Peter Myers' Blog

The Ecuadorean Experience

I am just now wrapping up a visit to Ecuador, prompted by my daughter's idea, hatched this Spring, to spend a month in Spanish Immersion volunteering for an orphanage in Cuenca, Ecuador.  Having traveled alone to foreign lands of varied tongues in my own teen years, I wanted to witness the experience of her excitement.  Maybe it was motivated by paternal instinct; maybe it was motivated by some faint hope of reliving that wonder year in 1979.  Maybe both.

After saying our goodbyes a few hours after the above photo was taken (there are a lot of pictures of my extended arm in this batch), Ellen cabbing to the Panamerican Terminal for a 10-hour bus ride to Cuenca, I hired a driver to take me to Papagayo, about an hour south and towards the "Avenue of the Volcanoes" (a 200-mile stretch of active and inactive volcanoes in the Andes).  Amazingly, at the end of this 1 km bumpy dirt road, there was a lodge, complete with WiFi (although lacking in heat and sometimes hot water).  Spent the night there and headed to Cotopaxi the next day, the tallest active volcano in the world.

We hiked to the glacier (at 5020m, or 16,060 ft), had lunch, and took mountain bikes 14 km down the bumpy dirt road to the lake below. Note my riding companion, Jeremy (architect from San Francisco), had large fingers.

At the glacier.
At the bottom of the volcano.
Wild horses (escaped from ranches years ago and bred in the wild)

Next day, after another night in the lodge, our little group (now up to 20, from 8 the day before) went to Saquisili (a local Andean village) and then on to the Quilatoa volcano, the crater of which formed a lake.  We hiked down the inside of the crater (around 3800 m, perhaps 11,000 feet) to the lake (maybe 3300 m), took photos of some Alpacas, and rode mules back out of the crater.
The live animal market at Saquisili.  That large hog was available for the taking for US$180.  Prolly wouldn't fit in the overhead bin.
Hiking down the inside of the crater. 
At the bottom, getting some local help with my mule.
The Alpacas.

Extra! Extra! Getchar Guvvament Bailout Money Hee-ah

Have you gotten these emails from various spam-like sites advising you to make sure you get "your piece of the government bailout pie"?  If ever there were a reason to be suspicious of a government that promises it is "here to help," this appears to be it.  It is common knowledge that TARP funds, named to allegedly direct my bank to relieve itself of the "troubled assets" it purchased (in between buying companies, paying bonuses to executives, and spinning off commissions to the Birkenstock-clad mortgage broker), has not really gone to buy any such "troubled assets."  Because the first hastily-passed Act did not tell the banks what to do with this money, now we have to set up a "bad bank" to buy bad assets, and we have to pay for that - again. 

I Have Decided to Save the World Economy

I am going to bite the bullet for everyone here and save the world economy. Here's how (bear with me, because this requires some explanation).

The Sea Changes in Clients' Attitudes About Financial Advisors

Yesterday morning, Schwab released its fifth semi-annual survey of independent registered investment advisors.  More than 1200 independent advisors with more than $300 billion in assets under management completed the survey, which was conducted from Jan. 20-Jan. 30, 2009.  It reported a phenomenon that I have observed but only anecdotally:  there has been a sea change in how Americans view their financial advisors and seek financial advice. 

    This is my version of the "Sea Change"

What Will Happen to Financial Advisors and Wealth Managers Now?

I am empathizing with our financial advisor cousins today.

Bear Stearns was bought by JP Morgan in March.  Lehman was bought from bankruptcy by Barclay's.  WAMU is closed and sold to Chase (also JP Morgan).  Merrill Lynch was acquired by B of A.  Wachovia is cut up and being sold to Citi and Wells Fargo.  A chunk of Morgan Stanley was sold to Mitsubishi.  What the general public may not know is that all of these entities, without exception, have various wealth management groups, sometimes called "private client," "private banking," "private wealth management," "family office" and "private trust" groups, all of which perform more or less the same function - provide professional (sometimes expert) advice on what to do with large amounts (relatively) of capital held by individuals.  What is going to happen to this industry of advisors after all this consolidation?

Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk

One of God's great blessings in my recent life is our 6 year-old son, conceived about a week after 9-11-01, around the day we brought our dog Rex from the pound, when we were least expecting (at age 41) to be expecting.  A love child in our 40's.  Tangible evidence that the Almighty has a sense of humor. 

Johann reminded me this Summer that there is nothing wrong with being completely covered in sand.  There are times when I feel like I'm under a mountain of it.  And whether that is a burden or a blessing is simply a matter of perspective. 

We did get a couple of trips to Santa Cruz this Summer - to the beach Boardwalk.  We even talked our 16 year-old daughter into joining us!  Of course, she "just had to" bring a friend (God forbid she be seen having fun with her parents). 

All Set Up - or All Screwed Up?

I attended my wife's company picnic on Sunday and, as often happens when people learn what I do, the conversation drifted to an estate issue.  Bob (not his real name) had "it all set up."  He was agent (under a power of attorney) over his 90+ year-old Aunt's modest middle-class estate: a home (owned outright), and two $100K CDs.  Easy enough.  Aunt needed some in-home care and one of the CDs (at Washington Mutual)was about the expire.  His issue (hint: not the issue):  whether to roll the CD from WAMU to Wells Fargo or another bank because of the problems he had been hearing about WAMU.  So how does one respond?

Fear and Loathing on Wall Street

If you, like me, are scratching your head over the last two months, I think we have a lot of company.  Some sort of economic untethering has occurred as our economy groans to deleverage itself.  The old school thinking was that interest rates, and federal manipulation of same through targets, discount rates and fed funds rates, could control the money supply.  But recent evidence suggests that, at least on a macroeconomic level, default risk (or the perception of such risk by the underwriter) can shut down the money supply like a spigot on a leaky garden hose.

Driving Lake Tahoe Video & North Tahoe in General

One of my clients sent me a link to the North Tahoe Bonanza's article about his new video, "Driving Lake Tahoe."  If you are a Lake Tahoe buff, then you will want to read the article, located on opage B1 in the Living Section of the paper. 

As many of you know, the reason I have a newfound interest in Lake Tahoe is because we recently opened an office in Incline Village, Nevada.  Why?  I passed the Nevada Bar and am now cross-licensed in both California and Nevada!  As a consequence, I needed an office in Nevada, and longtime colleague Jim Burau offered me use of his.  Now, "Why do I need a Nevada license?"

Estate Planning in one lesson

A tip of the cap on this video to Mark Merenda of Smart Marketing: