30 junio 2016

Interesante artículo del Washington Post

Te recomiendo su lectura:

The world’s losers are revolting, and Brexit is only the beginning

The world has enjoyed an unprecedented run of peace, prosperity and cooperation the last 25 years, but now that might be over. At least when it comes to those last two.
That, more than anything else, is what Britain's vote to leave the European Union means. A British exit, or Brexit, will make the country poorer in the short run, perhaps in the long run too, and might drag the rest of Europe down with it. That's because Britain is essentially ripping up its free trade deal with the rest of Europe. But of far greater concern than just dollars and cents is that this is the most significant setback in Europe's 60-year quest for "ever closer union," and the most shocking success for the new nationalism sweeping the Western world.
Brexit, in other words, is the end of the end of history.
That, of course, was Francis Fukuyama's famous idea that, with the end of the Cold War, capitalist democracy had not only defeated communism, but also every other ideology. It was supposed to be, as he wrote, the "final form of human government." And insofar as democracies tended to work together, this implied the future would be one where competition wouldn't lead to conflict, but would rather replace it. Tariffs would come down, money would move across borders to where it was needed most, and workers would too. This meant, then, that governments weren't the only ones that would become more alike. People would as well. They'd stop being citizens and chauvinists, and become consumers and cosmopolitans. You'd have nation-states without the nationalism.
For a while, this seemed true enough. Democracy spread, war lessened and economies opened up. In turn, international groups like the European Union and World Trade Organization codified it all. As any Mumbai taxi driver could have told you, the world really was a Thomas Friedman book.
Or at least it looked that way, if you didn't stare too closely. If you did, though, you would have noticed the cracks in this liberal international order. For one, financial capitalism didn't always work so well for countries. Money moved in and out of them at the speed of a mouse click, inflating and then popping bubbles along the way. From Mexico to Argentina, Thailand to South Korea, Hong Kong to Indonesia, and, eventually, the United States to southern Europe, these capital flows magnified the economy's boom-bust cycle, with an emphasis on the bust.
For another, global capitalism didn't always work so well for workers in the United States and Europe even as — or, in some cases, because — it pulled hundreds of millions of people out of poverty everywhere else. In fact, the working class in rich countries have seen their real, or inflation-adjusted, incomes flatline or even fall since the Berlin Wall came down and they were forced to compete with all the Chinese, Indian and Indonesian workers entering the global economy. You can see that in the chart below, put together from economist Branko Milanovic'sdata. It shows how much real incomes have increased — or not — for the whole world between 1988 and 2008. Now, the way to read this is to imagine that everyone, as in everyone in every country, was lined up from highest to lowest income. The richest people in the richest countries (and every other one for that matter) would be in the global top 1 percent, the working class in the richest countries would be around the 80th percentile, and the middle class in middle-class countries like China would be at the 50th percentile.
Globalization didn't create a lot of losers, but the ones it did were concentrated in the countries that were the driving force behind it.
This was a political powder keg. If rich-world workers were losing ground even when times were good, what would happen if we got hit by one of the financial crises the new global economy seemed to spawn every few years? Well, things would get ugly. Although, in truth, they had already started to. Right-wing populists like Pat Buchanan in the United States, Jean-Marie Le Pen in France and Jörg Haider in Austria had scored surprising near-victories, if not actual ones, in the late 1990s and early 2000s by focusing the working class's incipient ire on a "foreign" enemy besides outsourcing: immigrants. This antagonism reflected economic anxiety, cultural fear and even racial resentment. Displaced workers felt like immigrants were taking jobs and benefits that should have been theirs. They were worried about losing the one thing — their national identity — the market couldn't take. And, a lot of times, they just didn't want to be around people who didn't look, sound, or worship like they did.
It didn't take long, then, for the West's triumphal globalism to fuel a nationalist backlash. In the United States it's Trump, in France it's the National Front, in Germany it's the Alternative for Germany and, yes, in Britain it's the Brexiters.
SO Britain's "leave" campaign was about what you'd expect, especially considering that immigration had doubled the previous 20 years as people from the E.U.'s poorest east had come looking for work. Brexiters called to "take back control" from Brussels's bureaucrats. They warned that Turkey is about to join the E.U. — it's not — and flood the country with immigrants. They said that Europe's refugee crisis has pushed them to a "breaking point" in a poster reminiscent of Nazi propaganda. And they promised to earmark the funds now being sent to the E.U. for what they claim is the overburdened-by-immigrants National Health Services instead. Never mind that they overstated how much money that'd be by a factor of two. Their basic argument was that Britain could only stop this influx of immigrants if it ditched the E.U. and its rules mandating the free movement of people and that the elites had failed the people by forgetting there was a Britain outside of London. The only real surprise is that all this happened in Britain and not some other E.U. country, since they were smart enough not to adopt the euro and thus avoided the worst of Europe's double-dip recession.
If he were around today, Louis XV might amend what he said to this: Après Brexit, le déluge. That's not, though, because of what Brexit might do to Britain's economy, but rather to everyone else's politics. Now, of course, it is true that leaving the E.U. without getting a new trade deal almost as good as the one it has now will make Britain permanently poorer. And it is also true that the uncertainty over what any future agreement will look like will put the brakes on business investment and possibly push Britain into recession. But the economic fate of one little island isn't what has global markets on edge. It's whether the rest of Europe will follow Britain out of the E.U. and into their own portmanteaus. In other words, whether Brexit will beget Frexit, Itexit and Nexit.
It might. Right-wing populists, after all, in France, Italy and the Netherlands have already called for their own referendums on E.U. membership. And if they win, it wouldn't just tear the common market apart but the common currency as well. See, unlike Britain, all those countries use the euro. So if one of them were to leave, two things would happen: First, they'd have to change all the money in their economy, and, second, every other euro country would worry that they'd be next. That, in turn, would set off a slow-motion bank run across Southern Europe as people tried to get ahold of their euros before they could be turned into, say, liras that wouldn't be worth anywhere near as much. It'd be the mother-of-all financial crises. Which is why German, French, Spanish and Italian stock markets all fell much further than Britain's did after it voted to leave. Indeed, those markets dropped 6.8, 8.0, 12.4 and 12.5 percent, respectively, on Friday, while Britain's "only" declined 3.2 percent.
Brexit, it turns out, is more about Europe than it is about Britain.
This could be the beginning of the end of the euro, the European Union and the liberal international order itself. Like the French Revolution, though, it's too soon to say. Britain may yet back away from the brink. And Europe may yet fix the flaws in its currency and its bureaucracy to head off any more nationalist uprisings. Neither of those is likely, but we can't rule them out — just like we can't rule out the opposite. Brexit really might be the end of the E.U. if France and Italy follow Britain out the door; it might also be the end of the U.K. if Scotland and Northern Ireland decide they'd rather be part of the E.U. (or what's left of it); and it might even be the end of our era of economic integration if it helps propel populists to power across the continent who only care about putting their people "first."
The E.U. may certainly seem to deserve this fate. It has let an economic fire burn across Southern Europe for nearly eight years, its only response to that has been to pour some gasoline on it, and it seems to think it has done its job now that that is down to just a smolder. Now, its first mistake was ignoring the economists who warned that creating a currency union without a fiscal union to go with it would end, well, as badly as it has. Its second one was ignoring the evidence that things were indeed going bad just as predicted, and blaming irresponsible governments instead. And its last one was all but blackmailing governments into slashing their budgets out of the misguided belief that this would get their sputtering economies growing again. It didn't. It was the economic equivalent of tossing a drowning person an anchor instead of a lifeline, because you thought they needed to get stronger and not bailed out. Which made the E.U. Europe's bête noire.
The sad irony of all this is that the E.U. was built to prevent the very kind of nationalist fervor its economic mismanagement and political heavy-handedness are provoking now. The dustbin of history exists for a reason.
And yet, and yet. It's easy for a generation that has only known peace and relative prosperity to forget that the arc of the political universe is long, and it bends toward wherever you point it. If that's toward chauvinism and isolationism, well, that's what you'll get. Europe's countries will end up with metaphorical walls around their economies, and eventually physical ones around their borders. Hungary's nationalist government is already well on its way with its razor-wire fences. This is a dangerous time for Europe. It has had walls before. It doesn't want them again. The only thing, then, that might be worse than the E.U. is the people who want to get rid of it. The same could be said of globalization. It might have made growth less inclusive and less sustainable than before — at least in rich countries — but it's hard to say the alternative would be better. We'd be a little poorer, and poorer countries would be a lot less able to grow.
The liberal international order isn't working for too many people, but, on balance, most economists would say it's still worth fighting for. After all, there are much worse alternatives. If we want to avoid learning that firsthand, though, we're going to need to build bigger safety nets for globalization's losers, and, in the case of the E.U., make it more responsive to voters. Otherwise, we might get the toughest lesson of all.
History doesn't always move forward.
La bolsa británica recuperó ayer todo lo que perdido desde el día 24/6:
Ahora falta por ver si lo que hemos visto estos días es un rebote de gato muerto, una subida por la verticalidad de la caída, pero la UE está algo rota y, desde el punto vista macro, iremos a menos, a más estancamiento. El Brexit traerá consecuencias que iremos viendo, y los mercados seguirán laterales..., como desde hace dos años. Se demuestra, como siempre, que el que se mueve en momentos de pánico, se equivoca… Abrazos,
PD1: "Nada puede pasarme que Dios no quiera. Y todo lo que él quiere, por muy malo que nos parezca, es lo mejor", dijo Santo Tomás Moro. Sin más…, todo es la voluntad de Dios.

29 junio 2016

no nos haremos ricos...

Nos tienen engañados…, nos iban diciendo que si trabajábamos duro, conseguiríamos un buen capital para hacer menos amarga la jubilación, que seríamos capaces de obtener un buen retiro, como la generación precedente, pero quia!, no vamos a tener rentas suficientes para que el ahorro sirva para mucho…

So You Didn’t Get Rich…

Waa! It’s not fair!
We baby boomers were told that if we worked hard and saved, we could spend the last quarter of our lives living comfortably and free from financial worries. Our parents told us. Our employers told us. Even the government told us.
How often, during our years of toil, did we daydream about those future days? The leisurely breakfasts, the afternoons golfing, dinners with friends, weekends with our grandchildren…
(Note to younger people: Don’t stop reading. What I’m saying here applies to you too—in spades!)
But now that we are reaching retirement age, the promise is beginning to feel like a fraud.
For many of us, a financially secure, worry-free retirement no longer seems possible.
Not to worry. I’m going to give you my best advice on how to create a very attractive retirement from what looks to be a seemingly impossible financial situation.
After scaring you with some numbers in this essay, I’m going to spend the next installment telling you how to fix anything you may have been doing wrong. I’ll also give you some realistic suggestions for acquiring wealth—no matter how much you have to start with—while you are still willing and able to work for it.
Finally, I’ll give you an idea for how you can retire very comfortably—and very soon—on a modest income. And by “modest,” I mean less than $40,000 per year.

What Happened to the Dream?

What happened, fellow boomers? How did we fail? Did we work too few hours? Too few years? Did we spend more than we should have? Or fail to save… or save too little? Did we invest poorly?
What happened was a combination of “surprises.” Some predictable. Some not so much…
1. We worked hard, but we didn’t get meaningful wage increases.
As a group, we boomers worked more than we were required to throughout our careers. Not only did we work more than 40 hours per week, our productivity nearly doubled between 1979 and 2013 (according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics).
And we are still working hard. According to the Current Population Survey, the full-time working boomer aged 55-plus is still averaging 42.4 hours per week. (The most recent data is from 2013.)
The problem was that, over the long haul, our wages did not keep pace with inflation.
From 1948–1979, wages adjusted for inflation rose 93.4%, according to the Economic Policy Institute. The wage rate increases were beating the slow rise of inflation—big time.
Now look at what happened in the late-1970s…
In 1979 (some sources say as early as 1972), wages went flat. For the next 35 years, as we boomers passed through our late teens, 20s, 30s, and 40s, real wages increased only about 8%.
And since 2009, the tide has reversed. Real hourly wages are once again on the decline.
So while our bills continued to rise, our take-home pay, in real dollars, didn’t—and still doesn’t—keep pace with inflation.
2. We saved less and less.
According to various sources, the average boomer has had an average annual disposable income of $24,000. The problem is: We squandered a lot of it.
Take a look at the following chart. It shows the personal saving rate of Americans since 1960. As you can see, it fell from a high in the mid-1970s to 0.8% in the early 2000s.
[The personal saving rate is the percentage of disposable income set aside in savings. Disposable income is the amount of money available after taxes have been deducted.]
Americans Have Been Saving Less and Less Since the Mid-1970s
Since boomers made up 33% of the U.S. population during those years, it’s safe to say the general downward trend applies to us too. From our late teens through our 40s and 50s, we saved less and less.
3. We took on a lot of debt.
Here’s another chart, this one showing the household debt service ratio (DSR) since the 1980s.
[The DSR is an estimate of the ratio of debt payments to disposable personal income.]
From 1993–2007, the Debt Service Ratio Increased 27%
Notice how in 1980 household financial obligations represented around 11% of disposable income. That increased for over two decades.
So we saved less and, since our wages hardly moved, we were forced to take on more debt to support our bad spending habits. (I’ll talk more about this in a moment.)
For the little we did save, we put a bit of it in the stock market. Which leads us to yet another slew of “predictable surprises”…
4. We were poor investors.
Based on analysis done by Pew Research and others, the average retirement-age American today has managed to accumulate a net worth of about $230,000. About $150,000 of that is socked away in some type of retirement account(s).
Now, the average retirement-age American would have done quite well in his retirement account(s)… had he not let himself get in the way.
You see, the S&P 500 has returned an average of around 11% annually since the mid-1980s.
However, the average U.S. investor in U.S. stock funds earned only 3.7% annually over the past 30 years. (I’m using the mid-1980s because that’s when the first of the boomers hit their mid-30s. And the mid-30s are when big income increases start to happen and people are finally able to put a little aside for savings… and investing.)
So, in theory, if a 35-year-old boomer would have parked $15,000 in the S&P 500 in 1984—and didn’t touch it—the stock market would have grown that to over $350,000.
Instead, at the 3.7% return the average investor managed, that $15,000 investment in the stock market grew to just shy of $45,000.
How is it even possible that so many of us managed to underperform the stock market by so much for three decades?
We weren’t the smartest investors.
Most investors—not just boomers—chase returns. They jump on a stock after it’s already made a big run. And they cling to a sinking one far too long, hoping for a turnaround.
5. We invested through some nasty market crashes.
The crash of 1987 (when we boomers were 23–41 years old) was the first big shakeout.
On Black Monday, the Dow lost 22.6%, or $500 billion. This was the largest single-day market crash in history.
Then there was the bursting of the tech (“dot-com”) bubble in March 2000. From top to bottom, the Nasdaq composite lost 78% of its value from 2000–2002. Tech fund investors were hit even harder.
I remember how confident some of my peers were about the tech market right up until the crash. Though they never told me the numbers, I know that a few of them were devastated. If you had jumped on the bandwagon and invested in tech funds at the Nasdaq’s high in 2000, you would have likely lost three-quarters of your investment just two short years later.
And despite having lived through these experiences…
6. We still didn’t learn our lesson.
Getting back to our love affair with debt—we made yet another critical mistake. Not only did we save less and take on more debt, we attempted to live well beyond our means.
When housing and land prices became too inflated in the early 2000s, we got greedy and ate up the crummy subprime loans the banks offered us. We saw low interest rates and overleveraged ourselves to buy a bigger house, a faster car, a more luxurious life. (“We doubled productivity! We earned it!”)
The real estate bubble burst in 2007–2008 and real estate prices plummeted. That triggered yet another stock market crash, which lost us many more millions.
According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, as many as 3 million homes fell into foreclosure during the Great Recession. In some popular retirement spots, like Nevada, as much as 57% of homeowners still owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth.

What Retirement Looks Like for the Average Baby Boomer Today

So here we are now.
Given all of the above, things are looking bleak. And it only gets worse.
As I mentioned earlier, the average retirement-age American today has a net worth of about $230,000. Around $150,000 of that is in one or more retirement accounts.
Still, will these numbers support a comfortable retirement?
Let’s do the math…
Assuming a 3.7% average annual return (the average return of most stock investors), a $150,000 retirement fund would return $5,550 per year, or $462.50 per month.
Now, keep in mind that this includes capital returns. Not just cash returns. So even if you wanted to spend this entire amount, it wouldn’t be possible (without selling some of your investments and facing capital gains taxes).
But for simplicity’s sake, let’s just use the $5,550 number.
Five thousand per year won’t buy you much in today’s world. And it will buy less each year as inflation erodes the value of the dollar. Luckily for most people, retirement accounts are only one source of retirement income. Social Security is another source.
The average Social Security income for retired workers in 2013 was $1,306 per month, or $15,672 per year.
So for the average person approaching retirement age, their retirement accounts and Social Security gets them to $1,768.50 per month, or $21,222 per year.
For one in three retirees, a third source of income is pension payouts. The median private pension benefit for individuals aged 65 and older in 2013 was $8,612. The median government (state or local) pension benefit was $20,276.
Put all that information together and retirees can expect an average monthly income of $1,700–$3,400 per month.
What sort of retirement lifestyles would this range of income afford?
Consider the following:
+ The current median rent in the U.S. is $1,471. The average three-bedroom, two-bath apartment will cost you $1,300-1,700 per month.
+ The average monthly electric bill for said house will cost around $107 per month.
+ The average cable/internet bill is around $64 per month.
+ The average annual golf club dues are around $520 per month.
+ The average restaurant meal costs around $26 for two people, and retirees dined out an average of 193 times in 2013… or 16 times per month. That’s $418 per month on restaurants.
+ The average annual budget for travel for retirees is $7,700. Retirees apparently plan to travel four times per year in their golden years (though I’m unsure how $7,700 will cover that). If we break it down monthly, that’s $641 per month.
Basic housing expenses, a golf membership, a few meals out each week, and a trip every three months sounds pleasant enough… though far from luxurious.
But here’s the problem: Someone earning an average amount won’t be able to afford this lifestyle on passive income alone.
And we haven’t even considered gas, groceries, haircuts, gifts for the grandchildren, and an occasional movie.
And what about health care?
The average retiree should expect to spend $220,000 out of pocket on health care during retirement—not including long-term care.
Let’s be conservative and say your retirement will last 20 years. That’s about $11,000 per year for health care, or $917 per month.
Add it all up—assuming another $2,000 per year for the expenses we haven’t yet accounted for—and you’re looking at costs of about $4,300 per month, or nearly $52,000 per year.
Keep in mind, too, that $52,000 is going to climb as inflation marches higher.
If you’re just pulling from your retirement account to make up the difference, you’re going to run out of money several years before you die. Even if you’re earning on the high end of average, you’re still looking at a shortfall of about $1,000 a month. The return on your investments just isn’t enough to make up the difference.
So let’s assume that you are nearing or at retirement age, and you can’t even come close to $52,000 in income.
Or—forget that—what if you just want to stop worrying and stressing over your current financial situation altogether?
What should you do?
I have some solutions. Five of them, in fact.
Fair warning: The information on the next few pages might be difficult to take. But if you stick with it to the end, my bet is that you’ll feel a lot better about your situation. In fact, many of my longtime readers have taken this plan and broken free of financial worry completely.
More importantly, you’ll have a plan of action.
1. Be realistic about what you can expect from stocks.
First and foremost, you must recognize that you will not be able “make up” for the past by implementing any sort of short-term stock strategy in hopes of catching a big takeoff.
No matter what investment service you use, you wouldn’t be able to double or triple your money in 10 years or less without taking wild risks.
If you just had a portfolio that matched market averages, you’d only get 7–10% per year.
Take the sum of all your stock investments and multiply that by 7–10% per year for, say, 10 years and you will have a realistic idea of what to expect.
Write that number down. Don’t be tempted to make it bigger by telling yourself you will make 15% or 20% every year. It is possible that you could do that. But if you move all your money into speculative stock strategies, it is more likely that you will end up with much less than 7%.
2. Accept the fact that you may have to continue working.
Hear me out…
When your heart is set on retiring at 65, you may feel like working beyond that age will be a living hell.
But it doesn’t have to be. I’ve retired three times so far (at 39, 49, and 59). And each time, I found that going back to work was a welcome relief.
And I’m not only speaking from my own experience alone. I’ve advised many people to keep working in retirement and they have found a great deal of satisfaction in turning their hobbies and passions into second and third careers.
You don’t have to keep doing the work that you have been doing. You might be able to move into a consulting or freelance position with your current employer. Or follow a dream and start your own business. I have dozens of ideas you could try… which I’ll tell you about shortly.
But if you need to continue to work, you need to continue. The moment you accept that fact, the odiousness of working will dissipate. You might even be okay with it. Heck, you might eventually be thrilled with it.
My view on this subject is that one should never give up active work entirely. That’s because work provides great and sustaining fulfillment. Especially if it involves learning something new or following a passion or hobby.
3. Develop an additional stream of income.
Recognize another financial fact of life: the amount of money you have to save and invest, after you take away assets you plan to keep forever (like your house or your wife’s jewelry), is the single most important factor in building wealth. I call this your “net investable wealth,” or N.I.W.
You won’t hear this from brokers or bankers or stock market analysts. They won’t say it because it shatters the myth that clever stock market investing is the cure for all financial problems.
Fact is, stock investing alone can’t give you the wealth you need for retirement. Eking out a few percentage points on an investment portfolio will not solve your problem of needing more income now.
You must increase your income by other means—none of which will incur fees and commissions from your stockbroker. And none of which will be subject to the sort of volatility the market is likely to face in future downturns.
So how are you going to do that? How are you going to increase your incomenow, at this stage of your life?
The answer may not please you, but you must come up with a strategy to make more money from a business you have or work for.
You must also create a second stream of income. And this is so important that you have to find an hour or two every day to devote to making it happen.
I am not going to tell you exactly how to do that here. But I’m going to suggest that you check out a program I created called the Extra Income Project.
I’ve spent five years working with a team of people to develop a series of reports and how-to guides for developing income from a side business or hobby. All 36 of the individual income strategies we currently cover (plus another 10-plus we have in the works) are based on my own and my mentees’ personal experiences successfully earning money in this way.
If you want to immediately make more money, I’m telling you: This is the way to do it. This is the fastest way to grow your income.
4. Consider—or reconsider—real estate investing.
I don’t mean the kind of real estate investing that is advertised on late-night infomercials, but income-generating real estate investing. The kind of real estate investing that I do.
This strategy will give you income almost immediately. And it may very well give you asset appreciation—which can add to your net worth considerably in 10 years or less.
By the way, contrary to common opinion, you don’t need a massive investment to get into rental real estate. You can get started by pooling money with one or two friends and going in on a few properties.
Really, to be a successful rental real estate investor, all you need is three things: money, knowledge, and time. This is true of most investments, but the good news is that with rental real estate, you don’t need a lot of any one of them. In fact, with the right deal, a partner, and leverage, you can get into a lucrative rental real estate property for as little as $10,000.
Real estate is not difficult to understand. It is very much a simple supply-and-demand sort of investment. I have been able to make millions doing it and avoid the bubble without ever taking a course or getting a license or any of that stuff.
5. Retire this year on $40,000 or less.
Finally, once you increase your income, your next step should be to decrease your expenses.
Because there is a way to enjoy a dream retirement, even if your income is limited to $40,000 or less.
Imagine, you wake up when you want to and spend a half hour walking on the beach. On the way back, you buy fresh red snapper from your favorite local fish vendor.
You enjoy breakfast served to you on your private porch. Afterward, you work on your novel or you paint. Then you take a nap.
You have lunch at your regular table in the corner. After lunch, you check on the money you made from your side business today ($500). Then you take another nap.
In the late afternoon, you visit some of your friends. At sunset, you have drinks with your spouse at a beachside bar and listen to a young man play his guitar.
Does that sound good?
Many of my friends are living this dream currently. And not because they’re rich.
They’re able to live in luxury by moving abroad. What I just described to you is a typical day in Nicaragua for many retired American expats—many of them who started with a smaller than average retirement fund.
Even in nice areas in Nicaragua, property costs and rents are low. Taxes are low. The cost of living is low. Health care is affordable, and the quality is on par with the U.S.
And here’s another great perk: There is no tax on a pension or any other money being brought into the country, as long as it was earned outside the country.
You can run an internet business or any other business back home (refer back to points 2 and 3) and not be taxed a penny in Nicaragua.
Imagine earning just $40,000 per year and enjoying this lifestyle. A little house five minutes from the ocean… housekeeping and gardening services year-round… access to wild, private beaches… spas and horseback riding for $10–$25 per hour… and day trips for less than $200.
Wait a minute… doesn’t that sound a lot like the retirement you always dreamed of?
I hope you’re starting to realize that even if things didn’t go as well as you’d planned over the years, it’s not too late to have your dream retirement. Far from it. If you do the things I’m suggesting to you today, starting with boosting your income, you’ll find that, instead of disappearing, your retirement account will grow and grow over the years. You’ll learn new things about yourself, acquire new skills, have fun, and have greater financial security along the way.
All you need to do is start.
Abrazos,
PD1: Por cierto, acojonante lo de Islandia. No sigo mucho el fútbol, pero que un país de chinchinabo, que tuvo un severo problema bancario que resolvió de forma peculiar castigando a sus banqueros, cuyo Presidente dimitió por los papeles de Panamá, haya conseguido vapulear a los británicos tiene guasa…
Restando llegan a sus 23 jugadores… Ja, ja!!!
Se merecen seguir ganando…
PD2: Estos días he estado haciendo declaraciones de la renta y me he llevado un alegrón… Hacerlas implica que te sabes las tripas al completo del que se lo haces. Y en una de ellas he visto que aportaba una gran cantidad a Cáritas. Yo soy aportante mensual también, de una gran cantidad, de esa que duele. Pero ver que hay otros que aportan mucho, y les escuece también, ha sido motivo de mucha alegría.
Es la generosidad de esa mano que no le dice a la otra lo que hace... Aunque ahora te lo cuente es para que te estires. Yo animo a la gente a que sea generosa y piense en Cáritas como mejor instrumento: llega al destinatario, sin que se queden en viajes o memeces…
El dinero no nos da la felicidad, ni mucho menos, hay que ser muy generoso. Es este comportamiento de la gente, este actuar el que le estará dando mucha paz al que lo da, y, por supuesto, también al que lo recibe, que hay mucha gente muy achuchá por aquí, no en la lejana África. Ya tendremos tiempos de dar dinero para ladrillos; ahora hay que dar de comer al hambriento…, al menos al de España.
También he descubierto a alguno que, declarándose ateo convencido, de estos que ni siquiera ha bautizado a sus hijos, marca la “X” para la iglesia… ¡Ole tus huevos! Uno que sabe el “bien” que hace la Iglesia, no solo predicando…, sino ayudando a otros, a los necesitados...

28 junio 2016

las preocupaciones son otras además del Brexit

¿Cuándo rebotará?
No es el Brexit lo que preocupa, si no la montaña de bonos que hay en el sistema…

The $100 Trillion Bond Market’s Got Bigger Concerns Than Brexit

In some ways, it really didn’t matter to Steven Major whether the U.K. voted to stay or to leave.
Sure, as a Brit, Major followed the U.K.’s surprising decision to break with the European Union. And, of course, the 51-year-old Londoner voted (though he politely declined to say whether he was in the “Remain” or “Leave” camp).
But when it comes to his long view on interest rates, bond yields and the economy, Major, who’s proven to be something of a savant as HSBC Holdings Plc’s head of fixed-income research, says Brexit is ultimately little more than a sideshow. Long after the din from the U.K. vote subsides (and regardless of what happens in the U.S. presidential election), Major says issues that, at times, have been decades in the making will conspire to depress global growth and keep rates at rock-bottom levels for years to come.
“The real elephant in the room is not the U.K. vote or a Trump presidency,” Major said. “The real elephant in the room is we’ll have low and negative rates for a very long period of time.”
While the Brexit vote roiled financial markets and caused a surge in haven demand, Major says investors in the $100 trillion bond market need to look at deeper structural problems plaguing the world: demographics, the explosion of debt globally and the disparity in wealth between the rich and poor.
Low rates are also a natural consequence of too much government borrowing after the financial crisis. While it gave economies a much-needed boost, the debt burden robbed many countries of their spending power, which could have supported growth over the next decade. This month, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development warned the world economy is slipping into a self-fulfilling “low-growth trap.”
And without a pickup in growth, there’s every reason to believe that investors will continue to seek out the safety of government bonds.
For U.S. Treasuries, the global benchmark for borrowing, Major says yields on 10-year notes will remain pinned close to current levels and end the year at 1.5 percent. That’s below all other forecasts compiled by Bloomberg last week, which, on average, show that Wall Street sees yields starting to rise.
The 10-year yield tumbled by the most in almost five years on Friday following the Brexit vote and ended the week at 1.56 percent. It approached the record-low 1.38 percent, set in 2012. The yield dropped seven basis points to 1.49 percent in Asian trading on Monday.
It’s not the first time Major has been an outlier.
In 2014, when most prognosticators predicted yields would finally rise on the view a stronger U.S. economy would prompt the Federal Reserve to tighten, Major called for Treasuries to remain in demand and 10-year yields to fall to 2.1 percent. That year, they plunged 0.86 percentage point to 2.17 percent.
Yet Major bristles at the idea that he’s simply defying the majority.
“Anyone can be a contrarian without doing any work -- that’s just saying ‘I don’t agree,”’ he said. “I sincerely believe we have low rates for a very long time. Structural problems are outweighing any kind of cyclical bounce.”
If anything, last week’s U.K. vote will only strengthen his lower-for-longer view. While Fed Chair Janet Yellen said future rate increases will depend primarily on U.S. data, she has also cited slowing growth in China and the U.K. referendum as reasons to hold off.
In the futures market, the odds of the Fed increasing rates by year-end plunged to 15 percent in the aftermath of the U.K. vote on Friday. That compares with 50 percent before the referendum. Traders have even started to price in a rate cut.
Treasuries have returned 5 percent this year, the best year-to-date advance since 2010, index data compiled by Bank of America Corp. show. Some measures suggest traders see room for further gains.
Based on options contracts tied to the $9 billion iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond exchange-traded fund, traders are more bullish about advances over the next month than at any time since late 2014. They’re betting Treasuries will rally over the next three and six months as well.
Amherst Pierpont Securities and Macroeconomic Advisers take the opposite view. In the most recent Bloomberg survey that took place prior to the Brexit vote, they were among the few firms that saw yields on 10-year Treasuries rising to 2.5 percent or higher by year-end on the back of stronger U.S. growth and inflation. They haven’t been that high since October 2014.
While economists see the U.S. growing just 1.9 percent this year, that’s still stronger than much of the developed world. Inflation, excluding volatile food and energy prices, has topped 2 percent for six straight months. What’s more, global yields are already at historically low levels as those on almost $9 trillion of government bonds have fallen below zero.
“Obviously, there are a lot of folks in the market that would come up with a much lower forecast,” especially as negative yields prompt investors to pour into Treasuries, said Stephen Stanley, Amherst Pierpont’s chief economist. “I’m assuming that at some point along the way, Treasury yields are supposed to get back to what the U.S. economic fundamentals would dictate.”
Ken Matheny, senior economist at Macroeconomic Advisers, has a similar view, though he acknowledged “the preponderance of risks to our forecast in the near term are to the downside.” Those included the Brexit vote.
Regardless of where forecasters are now, Major says the likelihood of a U.S. recession over the next two years will probably push the consensus outlook lower. And even if the U.S. avoids that fate, the economy may stall enough so that it feels like a recession, especially for those left behind in the recovery. That’s likely to keep the Fed from raising rates further.
“It looks to me like everyone is going to end up converging on a similar view: the Fed can’t do much,” Major said. “I’m already there. It’s more of a structural story and the Fed for international and structural reasons can’t hike. Others will get there from their more cyclical approach.”
Abrazos,
PD1: Habrá rebotes, pero la situación, para Europa y el Reino Unido, se ha quedado compleja…

Reino Unido tardará en irse

Pese al triunfo del BREXIT la salida del Reino Unido (RU) de la Unión Europea (UE) llevará tiempo. Primero ha de ratificar la decisión el parlamento británico. A partir de cuando el gobierno británico comunique al Consejo Europeo su decisión de abandonar la UE, comenzará un periodo de negociaciones de dos años para determinar los términos de la salida. Dicho plazo se puede prolongar de mutuo acuerdo. 
Adicionalmente se deberán iniciar negociaciones entre ambas partes para establecer un acuerdo que regule las numerosas relaciones comerciales. Uno de los acuerdos más completos de este tipo es el acuerdo entre la UE y Canadá. Las negociaciones se iniciaron en 2009 y el acuerdo todavía está pendiente de ratificación. 
Es una incógnita cuán estrecha será la relación de RU con la UE a partir de ahora. Podría seguir dentro del mercado único incluso desde fuera de la UE, como ocurre actualmente con Noruega. Podría alcanzar un conjunto de acuerdos comerciales con UE con un trato privilegiado, al estilo de Suiza. Otra posibilidad es alcanzar un acuerdo aduanero al estilo del existente con Turquía. La peor alternativa sería acceder al mercado único de la UE en base a las reglas de la OMC (Organización Mundial del Comercio), aunque implicaría la existencia de aduanas y barreras tarifarias.
El comercio es el pegamento entre los países. Aunque haya triunfado el BREXIT en el referéndum, todavía pasarán años para que el RU deje de ser miembro de la Unión Europea. Las relaciones comerciales y financieras son tan estrechas que cualquier negociación de cualquier acuerdo entre las partes que cambie sustancialmente el statu quo actual llegará mucho tiempo. 
Mientras tanto, la incertidumbre y el miedo al contagio político a otros países como Holanda o Dinamarca pesarán sobre los mercados financieros. 
Y para los bancos europeos en su conjunto, ni te quiero contar. Se están llevando una leche que se acumula a la ya recibida… Esto es la media de todo el sector bancario:
Es alucinante el mustiamen de los dos últimos días en los bancos británicos e italianos, y el acumulado desde 1986…
Barclays:
Y el Deutsche Bank que no da tregua… No son los bancos pequeños los que se desmoronan, son los grandes bancos de toda la vida…
PD2: Es cansino, andamos siempre juzgando, criticando, es el deporte nacional…
La gente habla de los dichos “difíciles” de Jesús, tales como: “da tu dinero a los pobres y después, ven y sígueme”. Pero entre todos, hay uno que se me hace todavía más difícil: “no juzguen y no serán juzgados”. Sospecho que no soy la única persona que pasa una gran cantidad de tiempo juzgando a los demás.
Jesús sabía que el juzgar a los demás es una tentación constante. En el plano de la vida material el hacer juicios está relacionado directamente con la sobrevivencia. ¿Puedo cruzar las vías antes que el tren? ¿Debo confiarle a este tipo todos mis fondos de retiro? Sin embargo, a nivel espiritual, el juzgar a los demás detiene todo crecimiento desde el principio. Toda la espiritualidad cristiana está relacionada con el flujo: el flujo de la vida divina hacia todos nosotros por medio de Jesús.
Cuando nos separamos de los demás a causa del juicio, no solamente bloqueamos la comunicación hacia los demás, sino que también bloqueamos el flujo de Dios hacia nosotros. Por eso mismo Jesús nos advierte que no debemos juzgar para que así recibamos la corriente divina. ¿Cómo podemos romper con el hábito de juzgar a los demás? Aquí están cinco cosas que puedes hacer para lograrlo.
Empatía
Si logras imaginarte la situación que vive otra persona, te sentirás menos inclinado a juzgarla. ¡Inténtalo con firmeza!, “ahora comprendo por qué razón esa persona se comporta así”. En lugar de añadir más separación y coraje en el mundo, estarás cultivando la conexión y el entendimiento.
Bendícelo
Hace tiempo trabajé con una mujer que trataba con clientes molestos todo el día. Con frecuencia la escuchaba decir suavemente: “que Dios le bendiga”. En cierta ocasión me dijo: “decirles esto es mejor que decirles lo que estoy tentada a decir”. Y su técnica funcionó muy bien. Siempre estaba serena, y los clientes molestos ya no le preocupaban.
Reza
Cuando descubras que actúas como juez, comienza a orar por la persona a la que estás juzgando. Pídele a Dios que le dé a esa persona lo que deseas para vos y para los que amas. Después de todo, Dios ama a esta persona tanto como a vos. ¿Por qué no seguir el ejemplo de Dios e intentar amar también a la otra persona?
Mira al interior
Si te está molestando algún rasgo o actitud de otra persona, probablemente haya algo en vos de ese rasgo o actitud. Cuando alguien más acapara la atención, esto puede amenazar tu necesidad de atención. Quien está dominando emite una luz que opaca tu propio deseo de controlar la situación. En lugar de juzgar a los demás por su comportamiento, intenta examinar qué es lo que turba tu interior. Pídele a Dios que te sane y transforme por medio de su gracia amorosa.
Si lo anterior falla, distráete
Cuando alguien te enfurece, y te sientes tentando a poner a esa persona en su lugar, sigue el juramento que realizan los practicantes de medicina de no hacer daño a nadie. Si no puedes pronunciar una bendición, manifestar tu empatía, o el amor, por lo menos puedes apartarte de esa situación y centrar tu atención en algo distinto. Tranquilízate un momento antes de juzgar. Dale a Dios la oportunidad de haga surgir algo nuevo para la persona que quieres juzgar y para vos mismo.
Y si es la política la que te trastoca, lo mejor es dejar la televisión apagada…