IRAQI FAIRS

My mother was amazing! She didn’t let age stand in her way. When my dad passed away due to a long illness, after a period of intense grief, my mother made the comment. “I’ve decided to make the best of what I have.” She had her faith and her family. However, this 5 foot tall whirlwind also needed an outlet for her high-level energy; so, in her late 70s, Mom asked me to create a r?m?or her. I listed her experience at the Boeing Company preceded by many years in the retail field, and mom set off to explore joining the work force once again. She didn’t drive, so that meant finding a job within walking distance.

She was hired at a nearby tea room/bakery, and loved the job. And the clients loved heras well as her delicious, homemade cinnamon rolls. One of her regular customers confided that she thought she’d take her pre-school daughter to another restaurant for a change, but the little girl started crying and said, “I want to go to lunch where I can see the grandma lady.”

When that business closed, she once again circulated her r?m?nd landed a job at Skipper’s. Fish and fries become her game. Management soon noticed that she worked circles around the younger staff members. Mom even won a regional employee award from the company. She loved working with the teen-age crew, and they found in her a grandmother-figure in whom they could confide.

She didn’t expect any special considerations or help because of her ageor height. If something needed to be done, she’d see that the task was completed one way or another. When an object was situated on a high shelf, she didn’t wait for another employee to take it down. She found a stool to stand on and climbed up a couple of shelves to retrieve what she needed. More than one manager almost went into cardiac arrest upon viewing that scene.

Her calisthenics were also apparent in the supermarket when she used a banana or box of cereal as tools to pull something off of a high shelf, and then would catch it before the object hit the floor. When I asked her, “Mom, why don’t you ask a clerk for help?” her response was always, “I don’t have time to wait.” She had things to do and places to go.

Mom loved adventure! She often worked the evening shift at Skipper’s, so when she called me on one occasion and said I wouldn’t need to pick her up because another employee was taking her home, that seemed fine to meuntil she “confessed” the next day that her ride was on the back of a motorcycle. She thought that was pure fun. Gray curls anchored by her navy blue Skipper’s hat, and her uniform sweater whipped by the wind, she was quite the sight. Her only complaint was the driver didn’t go fast enough.

On her 80th birthday, the reader board outside of Skipper’s said, “Help Us Celebrate Gladys’ 80th Birthday.” Friends and customers came for cake and conversation with the birthday girl. She loved it! It almost eclipsed the large family party held later that day.

Mom didn’t think like an “old person.” She kept up with what was happening in our world through the newspaper, magazines, TV, and discussions with family and friends. When people heard she was in her 80s, it was hard for them to believe. Our mom didn’t think she was old, so acted accordingly.

Have you ever met an individual in his or her 40s who seemed really old? That’s often the case when someone has a glum outlook on life and focuses entirely on himself or herself. Learning has stopped and the word “goal” is no longer a part of that person’s vocabulary.

We all realize the importance of physical exercise for optimum health, but scientists now recognize that as people grow older they need to “exercise” their brains regularly to help that organ function longer and better.

There’s a big, wonderful world out therein fact, 194 countriesjust waiting to be explored. Through travel, books, movies, magazines, educational courses, and the Internet, one’s mind can expand while the world grows smaller. And learning is a way to keep young.

We’re all growing older every day that we liveno one is exemptbut our quality of life is affected by our attitude, health, goals, and the desire to keep learning.

The Japanese have a proverb that says, “We begin aging when we stop learning.” So Mom was rightage is between the ears.

Since being introduced in the mid ’90′s, Exchange-Traded Funds have continued to grow in popularity. Over 60% of money flowing into index fund-type vehicles is going into Exchange-Traded Funds. Should you be using them? Read on to find out.

I recently spoke in New York City at a national summit for financial advisors that focused on Exchange-Traded Funds. Over 200 advisors from all over the country attended and learned why the use of exchange-traded funds can give them a competitive advantage and benefit their clients. Whether you are a traditional buy and hold investor, or actively trade to profit from shorter-term opportunities, you should strongly consider their use.

Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) are designed to mirror a market index. The three most popular stock market indices are the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ. The ETFs that mirror these indices are referred to as Diamonds, Spiders and Cubes because their symbols are DIA, SPY and QQQ.

Exchange-Traded Funds provide the diversification benefits of a mutual fund with the advantage of being traded like an individual stock. Whereas a mutual fund can only be bought or sold based on that day’s closing price, Exchange-Traded Funds can be bought or sold anytime throughout the trading day. This allows you to more quickly enter or exit the market during the day.

With over 172 different ETFs, there is an ETF for practically every index available. In fact, ETFs track nearly twice as many broad-based market indexes as traditional index mutual funds. This creates amazing flexibility in structuring an overall portfolio to the specific needs of any investor.

Besides many broad-based ETFs, there are also ones targeting specific sectors of the market. And Exchange-Traded Funds aren’t just for stock-based investments. There are separate ETFs that invest in bonds, real estate, precious metals and other commodities. There are ETFs designed for growth and others designed for income.

The internal expenses of most Exchange-Traded Funds are very low. The average actively-managed mutual fund may have internal expenses over 1% per year. The internal expenses of Diamonds, Spiders and Cubes are less than 1/5 of 1% per year. (Since ETFs are purchased like a stock, there is a commission to buy and sell them. The use of a discount broker should minimize this expense.)

The majority of exchange-traded funds are not actively managed. In that sense they are very similar to an indexed mutual fund. Recently, though, actively-managed ETFs have been introduced to the market. Expect more and more of these to become available over the next few years.

Exchange-traded funds allow an investor to control when the taxes will be paid on an investment, whereas in a traditional mutual fund those decisions are made by someone else. An investor can also sell a stock or mutual fund to generate a tax-deductible loss and then replace that investment with a similar ETF.

Moreover, ETFs can be sold-short without having to wait for an ‘uptick’. To short an individual stock you must wait for it to trade higher than its previous trade (referred to as an uptick). As a result, it can be difficult to sell-short when the market is falling. With ETFs, you can easily sell-short in a falling market and thus profit from it. This is one technique that can be effectively used to protect the rest of your non- IRA portfolio.

To summarize, ETFs can be used in many ways. They can be used to round out a portfolio. If you have several individual stocks that you don’t want to sell for tax reasons, ETFs can be used to add diversification. ETFs can be sold short so they can also be used to protect the rest of your portfolio in a falling market. Or ETFs can be used to increase specific exposure of an overall portfolio. For instance, you could have international exposure but overweight Japan by buying a broad-based international ETF and a Japan-focused ETF.

I use ETFs extensively in my client’s accounts because of their flexibility and low cost. Your portfolio can probably benefit from their use as well. If you would like to learn more about how to use ETFs in your portfolio just let me know.

For clear, straightforward, unbiased answers to your financial questions contact me at jeff@guardingyourwealth.com.

Mr. Voudrie is a Certified Financial Planner, nationally syndicated newspaper columnist and President of Legacy Planning Group, Inc., a Private Wealth Management Firm in Johnson City, TN. He can be reached toll-free at 1-877-827-1463 or http://www.guardingyourwealth.com.

July 14, 2006

As the Israeli-Palestinian conflict continues to spiral out of control, the best the United Nations Security Council has been able to come up with so far is a failed resolution that demonstrates once again the impotence of that body when it comes to matters of global peace and security.

An Arab-backed resolution, sponsored by Qatar and accusing Israel of using disproportionate force, demanded an immediate halt to Israeli military operations, called for the cessation of rocket attacks against the Jewish state, and demanded prisoner releases from all parties to the current conflict. But after much debate and multiple drafts that were repeatedly reworded to try and accommodate all parties, the United States felt compelled to use its veto power to block the draft from being adopted.

It is this veto power that is at the heart of the Security Council’s inability to ever accomplish anything of real substance when confronted with global crises that pit the interests of the five permanent members against one another.

Realist theory argues that states are ultimately concerned with the balance of power in the world, and that nations behave in ways that will enhance their relative power at any given point in time. One would be hard pressed to find a greater example of this theory in action than in the meetings of the United Nations Security Council. Time and again the Security Council has adopted watered down resolutions that are meaningless, except for providing the Secretary-General an opportunity to stand at the podium and claim that the countries of the world are working together to further peace and security for all nations.

Saddam Hussein ignored or violated multiple Security Council resolutions over the twelve years between Operations Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom. He did so because he always believed that France and Russia, both with economic ties to Iraq, would block any attempt by the United States and Britain to enforce those resolutions militarily. He did not believe that the Anglo-American alliance would act without the consent of the United Nations, and he knew that consent would never materialize.

North Korea and Iran are currently posturing on the world stage, in part because they know the United States is heavily engaged in Afghanistan and Iraq, and in part because they know that anything that comes out of the United Nations will be meaningless and unenforceable. The odds of getting China and Russia to authorize real punitive measures against North Korea and Iran are virtually nonexistent, and those countries know it. China’s watered down version of the resolution offered by Japan for action against North Korea, and the failed resolution concerning the ongoing Arab-Israeli fight are just the latest in the sad history of the United Nations Security Council.

What is urgently needed is a fundamental overhaul of the Security Council. By allowing any of the five permanent members to individually veto any resolution presented before them, the United Nations is relegating the remaining two-thirds of the Council to irrelevance, except for procedural matters and resolutions that have the concurrence of the permanent five members. The Security Council itself should be abolished, with every member state in the United Nations allowed to vote on security matters in the General Assembly, with a two-thirds affirmative vote required for an action to be adopted.

Each of the UNSC’s five permanent members acts according to what is in their own best interests, despite the hopes of those who believe that the United Nations can be a vehicle for world peace and security. The power to veto any resolution that does not enhance a permanent member’s standing on the world stage guarantees that the Security Council will remain impotent when confronted with global security matters, unless the United Nations undertakes fundamental reforms that will foster cooperation between nations and reduce the likelihood of obstruction. Until that happens, the deliberations of the Security Council will continue to be an exercise in futility.