Mary Holm's "Advice"

[OllyN]

I think the "use by" date of the advice has well and truly expired.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4271817a1865.html

[Ivanhoe]

What makes you think so, Olly?

[toby]

WTF would you take advice from someone on property investment who isn't a property investor?
Mary, Mary quite contrary how does your...

[OllyN]

In Reply

The advice she is now giving has been around for ages.
In her position as a financial planner she should have had the foresight to have been offering this advice at least 2 years ago.

The advice itself is OK as far as it goes so I guess it's better late than never.

[cube]

Maybe she only just got around to reading your book, Olly, which, as we all know, was the first place to say 'Sell, Sell, Sell, the sky is falling', and everyone else since has been copying you.

cube

[spurner]

Mary Holm is a seminar presenter and author of KiwiSaver: How to make it work for you. Her advice is of a general nature. She is not responsible for any loss that any reader may suffer from following the advice. She may be reached at [email protected]. She does not respond directly to readers.

Hmmm an email address but she doesn't respond to readers. I bet she must get a lot of hate-mail...

[Mark_B]

Mary who?

M

[toby]

More importantly is Mary a financially independent wealthy woman or is she an outspoken journalist?
Where does she make her money?

[flyernzl]

This may help you think things through:

Deborah Hill Cone: Business scribes a lot of write-offs

9:00AM Monday October 22, 200

I am a fraud. Actually, so are most business journalists. Our job is to tell punters what to do with their jack. But frankly, none of us are exactly investing prodigies. I have known many business journalists and I know most of them don't have a share certificate to their name, let alone an elegantly proportioned portfolio.
Sure, the plumber's house has a leaky tap, the cobbler's children have no shoes and as offspring of doctors - like me - would attest, Papa Doc will barely look up from his newspaper if you complain your leg has fallen off.
Business journalists are like plumbers who have never turned on a tap - even though they have read a lot about water reticulation. It's a case of do what I say, not what I do.
The $64 question is: If business journalists are such clever clogs at analysing investment opportunities, why aren't they swimming in gravy? While I was writing about the movements of the Brierley share price, I was scrabbling to pay my mortgage - with $10 left over for a bottle of Fairhall River Claret. (And my pay was reasonable so I take full responsibility for being rubbish with money.)

Taking financial advice from a finance journalist is a bit like taking dieting advice from a 130kg nutritionist. Or having a miserable life coach.
Of course there are some exceptions - Brian Gaynor actually made a pile of spondulicks in the giddy 1980s, so presumably knows of what he speaks, but most business journalists drive 1998 Nissan hatchbacks, live in mortgaged villas in West Auckland and wear cheap shoes. That isn't necessarily a reflection of low intelligence. An Ohio State University study that analysed 7000 people since 1979 found that being brighter didn't have any impact on income or net worth.
The surprising thing the study did find was that people with high IQs tended to have more credit card problems and reported higher levels of financial distress - which sounds like the usual shabby state of affairs for freebie-loving hacks. (What's the difference between a shopping trolley and a journalist? You can fit more food and booze in a journalist.)
Getting back to my theory about fraudulent business journalists, if they wanted to get rich they wouldn't have chosen this profession in the first place.
A lot of them don't bother to disguise their contempt for capitalism and wealth, although I suspect Bob Jones' theory is correct. Curmudgeonly hacks would write perky stories if they were paid $250K a year. Embarrassingly, when journalists make money from their own tip-offs it tends to be really dodgy, like the City Slickers columnists on Britain's Mirror, convicted of conspiracy to breach financial regulations. They were buying shares in computer company Viglen which they would then spruik in the paper. What I'd really like to read is an investment column written by Wayne Thomas Patterson. He nicked $3.4 million off the taxpayer in benefit fraud but invested the money so savvily that the Government will get it all back plus half a mill profit after costs are deducted - a 20 per cent return.
Now that's someone whose advice would be worth reading.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=707&objectid=10470785&ref=rss

[Dean@Massiveaction]

Mary rung me after I complained about her advice to Anne Gibson. Her response to my comments about her being anti property and helping people stay poor was to tell me that my results were exceptional and it was unrealistic to expect other people to create wealth the way I had.
Her knowledge of property was negligible. At the end of the day a nice enough lady paid to write a column. Her advice on property has no authoritative or experiential basis what-so-ever.

[Perry]

Holm truths for wanna-be PIs are probably better avoided.

[xris]

Mary rung me after I complained about her advice to Anne Gibson. Her response to my comments about her being anti property and helping people stay poor was to tell me that my results were exceptional and it was unrealistic to expect other people to create wealth the way I had.
Her knowledge of property was negligible. At the end of the day a nice enough lady paid to write a column. Her advice on property has no authoritative or experiential basis what-so-ever.

Hello Dean,

I would tend to agree with you that Mary's knowledge and experience may be limited, but I would agree with her that your achievements are exceptional. On balance I would say her opinions are a truer reflection of the reality faced by the average person out there, which means the majority.

xris

[Marcus]

Hello Dean,

I would tend to agree with you that Mary's knowledge and experience may be limited, but I would agree with her that your achievements are exceptional. On balance I would say her opinions are a truer reflection of the reality faced by the average person out there, which means the majority.

xris

Hi Xris,

I would argue that with a long term view, using PI as a vehicle, it would take very little effort or expertise for the average person to do become better (financially) than the "average person". No degree in Rocket science needed just patience and a little common sense.

To say that there are never any problems would be a lie but for me at least, they are few and far between. PI is hardly the scary monster that Mary has painted it out to be in the past. Her repeated scaremongering tactics have at times been laughable. I have yet to receive a phone call at 3am with complaints of a leaking tap, rain pouring through the ceiling, noisy neighbours, or for anything else for that matter. The transactional pitfalls can also be reduced substantially by reading, consulting with experienced investors, and most importantly employing the skills of (specialised) paid professionals.

PI is a self paced journey not a race (unless you want it to be) and one can be as conservative or as driven as they like.

Cheers,
Marcus.

[Patu]

Mary rung me after I complained about her advice to Anne Gibson. Her response to my comments about her being anti property and helping people stay poor was to tell me that my results were exceptional and it was unrealistic to expect other people to create wealth the way I had.
Her knowledge of property was negligible. At the end of the day a nice enough lady paid to write a column. Her advice on property has no authoritative or experiential basis what-so-ever.

Amen Dean.

Will you help a poor guy like me get off the invalid's benefit?

Thanks in advance.

Patu

[Dean@Massiveaction]

How can I help Patu??