By: Tim Butt
There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t read an article of someone or some firm in the financial services industry taking advantage of investors by misleading them, abusing conflicts of interests, or outright fraud. Over the past decade, these actions of greed by those in the financial services industry have cost investors hundreds of billions in lost wealth. What’s worse, when these losses are compounded over years, they equate to trillions of dollars of investor losses.
I’m surprised after these massive losses, investors haven’t taken the initiative to find a better way to preserve and grow their wealth. Apparently the pain of losing money has not yet reached the critical threshold. But that is not what made me made-as-hell this week.
Here’s what made me Made-as-Hell. If it isn’t bad enough that investors have no trust with the financial services industry and are having the majority of their wealth confiscated by this industry, now the insurance industry comes along to get in on the greed with agents selling phony annuities. If there is one agent selling them, there are many more that simply haven’t been caught yet. I’m sure I’ll be reading about more of these scams in the days, weeks, and months ahead.
Here is our advice to investors: If you have turned complete control of your money, investments, and financial future over to a financial advisor and/or insurance agent selling you financial products, beware that your investments and future wealth are at risk of total loss. Not from the usual Investment Risks like Market Risk (loss of money) or Inflation Risk (loss of purchasing power), but what I refer to as Greed Risk. Greed Risk is the greed of advisors, agents, financial advisory firms, insurance agencies, the financial services industry and insurance industry whose primary objective is to create wealth for themselves…all at the expense of every client/investor. Plain and simple.
If you want to learn how to eliminate 100% of Greed Risk, there is only one tried, true and tested way; by becoming your own most-trusted financial advisor and learning to invest on your own as a DIY 2.0 Investor. When will you decide to preserve your wealth rather than have it confiscated by these industries greed?