arrays of “bargain gifts” can seduce us into impulsively buying stuff we had no intention of getting.

A battery-operated eyelash curler? Just the thing for teenage nieces. A snow shovel with a heated blade? Get one for Uncle Ed. The gift-boxed little bottle of expensive lotion? That will do for Grandma. Check off the names, and on to the next store, until at last everyone is accounted for and you can breathe a sigh of relief.

In January, however, that sense of relief can come to an abrupt and painful end when the credit card bills show up. All those purchases that were “just a little bit more than I planned to spend” can add up to a bill that is too much to pay off in one, two, or even three months.

If it takes until June or July to pay off the balance, you’ll be paying hefty interest charges on top of the purchase price of the gifts. That talking electronic picture frame could end up costing 25 percent more than its sale price of $19.95—not such a bargain after all, especially if it quits working three months before you finally get it paid for.

For next year, why not try to cross “Interest” off your Christmas list for good? The following steps can help.

First of all, as you pay off your holiday credit card bills, keep careful track of the interest you pay. Make a list; check it twice. Really pay attention to how much that interest adds to the cost of your purchases.

Second, notice what you do in order to pay off the bills. What other items in the budget do you squeeze, shove over, or get rid of in order to make room for the credit card payments?

Third, understand that, if you can manage to pay off the bills after Christmas, you could also manage to save the same amount of money before Christmas. If you can make a $50 or $75 or $200 credit card payment for several months after the holidays, why not commit instead to making those payments before the holidays?

Once you have the credit card account paid off, keep paying that same $50 or $75 or $200 into a savings account every month. Then, by the time the holidays come around next year, you’ll have a gift-buying fund to draw from. Instead of adding to the cost of your gifts by paying interest, you’ll be increasing your buying power by earning interest.

Then, when you go shopping, leave the credit cards at home. Write checks for what you buy, or take your savings with you in cold, hard cash. As you buy gifts, subtract the cost of each item from your total Christmas gift budget. Those extra impulse bargain buys will probably be a lot less tempting.

True, your mom might need to do without the talking picture frame. But just take her out to lunch in January instead. With no credit card bills to pay off, you’ll be able to afford it.

Michelle Singletary, a noted financial columnist, featured The Financial Wisdom of Ebenezer Scrooge as her final “Color of Money Book Club” selection for the year. In her December 3rd column she recommended the book and wrote in some detail about money scripts. Ms. Singletary’s syndicated column runs in 140 newspapers with a combined readership of over 4,000,000. Her mention of our book was enough to jump the title to Amazon.com’s top 350, its highest ranking ever! To read the article, “Taking the Right Lesson from Scrooge,” click here.

In many columns over the years, I have mentioned how important it is for parents and children to talk about the parents’ estate plans and the provisions of their wills. Actually having such a conversation can be terribly difficult, whether you approach it as the parent or the child. Perhaps the following suggestions may be helpful.

1. Presumably, your will reflects your values around money—whether you believe in giving to charity, in providing first for your family, or in leaving a legacy to your community. If you communicate those values openly during your lifetime, you will give family members a better idea what to expect from your estate.

Such openness isn’t necessarily an easy habit to develop. In our society, money is almost the last taboo subject for discussion, even though we are increasingly open about many other sensitive and once-forbidden topics. It often works best to begin gradually to let your family members know what you believe about money.

One way to do this is by taking advantage of openings in general conversation. For example, a news item about a billionaire leaving huge sums to a charitable foundation can be an opportunity to express your opinion of such an action. This can lead to a discussion about what you would do with your own billions if you had them, then to a more realistic conversation about how you plan to distribute the assets you do have.

2. If your will does not treat your children “equally,” for whatever reasons, it may be best to share that information individually rather than announcing it at a family get-together or letting them find out about it when your will is read. Maybe you’ve given one child significant financial help, for example, and as a result are leaving less of your estate to her than to her siblings. Or maybe you’re leaving money outright to one child but leaving a sum in trust for another child who is less responsible. Talking about such provisions privately with each child can give the two of you a chance to discuss the bequest and the reasons behind it. These conversations, difficult as they may be, can do much to reduce conflict between siblings after you are gone.

3. One of the most unfair things you can do is allow children to assume they are inheriting more than is the case. By not telling them, you may avoid conflict now, but you’re sowing seeds for deeper conflict and resentment after your death.

On the other hand, it can be difficult for children to unexpectedly inherit a large amount. If your estate will be substantial and you have more than enough for your own needs through old age, one possibility might be to begin giving to your children now. Such gifts can open the door to conversations about their expectations, helping them begin to think about how they will handle their inheritance.

Although it is seldom expressed, perhaps the strongest reason for not discussing estate plans with family members is simple fear. Parents may be afraid that children will disapprove of their plans, will build too much on their expectations for an inheritance, or will be angry at the parents or resentful of other heirs.

True, talking to your family about your will and your wishes can be difficult and even painful. Those discussions, however, will almost certainly be less painful than the stories a child may make up after you’re gone about why you made the choices you did. Having the courage to discuss your estate plans with your family can be a valuable piece of the legacy you leave them.