My First Ever Book Endorsement — David Shafer And Uncommon Wisdom

Posted @ 1:13 pm - Filed under 401(k)'s & IRA's, Check This Out, Communication, Cool Info, Financial Planning, Goals, Investment Lessons, Leverage, Retirement, Sez Me

David and I met a little over a year ago. He not only has the innate ability to understand what works, he’s also a pro after my own heart. Instead of taking things at face value, he thinks. What a concept. He bases his investment philosophy and his real life investment strategies and choices on historically empirical performance evidence. You might be compelled to ask, “What will they think of next.” But there I go again, being Captain Obvious. Imagine, someone who demands to know the real facts — the real life historical performance data of available investment options — before making a decision.

I’ve never endorsed a book on these pages, and for excellent reasons. Though I know of several books for which I hold much respect, the average person simply can’t translate most of what they teach into their own reality. The whole “I did this and so can you” has a fatal flaw. Allow me a baseball analogy. (Hey! I heard that. No groaning allowed.)

You and I can read how to throw a Hall of Fame curveball written by Sandy Koufax till our eyes dry up and fall out. The best curveball most folks will end up throwing though, would be a pitch that might discernibly change direction. You might understand the principles, but you soon learn there’s a reason the definitions of amateur and professional are so different. Duh.

Same goes with investing for retirement. David’s book, Dr. Dave’s Uncommon Financial Advice is exactly that — uncommon. One of the most consistent threads I found in reading it cover to cover — twice — was his underlying advocacy of ‘Call the guy’. Deal with real pros. Does he recommend specific investments? Yep. Does he back ‘em up with real life data? Yep. Is there some ‘how to’ and ‘you can do this’ included? Yep. The difference is, the things he tells the reader to do themselves can be done successfully by a smarter than average eighth grader.

Anything involving concepts more complex in nature? He strongly advises to call the pro — period.

He demonstrates in detail why some of the so called ’solid investment’ axioms of the last couple generations are nothing but the product of cynical marketing. How 401(k)’s are Uncle Sam’s way of collecting more taxes in the long run — from the very taxpayers he’s purporting to help. I dunno. Ever read that before?

Here’s a sampling of what you’ll learn:

The real scoop on the massive failure of mutual funds as a retirement vehicle.

Why investing in an EIUL is how the wealthy have been doing it for years.

Why 90% of Americans must rely on government and others after retirement.

Why diversification is a four letter word.

Paradigm changes in thinking that must be adopted to retire well.

If leverage isn’t part of your retirement plan — prepare to be disappointed.

David Shafer’s new website, Shafer Financial is well worth your time. He offers the reader real value — a rare commodity these days. He’s been a regular read for me since I met him.

I endorse this new book without reservation, and furthermore encourage my readers to take the hint and purchase it today. You can make that happen by going here.

I love the way Dave writes. As I recently told him, he’s the only guy I know who manages a vanilla style while making it work. How does he pull that off? I don’t like vanilla ice cream, but give me enough chocolate sauce and I’m there with a spoon. His chocolate sauce is the impressively rich detail he provides in the form of empirically historical evidence — all performance based. You’ll find yourself, as did I, rereading passages as you mumble, “I never did really believe those mealy mouthed SOB’s”.
What got me to the tipping point though, was the very nature of the content, and what was thankfully missing — there’s no psycho-babble based theories propped up by anecdotal hooey masquerading as empirical evidence.

Buy the book. Thank me later.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 27th, 2009 at 1:13 pm and is filed under 401(k)'s & IRA's, Check This Out, Communication, Cool Info, Financial Planning, Goals, Investment Lessons, Leverage, Retirement, Sez Me. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.