The Vision, the Babe , Einstein and the Q

“JOIN US”

“PASSIVE INCOME SOLUTIONS FOR YOUR RETIREMENT”

The tri-fold color high-gloss mailer went on to say, of course, that “SEATING IS LIMITED. REGISTER TO ATTEND!”

Registration required entering a code at WWW.YOURSVP.COM, which makes it clear that not only has financial advisory services become an industry but so has signing up for their free steaks (in this case BBQ, though at one of Kansas City’s finer establishments). I had previously been to JackStack Barbecue for a previous “COMPLIMENTARY DINNER PRESENTATION” that was a whole bunch of nothing but decided to return as the thought of unlimited beef brisket and writing “Jack . . . Stack, Do It Again,” was too good to pass up.

And the fact that that it was walking distance from my home made it a no-brainer.

In effort to obtain an even better “PASSIVE INCOME SOLUTIONS” I Googled the company providing it, “Vision Financial.” Oddly I came across numerous outfits with that name, one being a credit union, another a stock broker out of Connecticut and another a financial advisor out of Des Moines. It was then I realized that the name of my procurer of fine burnt ends and hickory pit beans was “Vision 8 Financial” who while lacking any original vision in naming the company did also offer “Rock Solid Retirement Income Strategy,” and a series articles.

The first of which was titled “Baseball Great vs. Financial Meltdown – Our ‘Poster boy’ in this article is baseball great Babe Ruth!” with an attached photo of a man who was obviously not Babe Ruth (he wasn’t even a lefty!). Now I take my baseball very seriously, especially my Golden Age baseball, and this was not a good sign, but then neither was the fact that the article link didn’t open, nor did any other of the other article links.

At this point I decided to just wait for the “COMPLIMENTARY DINNER PRESENTATION” (and bone-in chicken) to find out more.

After taking a seat close to the monitor, the presentation had an unexpected start, attendees should go to the buffet and get their appetizers. Now even though this crowds’ average age appeared to be just north of 75, I’ve never seen geriatrics move so fast, leaving me on the back end of 10 minute line wondering if there would be enough gigundo onions rings (“They’re huuuge!!!”). Blessedly there still were, which I then feasted on while listening to my host, Soeren Svendsen mention:

1. “How Long is Your Financial Runway?” This was a new one on me, and I liked the idea that before retiring we all need to create a financial runway so that you can take off at the end of it and fly into retirement. I thought of the importance of starting down it when young and then increasing your speed bit by bit, until take off velocity was attained. Herre Svendsen though focused on what an investor should do when they start getting to the end of the runway without sufficient speed.

My initial thought was to turn onto a longer runway. He then specifically recommended to “Take More Aggressive Growth Measures,” which I found a little irresponsible, as while it might get you airborne, when it doesn’t and the runway ends you’re going to crash going that much faster.

2. You know the idea of building a retiree a financial house with the foundation made of safe investments, the walls of dividends paying stocks and the roof being made of something more aggressive? Well thankfully Herre Svendsen didn’t trot out that tired analogy. Instead he was going to build me a Parthenon made with pillars of Social Security, Pensions, Real Estate, Annuities, etc. A photo of the Parthenon was shown, which while quite beautiful, makes it obvious that it’s seen betters days (and could use some walls).

3. One of the pillars was an investment in a company called Stable Storefront. Herre Svendsen led into it by mentioning he had recently spoken with an genius investor friend who knew about a new technology that could be quite lucrative: E-Commerce, and specifically how Amazon (“it sells more than just books”) was dominating the industry. It made me think that I had entered a BBQ wormhole back to 2001.

After all the gushing was over he went on to explain how Stable Storefront has partnered with Amazon and Walmart to sell products. I’m not sure how they partnered as I was starting to fade at this point. Though my ears perked up at the mention of a safe 15% return. Though when he mentioned that this return was per cycle and that in year two, there would be five cycles per year I started to fade again.

There was though something then that really connected with me, the all you can eat BBQ buffet. And after the last bit of investment voodoo was excreted. I quickly made my way to the buffet, a little quicker than the apps debacle, but still behind 15 or so seniors who took their sweet time piling their plates with slaw, beans, burnt ends, chicken, pork ribs and brisket.

After going back to the buffet for the second time I then booked out as quick as I could, only stopping to briefly say “No thank you,” to Herre Svendsen’s assistant.

Epilog

In the middle of discussing how in some cases it might be greater than a 15% per cycle return, Herre Svendsen said something even more astounding, that Albert Einstein once declared compound interest to be “the most powerful force in the universe.” Einstein never said this and I wish financial advisers and con men would stop repeating this nonsense and come up with some new material.

“There’s no meat on that bone.”

– My wife at the finish of the presentation and a pork spare rib