The Burleyists - Robert Yang

If you're at all interested in what John Burley has to say on financial freedom or real estate investment, then you'll very quickly find your way to the John Burley Discussion Forums. I have spent a good deal of time reading the messages there, myself - originally because I was in thrall to the beliefs, but more recently as research for my Burley-related posts here (and I admit there's an element of sick fascination involved, as well).

One of the dangers of reading the forums for extended periods, however, is that you might find yourself starting to almost believe the hype. Message after message from "successful students" who claim to be living the dream and making fistfuls of cash (aka, "Progressive Profits") as a result of following Burley's advice is enough to weaken even my skepti-sense after a while. It takes a conscious effort to remember that

1. Correlation does not necessarily mean causation (e.g., just because night follows day does not mean that day is the cause of night)
2. Anecdotes are the weakest form of evidence for something (precisely because of reason 1, but also because they aren't necessarily representative of the target population as a whole)
3. Most importantly: this is Burley's promotional site! You can find rah-rah sites on the web for just about any absurd scam you can think of - from homeopathic "medicine" to "over unity" technologies.

In spite of this, I must have been in the midst of a particularly weak moment a few months ago when I first happened upon Robert Yang's comments on the forums, because I didn't take the time then to really give Mr. Yang the attention he warranted. I am rectifying this as well as I can now.

Let's have Robert introduce himself:

Hello, my name is Robert Yang.

I am the Host of yisemen.com, a site devoted to your financial education. I just turned 35 and currently in semi-retirement after achieving financial freedom for myself and my family. It did not start out this way. In October 2002, after realizing I lost $500,000 in the stock market with a high probability of been laid off from a Fortune 500 company that I worked for since college. I dedicated myself to the “1,000 days challenge” to be out of the rat race (achieve financial freedom). I was fortunate to have many mentors and found many supportive networks along the way. I have indeed achieved financial freedom in less than 3 years.

However, it was not an easy road traveled. Being a W2 wage earner with a full-time job and a family to take care of, it was hard to get started. I learned enough lessons along the way that I am now in a position to share my experiences with you and support you if you too have the burning desire to one day quit your job to spend more time with your family and having the free time to do what you like to do, not what you have to do. I honor you for taking your first giant step forward and joining me and my friends in the journey toward financial freedom! As one of my mentor Anthony Robbins likes to say, “Life will never be the same again!”

How did I came up with the name yisemen”? Last year, when I was interviewing CPAs for one of my companies, I was asked to give the names of our principles. I was providing the names one by one, she noticed that my partner, Jeffrey, my advisor, Edwin, and myself all shared the last name starting with the letter Y. So, she jokingly said, “you guys are the three Y’s men (wise men). I like the name a lot and decided to keep this nickname and be one of the – “yisemen”.

Keep the passion alive,

Robert Yang

Unfortunately some time in the past 3 months Robert's web site for Yisemen Financial has all but disappeared. All that remains today is Google's cache of the site.

One has to wonder what happened. Yisemen Financial had so much going for it! With the incomparable teachings of Robert Kiyosaki, Matthew Chan, and John Burley behind it, as well as the indispensable "burning desire" of Robert Yang - Burleyist extraordinaire - to succeed, it just doesn't seem possible that the company could have met with failure. Of course, the other possibility is that Robert has taken that fabled quantum leap out of the rat race and has no need of Yisemen Financial any more.

But wait! Robert says that he had already done that before starting his site, so that can't be the answer - and clearly the financial education needs to continue because, for example, I have yet to leave the rat race. So none of it makes any sense!

Whatever happened, though, I hope Robert Yang is "keepin' the passion alive" out there somewhere!

Google's cache of www.yisemen.com is undoubtedly going to be cleared soon, and I can't bear the thought that Robert Yang's invaluable insight might be lost. So, for the sake of posterity, here are a couple choice quotes (I really want to do more, but I'm a little worried about already being on the edge of fair use)...

There are no bad investments
There are bad investors

This is so true. It is the investor, who finds a way to create value, and make it a good investment. I lost tons of money in the stock market because I was a bad investor prior to October 2002. I thought I was a great investor when I saw one of my high-tech stock portfolios grow from $20,000 to $240,000 between 1993 to 2000. Now looking back, I realized I was just a Level Three pig who got lucky with the tech run in the 90s. I had no limit order in place to sell my stocks when it fell below a certain price. I was greedy. I took everyone’s advice – invest for the long term. I didn’t cared how high the PE (Price to Earnings) ratio was – thinking there are more fools behind me who will pay even higher prices for my stocks. I did not realize that stock is not a secured investment, where the down side can be 100%. I had absolutely no control over my investment in the stock market.

Yet, not all investors lost money during the stock market crash of 2001. Warren Buffet did just fine for his investors. Many seasoned investors had hedge position. Some even welcome the big swing in the market as they utilize options to earn very high return on their money. So, the lesson is – It is not the investment, it is the investor that creates the return.

...

So, what is the secret for getting out of the rat race?

My experience tell me that first you have to address the basics. Once you have a good fundemental, you can speed the procoess up by going through self-improvement seminar, having mentor, network with other successful people.

1) You must save a part of you earn... It a sample mathemtics. When you get your check every month, put at least 10% to 20% aside for investing before you pay for everything else...

2) Know your financial freedom gap

Financial Freedom Gap = Expense - Passive Income

Track your expense for few months and know how much money you needed per month to live. Start invest for passive income. Most people only invest for capital gain (which help to increase your networth, but does nothing to get you the income you needed to be out of the rat race).

3) How much money do I need to retire?

It depends on what rate of return you can get.. Example if you need $5,000 per month to cover your expense, then,

APR Capital Needed
2% $3,000,000
8% $750,000
15% $400,000

4) Turn your liability (which creates expense) and un-productive assets (which generates no passive income) into true assets (that produces income for you every months).

5) Network with other sucessful investor and co-invest with them when you starting out.

6) Improve your skills by going to seminars, listen to audio CD, get a mentor if you want to speed up the process.

7) Play Cashflow 101 at least once a month for the next 12 months

Those are some of the fundmentals...

Keep the Passion Alive,
RobertY (Host)

Feeling financially freer, yet?

War: What is it good for?

War…proves some to be gods and others to be mere men, by turning the latter into slaves and the former into masters… War is just. –Heraclitus

During the years of the so-called peace, politics…have only a meaning inasmuch as they prepare for total war. –General Ludendorff

War means the State in its most actual growth and rise: it means politics. –Max Scheler

War is not only a practical necessity, it is also a theoretical necessity, an exigency of logic. The concept of the State implies the concept of war, for the essence of the State is Power. –Treitschke

[I]t is in war that the State displays its true nature. –E. Kaufmann

The State, from the first moment of its existence, takes its stand in the sphere of war… War is not only the most perfect form of State activity, it is the very element in which the state is embedded; war delayed, prevented, disguised, avoided, must of course be included in the term. –H. Freyer

Quotes taken from Hegel and the New Tribalism, chapter 12 of Karl Popper’s The Open Society and Its Enemies.

They struck me as appropriate for Memorial Day.

In Government We Trust?

In the comments to my post on the absurdity of voting, my friend Steve said that one of his problems with the idea of a stateless society is that he wouldn’t be able to trust the general public in such a situation. Undoubtedly this is a fairly common sentiment (there are, obviously, not a lot of anarchists in the world). But it immediately brings to my mind a number of pressing questions.

Don’t we basically exist in a stateless society a majority of the time? When you’re doing 55 down a busy two-lane highway aren’t you putting a lot of trust in the drivers of the cars in the opposite lane not to veer into yours? Is the reason they don’t do this because there’s a government? When you go shopping do you not shoplift because you’re afraid of the government, or could it be because of the owner of the store (assuming you’re not simply a decent person, I mean)? This idea that people act “civilly” out of fear of the state is reminiscent of the religious person’s idea that without the prospect of eternal damnation people would simply devolve into sin.

Maybe people in general aren’t trustworthy, but is the answer then to create a state – a centralized monopoly on the use of coercion? How does doing this alleviate the “untrustworthy” problem? How is it that the general public – so unworthy of trust otherwise – suddenly becomes a bunch of saintly experts in sociology and public policy when they step into a voting booth? (Didn’t we already go over that?) How is it that only the “good” people will take the reigns of government (and who gets to define what “good” is?)? Isn’t this an overly optimistic idea? Doesn’t it fly in the face of hundreds of years of historical evidence to the contrary?

Wouldn’t we be better off not giving untrustworthy people a mechanism by which they can take advantage of the rest of us?

Skeptics' Circle

The 35th Skeptics' Circle is up over at Skeptico's Blog. I mention it because I am a contributor this time around.

Go there and read it! Apparently, even though it's on Skeptico's Blog, it's not actually written by Skeptico. Instead, it's by a non-skeptic "guest blogger" who has been spoofing Skeptico's blog on Blogspot. Strange, I know, but it's all explained in the post.

Now, I think I might spend too much time around people who aren't religious, because some of what the guy writes seems so absurd to me that I can't help but wonder if the whole thing isn't just some sort of Swiftian joke.

8 Reasons Voting is Stupid

1. Mathematics

One vote makes an infinitesimal amount of difference. That’s just a mathematical inevitability. The number of voters in the 2000 national election was over 104 million; therefore a single vote counted about 0.0000000096%.

Given that, taking time out of your day to vote is a profoundly irrational thing to do. People stood in line in the 2004 national elections often for as long as 5 hours to cast their votes. Assume that their time was worth approximately $20/hour (a value reasonably close to the 2004 US median income). That means that each person stuck in line for 5 hours spent around $100 to cast a vote that made, effectively, zero difference in the outcome of the election. The opportunity cost is obviously far too high for a rational person to waste his time with such a process. This remains true even if your time is only worth $1 per hour!

Most people are less profligate about the lottery! Very few are crazy enough to spend $100 on lottery tickets, even when the potential winnings are in the hundreds of millions of dollars—interestingly, such a strategy, it could be argued, might actually be smarter in the lottery’s case, because each additional dollar you spend increases your odds of winning. With voting, on the other hand, each additional minute in line is entirely additional, uncompensated, cost.

2. Voter Fraud

Reason #1 makes the assumption that your vote is going to actually be counted correctly. However, given the frequency of news reports about things like the willful destruction of voter registration records, numerous electronic voting machine errors—such as coming pre-programmed with votes for a particular candidate, security holes, or other “glitches” (real or intentional)—the “miscounting” of paper ballots, unexplained but statistically significant discrepancies between exit polls and “actual” vote totals—the list could go on—it is far from clear that your vote will actually be heard. Thus, can it really be said with confidence that “the will of the people” is actually followed in any given election?



3. Rational Ignorance of the Electorate

Supporters of voting may argue that reason 2 is not an aspect of voting, per se--that voter fraud, in modern parlance, "is a bug and not a feature". Fair enough. But even if we could ensure that all votes are always counted correctly, we're left to wonder if there really is such a thing as "the will of the people".

Every day we must make choices about how to spend our time. Learning the substance of all of the political issues of the day is usually at the bottom of the list. Given the huge difference in ratings between, say, C-SPAN and Monday Night Football I believe that such a claim is far from unreasonable.

Research studies show that only around 4 percent of the population can accurately describe the differences between a liberal and a conservative. That means that the other 96 percent of the population is using something other than an intelligent and informed understanding of the issues to decide how they’re going to vote. How often have we seen the late night talk show “man on the street” interview repeated where the interviewee is unable to answer seemingly obvious questions, like the name of the vice president, or how many senators there are in Congress?

In fact, most people don't vote from a dispassionate and intellectual place. Instead, they vote based on feelings they have about the candidates­-their analysis goes no deeper than “I don’t trust him,” or “he cares for people like me.” This is not to say that voters are all stupid or irrational. The problem of rational ignorance would exist even if everyone were a genius. We’re all busy and need to (and should!) focus on things that are going on in our immediate lives­-not keep tabs on what’s going on in Washington.

Appeals to people to not expect positive change unless they are "willing to invest the time" to learn about the issues are a hopeless waste, because they can't bypass the fundamental economic reality of opportunity cost.

Further appeals to “get out the vote”—to whatever extent they manage to be effective—accomplish nothing more than ensuring that the outcome of any election will be random in nature, and not due to any real factor, such as a candidate's legitimately better platform (assuming there is such a thing). In what sense are we any better off because “Rock The Vote” might manage to generate a 10% higher turnout among 18- to 22-year-olds?

4. Special Interests

Reason #3 fails to consider that people might sometimes have selfish reasons for voting a particular way. Our government has the power to redistribute wealth. Thus, politicians have an often irresistible incentive to buy votes with this power. Voters, in turn, see an opportunity to obtain unearned wealth at the public trough. The result is the growth of the special interest lobbies and a further erosion of government that is legitimately in the public interest.

There is an insidious nature to this redistribution that makes it self-perpetuating and nearly irreversible: the benefits are concentrated while the costs are diffuse. Any one voter’s share in farming subsidies, for example, may be only a few dollars, but the farmers’ benefits are often in the tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. Hence, the typical taxpayer is not likely to spend more than a few dollars complaining about it, whereas farmers are willing to spend thousands of dollars to ensure that the subsidies continue, regardless of whether the actual effects of the policy are, on net, good or bad.

5. Package Deal

As “our representatives,” politicians are necessarily a package deal. It’s extremely unlikely that any voter will agree completely with the political platform of any candidate (assuming that the voter even knows the candidate’s actual platform. See point #3). Unfortunately, when you cast your vote for any single candidate, if he is elected, you have to take the bad with the good.

As an aside, I find it an interesting and disturbing fact that Hitler was initially voted into power—and except for the part about wanting to exterminate Jews and Gypsies, his platform is remarkably similar to many politicians in the U.S. today.

6. Corrupt, Ignorant, or Incompetent Politicians

Even if by some stroke of wonderful good luck you actually found a politician with whose platform you agreed 100%, there’s nothing to guarantee that this person will live up to his or her campaign promises (“Read my lips: No new Taxes”—Bush the Elder). In fact there is overwhelming historical evidence that they won't.

Admittedly the contention that all politicians are corrupt is a simplistic one. However, even the most honest and idealistic politician can be simply misguided. Whether the problem is dishonesty or lack of knowledge, it remains that there is no coherent and reliable basis for determining whether or not a given candidate is the “right” one.

Of course all of this assumes—unrealistically—that “your candidate” would even be able to effect his or her entire platform while in office.

7. Lack of Legitimacy

Engaging in the process of registering and voting is an implicit acceptance of its legitimacy for effecting social change (hopefully by now you’re starting to question such a belief!). I submit that this acceptance precludes complaint about both the outcome and any effects of the outcome — regardless of who wins. By participating in the system, you are tacitly accepting the rules of the game. If your candidate wins, would it not be rude of you to say, “nyah nyah!” to the losers? By the same token, aren’t you a sore loser if you whine about what the winner does?

A simple example (hat tip to Marc Victor) may serve to illustrate my point. Imagine that you are with a group of friends at a restaurant, eating dinner. The meal is almost over. However, the night is still young and you all are enjoying each other's company and would like to continue. Some of the party suggest going to get coffee, while others would like to go get ice cream. As there is not enough time to do both, everyone agrees to decide via a vote. If the ice cream contingent wins, is it then good manners for the coffee contingent to make a stink about the outcome?

In other words, as Andrew Galambos once said, “If you vote, don’t complain.”

8. Coercion

As I hope I made clear in reason #7 above, a vote is not only a vote for a particular candidate, but also a vote for the political process in general. Chairman Mao once said that government comes out of the barrel of a gun — meaning that the basic function of the political process is the coercion of others. Done in self-defense, this presents little difficulty. The state, however, long ago abandoned its role as a provider of justice and safety. Thus, the act of voting is an aggressive act, regardless of the insulating effects that the voting booth provides.

Can it really be said that coercion is an effective means of improving the world? Is your participation in the extortion and murder of others made okay because your only connection to these acts is punching a hole in a ballot? Is Hitler not guilty of genocide because he didn’t physically pour the Zyklon-B into the gas chambers? What, then, of the guilt of the voters who put him in office? Are they completely free of blame?

Join the ranks of those who can proudly proclaim, "Don't blame me! I didn't vote!"

More non-voting articles can be found here.

John Burley's Advice vs. Astrology

Real estate investment “guru” and self-described “prosperity trainer” John R Burley (about whom I have written extensively here), arguably most famous for his Progressive Profits infomercial, used to offer an “intensely powerful” quarterly newsletter, called The Burley Chronicles. I believe a subscription cost around $99 a year. It’s apparently discontinued—I suspect for reasons that, in a moment, I’ll be making abundantly clear—but if you enter your mailing information at his web site then you’ll probably be sent your own complimentary issue, along with a bunch of other promotional materials.

In my copy, the 3rd issue from 2001, Burley welcomes readers with, “The learning, fun, and education continues.” Much of what follows is an “education” that isn’t worth 10 cents—let alone $99 a year! For example, in the same article, Burley says:

The cause of the depth of the current US slowdown (read ‘recession’), may be debated, but there is now general consensus regarding the timing and likelihood of economic recovery. Everybody agrees that they have absolutely no idea!

Everyone is searching for better profits and economic news. Are they looking in the right places? As a Level Five investor, where do we look for increased returns on our investments?

As I often say, it is not really important where you look for your investments. It is more important how you look! [emphasis original]

Looking at investing with the lateral thinking mind of the Level Five investor is the key to recognizing the limitless opportunities that exist in any market—and particularly in a recession market—for double digit and higher returns.

I read this stuff and become physically ill. This is “investment advice” on a par with what you’d get out of your daily horoscope! To prove my point, below I have taken several of Burley’s nuggets of wisdom (or something) and randomly interspersed them with items I’ve pulled from daily horoscopes. I challenge you to tell them apart.

A
Learn to produce results without agreement from others. It’s a marvelous skill to have, and will be quite profitable. And once you get past the nervousness, you’ll be very strong.

B
Remember, all coins have two sides and both sides are shiny if polished properly and viewed from the proper perspectives! Awareness, Attitude and Action!

C
We are still playing our own game by our own rules and the playing field grows larger by the day.

D
Don't worry if what you try doesn't work. It's just as important to know what won't. It narrows down the seemingly endless possibilities.

E
There are so many opportunities around these days that you might actually have to flip a coin to help you decide which one to pursue first.

F
Invest in an area that you have long been curious about. Get some of those old questions answered and you'll sleep better at night.

G
Remind people to look at the facts if they're getting emotional.

H
The sentiment of abundance that has driven growth over the last decade has taken on the scent of scarcity. This is when the astute and prepared rise above the naysaying rabble.

I
The workload is intense and the objective is muddled. Before you knock yourself out, find out what needs to be done and what doesn't. Your efforts will be appreciated.

I’ll reveal the answer in the comments at some point in the future. In the mean time, feel free to offer up your own guesses.

What is this blog about?

Recently, it seems this blog has had a rather narrow focus. I'll admit that I have been slathering quite a bit of attention on John Burley (and though he certainly doesn't deserve it, I do still have 2 or 3 more Burley posts planned). Honestly, though, I have no intention of adding Die Eigenheit to the cacophony of personal finance and real estate investment blogs out there. I mean, what the hell do I know?

So, you see, I have always felt that if this blog's theme is anything at all (aside from its autobiographical nature), then it would have to be epistemology.

As a die-hard skeptic, I take belief very seriously. I often find myself consumed by doubts - sometimes to the point of experiencing a profound (and very disturbing) solipsism. Of late - as you've seen if you're one of the 4 people who reads this blog regularly - this tendency to question obsessively has manifested in my exploration of the the wacky belief that there are actually "secrets" that "the rich" keep hidden from the hoi polloi. This has meant a focus on John Burley, since, of the countless people spouting such nonsense, he's the one I am most familiar with. I will, soon, run out of things to say about that, though, at which point I'll have to move on to other things.

Al Swearengen once said, "If you want to see God laugh, tell him your plans," so I won't bore you with the specifics of mine. But if you were beginning to worry that I might never shut up about Burley this and Burley that, you can rest assured that even I will have had my fill of him before long.

Carnival of Personal Finance

I have been a little remiss in not mentioning earlier that my interview question post was recently included in the 47th Carnival of Personal Finance.

I'm not ashamed to admit that I submitted it in the hopes of getting some interesting comments, and I was happy to see that traffic to my blog did increase significantly. Though, I guess not-so-surprisingly, almost all of the carnival-generated visits took a quick look at the interview post and then left. Oh well...

The Housing Bubble

I just put up a post about the housing hubble over at The Lippard Blog, both because I've been feeling bad that I haven't put anything up over there in a long time and because it seemed like a better location for the topic, anyway, since Jim has several bubble-related items of his own there.

Enjoy!

The Scariest Job Interview Question

So, you're being interviewed for a job and feel like it's going pretty well. Seemingly out of nowhere, the interviewer hits you with, "What kind of salary were you looking for?"

As anyone familiar with negotiating tactics knows, the first person to mention a number is the loser. The above question forces the issue and, of course, is designed to get the job-seeker to reveal his highest price. Once it's out there, the employer need never mention that they were prepared to offer more. On the other hand, if the number quoted is unrealistically high or well above expectations, the employer may decide against making an offer at all.

How does one get around this - especially in this situation, when you're staring at your interviewer, who is sitting there expecting, any moment now, to hear words come out of your mouth?

I have heard that a good dodge is something like, "I am prepared to accept whatever you would normally offer someone with my skills in this position." Then, when they follow up with something along the lines of "What were you expecting?" you can quote them a wide range - maybe one you got from research on salary.com, or the like.

I'm interested, though, if you might know of any other clever ways to handle this tricky situation.

John Burley's Dog and Pony Show

In my post talking about John Burley’s book, I hypothesized that it’s probably as information-rich as his Boot Camp, even though it's $4980 cheaper. If you’ve read Burley’s promotional material for his Camp, you might object to my characterization, because, for example, on Day 2, the attendees are taken to downtown Phoenix to witness a trustee sale. Such an activity, however, is a complete waste of time, for several reasons.

In the first place, what is there to learn by attending a trustee’s sale? It’s just your standard auction, and who isn’t familiar with that? This is the 21st century. Who hasn’t been on eBay?

Next, as even Burley points out, these auctions are all cash. The typical Burley student doesn’t have any cash—or why would they be attending the Boot Camp? On top of that, most of the attendees are there to learn about Burley’s wrap technique, the point of which is to use as little cash as possible (otherwise your cash-on-cash returns evaporate). So, not only are Burley’s students unlikely to ever be capable of bidding in a trustee auction, they’re not likely ever to want to do so, either.

Something tells me that Burley also probably doesn’t mention a number of serious drawbacks to the trustee sale. It’s rare for a “distressed property” to even get to the auction, so the ones that do are likely to have a storied history. The owner has to have played ostrich—putting the mortgage several months into arrears (necessary before the foreclosure process can even begin). Then public notice of the auction has to happen at least 60 days prior. A lot can happen in those 5 to 6+ months. How many investors specializing in distressed properties do you think have spoken to the owner during that time (and still didn’t manage to put together a deal)? How much maintenance do you think the owner has been doing on the property? Do you think the owner is going to be happy to leave? If the house gets to auction then there’s a near certainty that it has a real problem—one that’s probably not going to be profitable for you to solve, even at “thirty to seventy cents on the dollar.”

Once bidding on the house starts, what do you think happens? The first thing is that the bank holding the primary mortgage bids the amount of the balance owed—to ensure they get paid. If that’s 90% of the market value of the home, then where’s your money going to be made? And what if it’s you who ends up making the winning bid? The question that should immediately come to mind is, “What do all these other people know that I don’t?” The Winner’s Curse isn’t just some witch doctor’s superstition.

Given all this, Boot Camp attendees are, in reality, paying about $500 for little more than a dog and pony show. John Burley, on the other hand, is laughing all the way to the bank.

The Burleyists – Robyn Grinter

I am confident that not a day goes by during which John Burley doesn’t fall to his knees, clasp his hands together, look reverently toward the sky, and thank his Lord and Savior for Robyn Grinter.

Robyn, you see, is proof positive that anyone can do it, as long as you have faith and believe in yourself! Robyn is the hero and the inspiration for all the ChavaRicas out there, who think, “If she can do it, then I can, too! What do all you psychobabbling naysayers know? Success leaves clues! Plus, Robyn obviously cares about my success, so I believe her!”

Robyn says:

You see 95% on success in investing is in your head it is as simple as “if you think you can’t you are right” or “if you think you can you are right” either way you are right so just think the right thoughts. [sic]

Robyn knows of what she speaks, since she’s done 220 real estate deals since 2001. So, clearly, if you fail as a property investor it’s 95% certain that your failure was simply the result of the weakness of your convictions.

Burley couldn’t have asked for a better Burleyist.

Yikes!

These charts aren't very much fun.



At times like these I wish I was being paid in gold.

Charts courtesy mises.org.