Money magazine has a new columnist who simply goes by the name “The Mole.” I love the idea behind the column: an industry insider reveals the dirty secrets of financial planner misdeeds to the general public. I won’t blow his cover, but I know the guy who is writing it. He is smart and has interesting ideas.
And, surprise, surprise: abuse is rampant in his profession.
Stephen J. Dubner is an author and journalist who lives in New York City.
Steven D. Levitt is a professor of economics at the University of Chicago.
Their book Freakonomics has sold 3 million copies worldwide. This blog, begun in 2005, is meant to keep the conversation going. Recurring guest bloggers include Ian Ayres, Daniel Hamermesh, Sudhir Venkatesh, and Justin Wolfers.
Annika Mengisen is the site editor.
Detroit Lions left guard Edwin Mulitalo is on a winless team, but maybe that's not all bad, as he can afford to spend the off season reading his favorites: self-help books and Freakonomics.
Shopsin's (120 Essex Street) is a New York institution, a restaurant that began as a grocery store; its owner, Kenny Shopsin, is colorful, irascible, and talented. Shopsin's is famous for breakfast but also for its vast, unusual, common-sense menu. Shopsin has just written a book that is half cookbook and half memoir, entirely fascinating. I had never sat down and read a cookbook from cover to cover but that is what happened with Shopsin's book (co-written with Carolynn Carreno). It is called Eat Me. The introduction is a reprint of a New Yorker article by Calvin (Bud) Trillin, a Shopsin's regular. If you do go to the restaurant, do pay attention to Shopsin's idiosyncrasies, because he allegedly has a Soup-Nazi-like intolerance that may earn you permanent exile from his restaurant. (SJD)
I recently took the kids to see a performance by Jim Dale, the longtime British stage actor (he won a Tony for Barnum) who is best known these days as the wildly entertaining reader of the Harry Potter books on tape. He was reading an adaptation of a Eudora Welty story called “The Shoe Bird,” which he recently recorded with the Seattle Symphony. (It was wonderful, and I encourage you to give it a listen.) Afterward, Dale took questions from the audience -- which, predictably, were about the Harry Potter series. Items of interest that emerged: Dale was given only 100 pages of manuscript at a time to read and then record, so he never knew what was coming; and in order to keep track of the 146 voices he’d created for all the characters, he often pre-recorded a bit of the characters’ voices and then held a tape recorder up to his ear in the studio to remind himself. (SJD)
If you live in or are visiting New York and have children, do everything you can to take in one of the Young People's Concerts at the New York Philharmonic. Even if you don’t love the music on that day’s program -- we recently attended “Ravel’s Paris,” not my favorite by a long shot -- all the extras in the program are terrific: the dancers, composers, instrumentalists, and explainers who are paraded out by conductor Delta David Gier to put the music in context for the kids. (SJD)
January 08
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I was stirring the syrup for a pecan pie when the phone rang. My friend Brenda Boozer called to tell me there had been a massive environmental disaster close to home, and could I possibly get away to take photographs?
January 08
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Last week’s quotation bleg, asking for suggestions of notable recent U.S. Supreme Court quotes, elicited this response from Jerry E. Stephens, quoting now retired U.S. District Judge Wayne Alley (Western District of Oklahoma):
January 08
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In my prior post, I blogged about introducing variable tolls on America’s highways. The basic idea: fight congestion by imposing tolls that vary in response to traffic levels. When roads are too crowded, hike the tolls, keep some drivers out, and thus keep traffic free flowing at all times.
January 08
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We recently ran a bleg about dealing with too much data.
That bleg prompted the following note from a reader named Geoff Barry:
I had a thought on when it can be truly negative — even unhealthy.
Too much medical information at a layman’s fingertips can actually be detrimental, both for the doctor treating the patient and for [...]
January 08
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The Economist’s open debate: Is the world getting smarter or not?
Look who got listed as an “amazing resource” for small businesses looking to cut costs.
Instead of just deleting old computer documents, dispose of them with The Unloader. (HT: Kevin Allen Jr.)
The top 2008 news articles that nobody cares about now. (Earlier)
In determining the fate of the Burris appointment, politicians might want to consult Thomas Hobbes, St. Augustine and the crown’s lawyers of the late 16th century.
9 Comments
Looks pretty interesting to me: I’m trying to figure out how to add this columnist’s (and only this columnist’s) posts to my rss reader, but cnn doesn’t seem to have an rss feed for just this author. Am I missing something?
— Telemann@Telemann
You aren’t missing anything. I too went to sign up for his RSS feed but CNN doesn’t offer it, even with their fancy new redesigned website.
I guess I won’t be reading his column. Get a clue CNN.
— jlgolsonJust use this…
http://rss.cnn.com/rss/magazines_moneymag.rss
..and scroll.
— dschwartzTry:
http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.run?_id=_omdgNY13BGBfPJ5JZhxuA&_render=rss
— omhfinancial planning has to be a scam- if the planner was any good, they would cash in themselves, rather than leech off another’s $
— frankendufThis is beautiful. I could certainly tell some stories about some brokers, planners, whatever you want to call them, that are really not acting in the best interest of the client at all. That is why it is important to seek out an independent Registered Investment Advisor and not a Financial Planner or Broker. An Advisor shares fiduciary responsibility. This means, by law, they must act in the best interest of the client. A planner or broker must only do what is “suitable” for the client. “Suitable” is held to a much lower standard than “Best interest.” That is how I understand it.
— mr winstonThat people find any of this surprising is what surprises me most. It’s especially scary when retail financial planning comes from these big banks who may be tied up in deals with the very companies that they purport to cover and recc…all sense of the real incentives tend to get obscured on the balance sheet.
— F. ChakraI have read a lot of the comments that the mole has written, I agree with a lot of it, but eventhough I agree with it, doesn’t make it right. If he (or she) wants to keep their identity undisclosed thats fine, but what are the mole’s credentials? What makes him (or her) worth listening to?
— Sherron L. LewisTry:
http://www.funkytube.net/vid.php?v=THE_Mole
— FunkyTube