• Chris Love (unregistered)

    Example of why I do not bank with Wachovia anymore, they have no clue how to count!

  • N. Ron Braniff (unregistered) in reply to Jay
    Jay:
    Now that I think about it, that could be a fun game. Pull random Scrablle letters or take the initials of your friends and see if any company is using that as a ticker symbol. If so, buy that stock, whatever it is.
    I think we've got the next E.F. Hutton here. When can I open an account?
  • Also a big geek (unregistered) in reply to snoofle
    snoofle:
    Saaid:
    >That's why opened an account at IndyMac, they had rates a couple of points higher than I could get locally. That worked out great until about 2 weeks ago.
    Me too. $75,000 worth. Fortunately, it's insured. All I need to do is go to the local branch in southern CA (I'm in NY) and they'll be happy to help me.

    Otherwise, it's been a back-n-forth cluster fuck up between IM's customer support folks, their "president's office help folks" who had absolutely no clue how to close an account, and the FDIC. So far, everybody is claiming I need to speak to another department to get the money out (one more week and I will sue all of them (I kept track of names and employee numbers) - personally - the law suit will take forever, but the immediate bad publicity over failure to honor deposits should get the FDIC on their case and get it resolved fast).

    Personally, I hope there is a big run on that bank and they go under (or at least more under so their board loses their golden parachutes).

    Ya know what? For $75k, I'd consider taking a short California vacation if I were you.

    JetBlue will get you from JFK to Burbank for about $400 round trip, rent a car, feed yourself and get a cheap hotel, and you still get to keep the remaining $74,000.

    / just sayin'

  • (cs) in reply to Dave
    Dave:
    Thus the most profitable business to be in is one capitalizing on human stupidity.
    Real Estate and the Stock Market are the biggest pyramid schemes (AKA scams) going. Both rely on finding some sucker to pay more for it than you did.
  • Shill (unregistered) in reply to akatherder
    akatherder:
    shadowman:
    I'm not sure where you guys live, but in my area $125K will not make you rich. Certainly not poor by any stretch, but after paying for taxes and housing there's not much left to play with.

    In my area, $125K would certainly be upper class. Even if you tax it at 33%, you have $82,500 which leaves you with $6,875 per month.

    Our monthly bills are about $2500-3000 (including mortgage, utilities, cable, phone, car payment, insurance, groceries, gas, etc.) That leaves you at least $3000 to "play" with.

    Unfortunately that is not the reality. He would be in the 28% bracket, but you forget about Medicare and Social Security, which would push him up higher. Then you take out 15% for his 401k. Then you add in state tax and/or account for sales tax. (Both in my case, hooray New York.) Then do not forget the various other deductibles from your paycheck, medical, dental, vision plan, life insurance, etc. He also is paying for additional life insurance if he has a family. If he has kids he is probably adding to their 529 plans. It goes pretty quickly...

  • Anon (unregistered) in reply to Shill
    shadowman:
    I'm not sure where you guys live, but in my area $125K will not make you rich. Certainly not poor by any stretch, but after paying for taxes and housing there's not much left to play with.

    Odd, I’ve heard that about two places I’ve lived in yet I somehow managed to have more than enough money left over.

    Shill:
    Unfortunately that is not the reality. He would be in the 28% bracket, but you forget about Medicare and Social Security, which would push him up higher. Then you add in state tax and/or account for sales tax. (Both in my case, hooray New York.)

    Let’s say 40% which I think is around what it’d be in my state (which has high taxes).

    Shill:
    Then you take out 15% for his 401k.

    The limit is 15k (tax-free) unless you do some other juggling to get more in there. This is removed before any tax calculations.

    Shill:
    Then do not forget the various other deductibles from your paycheck, medical, dental, vision plan, life insurance, etc.

    Where I work those add up to less than my monthly DSL bill.

    Shill:
    It goes pretty quickly...

    Not really. You still easily end up with at least $5k a month and that’s assuming some absurd deductions are happening.

  • (cs) in reply to FredSaw
    FredSaw:
    When I first started seeing Wachovia they didn't have ads on radio/TV yet, and I assumed it was pronounced "Watch over ya". Then I found out it's actually "Walk over ya".

    Cute.

  • Ian (unregistered) in reply to FredSaw

    I thought it was whack-off-ia.

  • (cs)

    My wife and I were shopping for strollers a few weeks ago when we noticed a tag that triumphantly announced the new price of $189 and had in smaller print "was $179". I took a pen and wrote "WTF?" and pointed an arrow to the lower old price.

    When we went back to the store this weekend, we saw someone had tried to mark out the old price with a dried up old marker, but the $179 was still clearly visible... and my "WTF" is still there, pointing it out.

  • Volxdragon (unregistered) in reply to FredSaw

    no, no, no, it's Walk All Over Ya....

  • Steve (unregistered) in reply to Franz Kafka
    Franz Kafka:
    Steve:
    . . . By the way, don't take photographs of their headquarters buildings in Charlotte. You'll be hassled by their security thugs. . . I mean guards.
    What do they do when you stand on the sidewalk and photograph them?
    The guard claimed the sidewalk was Wachovia property and that I couldn't take pictures without Wachovia permission.

    I just told him to have a nice day and walked away without saying anything further. He attempted to follow me but I entered the hotel where I was staying and that was that.

  • Procedural (unregistered) in reply to Franz Kafka

    Oh, I know; one of them was very aggressive, and didn't seem to understand the words "you have the wrong number", "we are a software company" and "we are not Wachovia". He kept insisting that he had sent the cheque and that we had no right to do something-or-other to him.

    After a while I cut him short, told him to pack his bags and all of his belongings, stand on the sidewalk with the premises fully vacated and await further instructions.

    (Should have asked him to take a picture and send it as evidence of compliance :) )

  • TaxMan (unregistered)

    Argh, he's not making 125K. That's what they're guessing he'll make when he retires. Probably assuming something like a 3-7% increase for 15-20 years.

  • anon (unregistered) in reply to akatherder
    akatherder:
    In my area, $125K would certainly be upper class. Even if you tax it at 33%, you have $82,500 which leaves you with $6,875 per month.

    Our monthly bills are about $2500-3000 (including mortgage, utilities, cable, phone, car payment, insurance, groceries, gas, etc.) That leaves you at least $3000 to "play" with.

    Unless that $125K is interest on savings or investments, then you haven't got the slightest notion of what "Upper Class" implies.

    Actually, to be totally honest, it has nothing to do with money at all. In fact, thinking that money has anything to do with anything is a very middle class attitude. Breeding and manners are the only things involved.

    However, that aside, $125K a year is well and truly middle middle class. If you have a mortgage - you're middle class. (Unless that mortgage is out of necessity after gambling your family fortune away). If you have to spend more than a second a year even considering money - you're middle class.

  • Found (unregistered)
  • (cs) in reply to Shill
    Shill:
    akatherder:
    In my area, $125K would certainly be upper class. Even if you tax it at 33%, you have $82,500 which leaves you with $6,875 per month.

    Our monthly bills are about $2500-3000 (including mortgage, utilities, cable, phone, car payment, insurance, groceries, gas, etc.) That leaves you at least $3000 to "play" with.

    Unfortunately that is not the reality. He would be in the 28% bracket, but you forget about Medicare and Social Security, which would push him up higher. Then you take out 15% for his 401k. Then you add in state tax and/or account for sales tax. (Both in my case, hooray New York.) Then do not forget the various other deductibles from your paycheck, medical, dental, vision plan, life insurance, etc. He also is paying for additional life insurance if he has a family. If he has kids he is probably adding to their 529 plans. It goes pretty quickly...

    That's about what I was getting at. Making that much by yourself and living in a small house or an apartment it certainly would go a long way, sure. But for a combined household income for 2-4 people, not so much. I'm not in the most expensive area in the country, but definitely top 10. Housing alone for me is in the 2-3K/month range, without including any of the other things you listed.

    Of course I could get something cheaper -- in fact I was perfectly happy in a 2-bedroom apartment for half of that. But you know how wives start nesting after a short while...

    Don't get me wrong -- I'm not saying a person with that salary should be complaining or crying poverty or anything like that. Of course he's better off than at least 95% of the rest of the world. But to make a blanket statement implying someone with that income is a financial genius who never needs to worry about money is surely false.

  • Sergio (unregistered)

    Well, f4 me.

    $100K+ in Mexico is rich. VERY rich.

    Minimum wage (with which some families of 3+ actually live on) is a little above $1,800 US (yes, eighteen-hundred) a year. So you're talking about, lemme see.. over 50 times minimum wage.

    Are you kidding me? That's not rich?

    In US terms (considering a 6.55/hr federal minimal wage) that'd be equivalent to $628,800 US.

    Or we could be subjective and say that's about 104,000 MXN (mexican pesos) a month. That's more than what our senators and diputados (err, what would be the analogy in US?) make. That's about what our President makes. And in Mexico, those are very rich people. And it's enough money to, say, buy (let alone rent) a plush apartment in the most exclusive parts of the city, outfit it with the latest gadgets, your everyday expenses (even if you take cabs everywhere, a very expensive proposition down here)... I don't know.

    Ridiculous to say it's not rich.

  • Watson (unregistered) in reply to Jay
    Jay:
    Now that I think about it, that could be a fun game. Pull random Scrablle letters or take the initials of your friends and see if any company is using that as a ticker symbol. If so, buy that stock, whatever it is. Then compare the performance of a portfolio selected that way to the big mutual funds.

    I've played something like that a couple of times. Cut the listings out of the newspaper and taped them on the wall. Chucked a few darts (I'm terrible at darts but maybe there'd still be some bias) and conceptually bought into the companies hit. Reviewed the portfolio a year later and both times I'd done better than the average said I should have.

  • anon (unregistered)

    FYI, http://syndication.thedailywtf.com/TheDailyWtf is broken.

  • Jeff Grigg (unregistered) in reply to Jeroen Brattinga

    No, no, no:

    if (currentPlan > ourProposal) { title = "I see that you ARE an investment expert!"; body = fetch("job_offer_page"); }

  • (cs) in reply to anon
    anon:
    Unless that $125K is interest on savings or investments, then you haven't got the slightest notion of what "Upper Class" implies.

    Actually, to be totally honest, it has nothing to do with money at all. In fact, thinking that money has anything to do with anything is a very middle class attitude. Inbreeding and manners are the only things involved.

    Fixed that for you.

  • kris (unregistered) in reply to Asiago Chow
    Asiago Chow:
    My advice: bank at your local credit union instead.

    My local CU gives about 0.25% interest for interest checking, 0.5% for standard savings accounts and 1.25% for money market.

    No thanks.

    I can get 1.75% interest checking and 3% savings if I go with a non-local bank instead.

    Wow, your local CU sucks then. My local CU gives 3.5% on a savings account, 1% on checking, and ~4% on term deposits. And not only this, the customer service is amazing. I almost always get a teller instantly, or at most, wait 2 minutes... And they are very helpful. Also, very little service charges.

    The national banks have crappy interest rate (their term deposits are less than the savings account at the CU) And their customer service is horrific. You can COUNT on waiting in line at least 10-15 minutes before you are dealt with, pay a ton of $$ for service charges, and they don't give one shit about you. My uncle, who had a bank account for 30 years at one national bank, closed his account which had 150k in it, and the went ahead and did it, without asking why he was doing it, and trying to get some feedback as to what they could do better to please him

  • (cs) in reply to Sergio
    Sergio:
    Well, f4 me.

    $100K+ in Mexico is rich. VERY rich.

    <snip>

    Ridiculous to say it's not rich.

    I certainly agree with you there. Sorry, I was only really speaking for certain areas in the US. I suppose a few folks might be able to arrange to earn that kind of salary in the US somehow but actually live in Mexico at the same time so they could boost their spending power that much. But for most of us, that's either impossible, highly impractical, or simply not desirable.

  • Nick (unregistered)

    401k's and other retirement plans that force your money into the "markets" are a scam. It's one of the ways the government tries to steer your money into Wallstreet to inflate it's value. No one ever considers the opportunity cost of parking money in a retirement plan when they could use it on better investments like real estate (with the exception being a self-directed Roth IRA).

  • Sergio (unregistered) in reply to shadowman

    I stand corrected; I assumed you considered the OP (of this particular subthread, anyway) lived in Mexico.

    It would be sort of like me arranging a job down here but moving to, say, Peru. I would of course be rich there, even if back home I was average (or just slightly above).

    I just got very surprised, sorry. I'd kill for a $125K (US) job.

  • (cs) in reply to Watson
    Watson:
    Jay:
    Now that I think about it, that could be a fun game. Pull random Scrablle letters or take the initials of your friends and see if any company is using that as a ticker symbol. If so, buy that stock, whatever it is. Then compare the performance of a portfolio selected that way to the big mutual funds.
    I've played something like that a couple of times. Cut the listings out of the newspaper and taped them on the wall. Chucked a few darts (I'm terrible at darts but maybe there'd still be some bias) and conceptually bought into the companies hit. Reviewed the portfolio a year later and both times I'd done better than the average said I should have.
    The Toronto Star newspaper used to have an annual investment challenge where several so-called investment experts would select some stocks, track the portfolio for some time, and see who came out on top. They also tracked stock selections made by a class of 12 year olds and also by darts. Over the years, the children and darts routinely beat several of the experts. Eventually they had to stop the contest because they could no longer find any experts willing to risk their reputations.
  • (cs) in reply to snoofle
    snoofle:
    D-Coder:
    snoofle:
    Me too...

    I sympathize with your feelings. On the other hand, they probably don't have a lot of experience with going bankrupt, so they don't have procedures in place yet.

    (Unlike your typical airline...)

    Thanks --

    D-Coder

    Based on my interaction with them so far:

    10  put 3 minute voice mail announcement detailing that we can't answer your questions on phone
20  disable typeahead so customer must listen to message
30  make phone ring 30+ times before answering
40  if phone-is-answered then if (random() > 0.2) then disconnect
50  if not disconnected then have brain dead monkey tell caller that they can't answer questions and to call president's office
60 if president's office, have brain dead monkey tell caller that they can't do anything and to file claim with fdic
70 if FDIC, tell caller that there is no hold on funds, that the account is insured and to call the bank
80 if caller persists, tell them to come to bank
90 if caller can't come in, tell them to send a notarized letter asking for their money, even through they've already positively id'd themselves
100 inform caller they're backed up 7-10 days and won't get to letter for at least that long
110 tell caller that we basically can't help you
120 go to 10

    You seem to give your money to any dick in the road who tells you that he can make more out of it. So do I. I can make you millions out of 1000 bucks. Now, send me teh billz.

  • (cs) in reply to akatherder
    akatherder:
    shadowman:
    I'm not sure where you guys live, but in my area $125K will not make you rich. Certainly not poor by any stretch, but after paying for taxes and housing there's not much left to play with.

    In my area, $125K would certainly be upper class. Even if you tax it at 33%, you have $82,500 which leaves you with $6,875 per month.

    Our monthly bills are about $2500-3000 (including mortgage, utilities, cable, phone, car payment, insurance, groceries, gas, etc.) That leaves you at least $3000 to "play" with.

    TRWTF is being taxed at a max of ONLY 33%. Around here your taxes may be beyond 50% given an income of 125k. So you would be left with some 5,000 bucks (Euro, fortunately).

  • Mimi (unregistered) in reply to FredSaw

    pfff... didn't you see that they "assume 50% probability of achieving the result show in the charts" ? You get 50% chances to earn (I hope) more !

  • Truthiness Defender (unregistered) in reply to FredSaw

    This is probably a data anomaly, not proof of bad management. There are a lot of reasons why a life cycle investment program (and I think that's what Wachovia is selling here) can underperform at static allocation program over specific periods. More than likely, the current investment scheme is taking on too much risk based on the person's age. I understand that the casual or ignorant observer might think this is evidence of bad investment advice, but it's more likely bad marketing. I don't have a stake in this either way, but it irks me when I see baseless or ill-informed criticism.

  • vcsjones (unregistered) in reply to FredSaw
    FredSaw:
    When I first started seeing Wachovia they didn't have ads on radio/TV yet, and I assumed it was pronounced "Watch over ya". Then I found out it's actually "Walk over ya".

    That was retarded.

Leave a comment on “The Investment Experts”

Log In or post as a guest

Replying to comment #:

Log Out

« Return to Article