I am glad that a little sense is returning in our politically correct world in that we now allow folks to say Merry Christmas and such to other folks without worrying that somehow we are insulting that person. I say Merry Christmas, if I know you are Jewish, I’ll say Happy Chanukah too. An atheist or agnostic, well then enjoy your time off work, and the list could go on for a while. Enjoy the Holidays (if you take the time off) and have a good time. I am not sure how Christmas became a bad word, but I am glad it has returned as a bon mot.
Given the deep freeze and snow, it looks like Ottawa will have a White Christmas (where I am referring to the colour of the snow and not anyone’s skin pigment), which is nice, but hopefully not as cold as it has been. If this keeps up, some areas near the Great Lakes will have a White July 1st!
There was also a meeting of the National Capital Financial Bloggers Association this week, with much jocularity and frivolity, and I managed not to tell all the same stories as usual (at least I think I didn’t; I never remember). It is always helpful to chat with folks who understand finances.
I did go off on a couple of rants this week, which is Grinchy of me, but when the muse hits me, I must follow:
- With Investor Profiles I complained about more paperwork for my Mutual Funds account, but it has been pointed out that it is the IIRC regulating this deluge of paper, good to know who to despise in this situation.
- A co-worker’s sister was in a horrific car crash this past week, and thus Disaster Planning or the Worst Case Scenario I was pointing out the need to be vigilent in your planning for the worst (but remember to hope for the best too).
- Mark Carney the Bank of Canada’s Governor made it very clear that there will be Terrible Swift Raite Rises Soon and that we should all be trying to get our houses in order to deal with it.
- My journey in getting my used iPhone 3G working on the Bell Network is now complete, but I did have a jab at Apple in The Illusion of Good Service, but I was more having a jab at the Apple snobs out there who believe their loved tech leader is somehow not a business, but a Utopia for technology. Wrong, they are a business, and a very profitable one too!
- Random Thoughts: A Leaky Week was the recap of the best of the week in 2010 when Wikileaks let loose it’s flow of spooge.
As for those lucky folks in Sarnia and London who are enjoying being buried in snow, sit by the fire and curl up to read some great Personal Finance posts from this week in the Blogosphere:
- Boomer of Boomer&Echo points out the Things to Take Care of Before Year End because with Christmas we get New Years as well!
- Michael James points out that Index Investing is a Statement about Personal Limitations and he’d rather leave those issues to someone else. As long as everyone doesn’t jump on the Index bandwagon, then what happens?!?
- Ellen Roseman points out that Charges Can Pile Up when you end your car lease and unless you are writing the car off on your business, you might want to ask yourself why are you leasing?
- The Canadian Capitalist wonders Will Dynamic Funds Continue to Outperform and he is skeptical that they can. The Canadian Couch Potato agrees and goes further to say Why Dynamic’s success proves nothing, interesting reading for those who think Mutual Funds are better than Index Funds.
- Control Your Cash has a hard hitting post So Much Stupidity which I enjoy reading, it is blunt and to the point, which is what I enjoy in a blog post.
- Sandy at YesIamCheap (I love the blog for the name alone) recants us yet another frazzled landlord tale with Dealing with my Tenant From Hell. Every time I read stories like this I remember why I never wanted to be a Landlord.
- Preet claims he is not dead in his post New RAFI Long/Short ETF I am skeptical, with new AI software I am sure my blog could easily be written by a PDP-11.
- I Tweet’ed about my own views of the The Smith Manoeuvre however some people do use this methodology in Canada, witness, The Million Dollar Journey who reported on Smith Manoeuvre Portfolio – December 2010, but FrugalTrader points out they paid their house off before doing this.
Remember
“My son has a big Christmas problem ,“ what do you buy for a father who has everything and you’re using it?
Milton Berle
Thank you for the mention! I hope that someone else learns from my tenant from hell series. If I try to read them subjectively and not as the landlord I think they’re kind of funny.
Off topic, but don’t you run another blog as well? I’ve been trying to remember it. Or am I confusing my bloggers? So many blogs, so little Visine.
If almost everyone started indexing, it would become easier to beat the index with an active approach. So, I think the system is self-regulating. Thanks for the mention.
This is a test of the new Captcha interface to confound those spammers out there
… and the funny part of that comment is that it ended up in my SPAM box! My own site thinks I am a spammer, now THAT is security!!
Thanks for the mention, and have a Merry Christmas!