Journal entries from my travels in Thailand and Tibet In this section: Flying into Khatmandu and visit to a monastery that I’m helping as part of my philanthropic activities. The cool thing is that I get to live my passion and do it all in a tax efficient manner.

I find it odd that the mortgage industry comes on with this holier-than-thou attitude. First the bank and mortgage companies collude with the government to entice people to go into debt in the first place claiming that real estate has traditionally been a “safe” investment and the debt is deductible anyway, as if that [...]

“Mundus vult decipi et decipiatur” = “The world wants to deceive and be deceived”
Here’s my commentary on the following article, which appeared in the Daily Reckoning on October 20:
Big Fat Stock Market Sell-Off
Well, it’s beginning to start all over again.
Actually, I’ve noticed the change about 2 weeks ago. Déjà Vu…many a person fails [...]

Here’s my response to the Streettalk.com article (Doug Casey column) below on what’s happening to the dollar internationally and the economic outlook for the U.S.:
http://moneynews.newsmax.com/streettalk/doug_casey/2009/07/29/241521.html
Doug Casey has some very pessimistic things to say about where America is headed, and the following quote sums up a good part of it:
“Naturally, foreign countries don’t want to see [...]

From an article in The Daily Reckoning
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Brief summary/excerpt:
Elliot Spitzer is back in the news. Speaking to MSNBC, the disgraced crime-fighter described the Fed as a “Ponzi scheme”:
“You look at the governing structure of the New York [Federal Reserve], it was run by the very banks that got the money. This is a [...]

Here’s my commentary on a blog post on Henry Louis Gates’ tax problem that I found here:
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2009/07/henry-louis-gates.html
First of all, Harvard is a mess (financially and in my opinion ethically regarding being politically correct).
I was aware of the arrest of Gates.  There is plenty of finger pointing in the case; the cop could have remained [...]

I just got an inquiry on Twitter and couldn’t quite fit my response into the 140 characters.  So I’m posting it here and will send a tweet or two to my twitter followers to check it out here:

My response to prospective clients is this:  I now propose that rather than taking me on as an [...]

Financial or business planning is at its most powerful when it is well integrated with one’s personal goals. And the ideal way to accomplish such an integration, at least for people with some degree of wealth, is starting a private foundation. Read on about why that is so, and how to go about it correctly.
Foundations [...]

How do you bridge the chasm between the personal and the professional? It may be challenging, but the results definitely make it worth the effort.  In fact, one thing that has never ceased to amaze me is how powerful financial or business planning can become when it is integrated with one’s personal goals.  Read on [...]

It can be challenging to integrate vision and values into strategic planning.  But it’s also very rewarding.  In a previous article, I described an example where “Dave” started a foundation to successfully integrate his values while resolving a major financial challenge.  Read on to discover the details and how exactly starting a private foundation was [...]