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Steve’s Butler’s 2007 Columns ...
Access to Steve’s weekly columns in the Contra Costa Times is just a fingertip away!
 All 2006 Columns
December 24, 2007 - Heathcare
costs that are just sick
Michael Moore's movie "Sicko" is now out on DVD, and
our governor must have watched it. Anyone appreciating the genius
of this documentary wouldn't want to tolerate another minute of
our health care's status quo.
December 17, 2007 - Pension
article inspired reaction
Judging from the flood of e-mail after my column last week, I
apparently touched the third rail at one of the junctions where
politics and economics collide.
December 10, 2007 - Public
pension benefits are haywire
Vallejo is in a battle with the firefighters union over pay issues.
December 3, 2007 - Investment
tips found under water
Old dogs can learn new tricks -- my wife and I discovered this
when we decided to take scuba diving lessons here in Concord.
November 26, 2007 - Sweating
details as retirement nears
I'm ashamed to say that I have found myself checking my retirement
plan account balance way too often this month ... sometimes as
often as once a day.
November 12, 2007 - An
actuarial look at investing
Is there a clairvoyant actuary in the house? Professional actuaries
predict life expectancy. We could turn to one to help us search
for guaranteed retirement income that we won't outlive.
October 29, 2007 - Protecting
against market downturn
Gulp. I checked the total account balance of all my "investable
assets" and saw that I lost about 2 percent a week ago. Ouch.
October 22, 2007 - Tax
moves may ease mortgage crunch
If you read the newspapers, it looks like all hell is about to
break loose when so many mortgages reset at higher interest rates
this month.
October 15, 2007 - Putting
focus on a new fund
Does the name Ken Heebner ring a bell? He was on the cover of
Money magazine in the '80s when he ran the Loomis Sayles Capital
Development fund to a winning slot in the mutual fund sweepstakes
of that era.
October 8, 2007 - China
investment is risky endeavor
Seeing Gen. Douglas MacArthur in the Ken Burns World War II documentary
that just aired on PBS, I recall that President Truman fired him
when the popular general insisted that we attack China during
the Korean War.
September 27, 2007 - Financial
geniuses working for you
I was musing to myself the other day about how nice it would be
to have the MacArthur Foundation lay one of those $500,000 grants
on me.
September 24, 2007 - Rate
cut signals look abroad
I guess Alan Greenspan wasn't wearing clothes after all. Comparing
what he claims in his new book with his actual behavior during
his tenure as chairman of the Federal Reserve, anyone could agree
that he was "one of the biggest political hacks in Washington."
September 17, 2007 - Can
intelligence prove profitable?
In a casual chat after a round of golf, my friend, Ashok Vaish,
offered a clue to choosing money mangers successfully.
September 10, 2007 - Dreaming
up perfect 401(k)
Johnny Carson once described himself as having "a low threshold
of boredom." Me too. But fortunately, whenever I feel a touch
of boredom, my mind wanders toward what I envision as the perfect
401(k) plan. I start building that castle in the sky. Assuming
you're curious, here's how it would look:
September 3, 2007 - No
equation for current volatility
For summer reading during my vacation in Maine, I picked up a
copy of David Warsh's "Knowledge and the Wealth of Nations."
August 27, 2007 - Instilling
work ethic benefits everyone
I was trying to get some inspiration for a birthday present for
my wife, so I wandered into Boswell's Party Supply Store -- one
of my favorite places to shop for special occasions.
August 20, 2007 - Shifting
blame from subprime loans
A mortgage company owner said he didn't know of one single home
refinancing in which the borrower didn't take at least some amount
of equity out to spend.
August 13, 2007 - The
beauty of 401(k) loans
Way back in the early 2000’s, the irony of loans from 401(k)
plans was that they were the best performing investment choice
for most participants.
August 6, 2007 - The financial-planning
alarm clock
When visiting my parents, I often stay at the reasonably-priced
El Patio Hotel in Venice, Fla., where there are no phones in the
room.
July 23, 2007 - Project
shows success in microcosm
I recently spent a contemplative weekend at the bottom of Concord's
Nautilus Aquatics' 12-foot pool struggling to qualify for my scuba
diver's certificate.
July 16, 2007 - Not the
same game as the '60s
'Don't confuse brains with a bull market."
June 25, 2007 - Be optimistic,
yes, but have insurance
"It's dangerous to make predictions -- especially about the
future."
June 18, 2007 - Rising
bond rates give and take
Uh-oh. The headlines are bewailing the fact that interest rates
are rising in the bond markets. This could be trouble.
June 11, 2007 - Exchange
traded funds feed many
"Where are the customers' yachts" is the time-worn cliche
describing a basic condition in the financial services industry.
June 4, 2007 - Market
rises 'on a wall of worry'
We all need a friend in the box business.
May 29, 2007 - Here comes
private equity
How do they rip us off? Let me count the ways.
May 21, 2007 - Savings
statistics are out of whack
A healthy 401(k) account balance changes everything.
May 14, 2007 - Rebalancing
is the best path
The editors of the New York Times' Sunday business section must
have been reading this column for years. They finally deigned
to write a column endorsing my constant drumbeat on the virtues
of diversifying and rebalancing -- creating the "path of
minimum regret," we call it.
May 7, 2007 - Mr. Refund,
meet Mr. 401(k)
"King Kong vs Godzilla" is a cult classic movie of the
1960s.
April 30, 2007
- Automated 401(k) alluring
Don't look now but a phenomenon called "automatic enrollment"
is coming to a 401(k) plan near you.
April 23, 2007 - Investing
theorem not good fit for all
The revolving drum of a cement-mixing truck had the slogan "Find
a need and fill it." And I thought about how the proliferation
of so-called "life-cycle" funds from the mutual fund
industry could be a reflection of the same thought process.
April 16, 2007 - Trip
to Africa enlightens
My fact-finding trip to Africa began to bear fruit in Zimbabwe
when Richard, my elephant driver through some lion-infested bush
country, shared what it was like to live in a failed state.
April 9, 2007 - Keep the
right stock/bond mix
What exactly will happen when we start living on our savings to
support that eccentric personal lifestyle to which we all look
forward?
March 26, 2007 - Put a
lid on costs for 401(k) plans
What this country needs is a $1 war tax on gasoline, but that
is politically unacceptable.
March 19, 2007 - 401(k) reforms sorely needed
So there I was two weeks ago as an invited witness in front of Rep. George Miller's House Committee on Education and Labor.
March 5, 2007 - No sure answers on care insurance
My father said that he would consider a long-term care policy if he could find one that offered coverage for when he could no longer mix a martini.
February 26, 2007 - Protect assets for your heirs
The Pension Protection Act of 2006 moved us one step closer to being able to inherit retirement plan money more effectively or to pass it on to heirs more efficiently.
February 19, 2007 - Teamwork key to success
I turned to my friend Bob Stearns -- a font of good information on narrowly defined topics such as baseball or real estate -- and I asked him to fill me in on this phenomenon of tenants-in-common partnerships.
February 12, 2007 - Foreign markets not fooling around
I always laugh when I thumb through my copy of John Spooner's classic, "Do You Want to Make Money or Would You Rather Fool Around?"
February 5, 2007 - It's time to tame executive greed
Back in the 1980s, when Drexel Burnham was a junk bond powerhouse, there was a story about a bond trader who was furious after receiving his measly $6 million year-end bonus. Screaming obscenities at his boss, he threw the check on the floor and jumped up and down on it.
January 29, 2007 - Seeking a haven from 'debt spiral'
I was struck by the "debt spiral" article in the Jan. 19 Wall Street Journal that covered a speech by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.
January 22, 2007 - Iraq war cost
Back in the late 1960’s, David Rockefeller was Chairman of Chase Manhattan bank when he became one of the first business leaders to publicly speak out against the war in Vietnam. Louis Lundborg was then the Chairman of the Bank of America, so from the U.C. Berkeley business school, I wrote him a letter asking if he would be expressing a similar sentiment. I said I thought it was important for the business and financial community to make a case for what they thought was wise public policy. Sometimes, advice from a well-known business figure can carry more weight with the public than more blather from a politician. This all spawned what I recall became “Businessmen Against the War” and other groups whose views, twenty years too late, were ultimately embraced by Robert McNamara, the architect of the entire mistake.
January 15, 2007 - Mutual fund rates magnified
What a difference a percent makes. A combined attention to mutual fund quality and mutual fund costs can increase the probability of gaining that extra 1 or 2 percent annual return on your portfolio overall.
January 8, 2007 - Muni-bond phenomenon offers a lucrative tax shelter
President Ford's funeral brought back memories of the Nixon era, when all those bad guys strolled the corridors of power in the White House. Not the least of these was John Mitchell, the attorney general, whose prior claim to fame on Wall Street had been the invention of the "moral obligation" bond.
January 1, 2007 - Investing takes sense of humor
Fewer than half of all Americans have a sense of humor. This is common knowledge in the advertising industry and explains why relatively few ads attempt to be humorous. Then there's this column.
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