Ask Uncle Bill

Stupid IRA Tricks

If you have a 401(k) at work you are limited to the investment options that your company offers.  If you have an IRA your options are much greater.  But greater doesn't always mean good, especially if you are just starting out. 

Investments that ARE allowed are:

Bonds

Limited Partnerships

Mutual Funds

Real Estate as in tax liens, property, real estate investment trusts (REITS)

Stock (public and private)

Investments that ARE NOT allowed are:

Collectibles (art, rugs, stamps)

Life Insurance

S Corporations

Your Business (owned by you or a relative before IRA set up)

Your property

If you want to cut to the chase, your IRA or 401(k) should be invested in mutual funds.  Just starting out you don't have the time or money to screw around with real estate, limited partnerships, or individual stocks or bonds.  And all that other stuff like S Corps and collectibles aren't allowed anyway so don't worry about it.

Keep it simple.  If you have IRA or 401(k) issues or questions, read Category 12-Investments--All You Need To Know on the right hand column.  Basically just use Vanguard or Fidelity or T. Rowe Price or Dodge and Cox or whoever your company offers and set up a portfolio that looks like this--70% S&P Index, 15% Small Cap Index and 15% International Index. 

If you like international more than the S&P, then overweight a little.  Same with small caps--if you like them, overweight a bit.

BUT DON'T DO NOTHING.  Don't become paralyzed by the process.  Go to your HR department and find out what is out there.  Actually, go to the web site which they should have about 401(k)s and read it.  If you don't understand it, find somebody in the company that does or go to HR.  If you don't have a 401(k) plan, call Vanguard or Fidelity or any fund company and they will help you.  If you are still confused, write me.

A friend said a very wise thing yesterday.  He tells his kids to do something today (career move, investment, relationship) that will help them get where they want to be in THREE years.  Because nothing good happens over night.  Bad things can happen overnight but good things need time to grow.

And they can't grow if you don't plant them so do something about that today.

Who Wants To Be A Capitalist?

Capitalists always get a bad rap.  It is much easier to blame our problems on greeedy capitalist oil executives or brand managers at P&G that somehow make us buy things we don't want than figure out what really is bothering us. 

Because what is bothering us cannot be the economy.  If we hit some tough sledding somewhere down the line (and we will) most of us will look back and this, for once, will really be the Good Old Days.  Because--

Real Growth for the first quarter was 5%.  That is huge.

Unemployment is less than 5%.  My father, a food executive, always wanted 6% unemployment because he could find somebody that was worth hiring.  His words, not mine.

Wages are rising more than inflation which is defined as real wages.

Bet you didn't know this one.  There are more autoworkers in the US today than in 1990.  In 1990 there were 955,100 people employed in the auto sector.  In 2005 there were 956,200.  They just didn't all work for Ford, GM or Chrysler.  Today they work for Ford, GM, Chrysler and Toyota, Nissan, Honda and BMW. 

The Dow bounced off its record high but I think it will make another run at it.

Oh, gas prices are really high but still not higher, inflation adjusted, then in 1981. 

So why are people so down on the economy?  Because we want perfection.  We want more money and more time and more stuff.  Which is not bad.  But it shouldn't overwhelm us. 

Coming off Memorial Day maybe we should think about the important things, not just money.

The Two Minute Drill

Margot is back looking for a job and so we get to go through the whole interview process again.   The internship was great but just that, an internship with her company hiring no new people.  So back to the job world except with six months of experience and knowing a lot more about the business world.  And I'm looking for jobs and articles.  Saw this one which is ok but leaves out the most important part.

Interview Tips from Sports Psych On Sharpening Your Mental Game
	By Jared Flesher

--

In the lead up to a big game, professional athletes visualize success, double-check their equipment or listen to a favorite song on their headphones -- all before heading into competition. The minutes before you leave your house for that big job interview might not contain the same level of intensity, but mental preparation can still mean the difference between victory (getting the job) and defeat (back to the classifieds).

Here are some tips from experts and job hunters on how to use that time wisely. Pick and choose the ones that work for you.

1. Crank the music.

Erin Carbone of Whitehouse Station, N.J., went on 11 interviews in a two-month span before landing a position as an analyst at a pharmaceutical marketing and consulting firm. What helped her relax before an interview? Rap music. A favorite was Kanye West's "Gold Digger."

"Basically, I made sure I did things I would do any other day," says Ms. Carbone, 23. She says it helped her to view an interview like taking an exam -- about yourself -- and that there was nothing in the world she knew better.

"My ritual was to do things that would remind me of who I am," she says. "So when I got to the interview, I was like, 'Go ahead, ask me anything you want. I know myself like the back of my hand.'"

2. Practice calmness.

If blasting the iPod doesn't work for you, try tranquility.

Mark Hogue, a sports psychologist in Erie, Pa., who sometimes works with job hunters and professionals, says a little edginess before an interview can be helpful if it makes you alert and energized. But too much anxiety can be disastrous. He says it's important to practice mental preparation well in advance of an interview.

"Learn relaxation skills," he says. "That can't be done the day or the morning before." He says it can take weeks.

Mr. Hogue recommends job hunters visualize in their minds how the interview will go, and, if nerves are a problem, to be able to picture themselves somewhere serene, like on a beach. Practicing deep breathing or repeating a tranquil word like "calm" are popular methods people use to get themselves ready for a tense situation.

3. Wear the uniform.

Knowing you look your best for an interview creates confidence, says Jeff Nelligan of Bethesda, Md., who is hunting for a position in public affairs or government relations.

"I make sure the shoes are shined," he says. "I was in the Army reserves for a lot of years, and I just think that's the sign of somebody who's got his act together." He also checks the hair. "If you go in there with your cowlick sticking up, you look like Dennis the Menace." Making sure your clothes are straight and there's nothing in your teeth doesn't hurt, either.

4. Visualize success.

In the 15 minutes before leaving for a job interview, all negative thoughts should be put aside, says Jack J. Lesyk, a sport psychologist in Beachwood, Ohio, who also works with job hunters and professionals.

Long before the day of the interview, candidates should think of solid answers to three questions they don't want to be asked. This will go a long way toward relieving anxiety, he says.

But just prior to the meeting, focus on the positive. "The bottom line is: Always, always, always think about, talk about, and practice what you want to happen," Mr. Lesyk says. "Not what could go wrong." Mental preparation is crucial, he says, down to visualizing how you are going to walk into the room, make eye contact and respond to questions slowly and clearly.

Mr. Nelligan, 46, also likes to have a funny line from a favorite movie in mind as he walks through the door for an interview. For him, it's Caddyshack: "Be the ball."

"Going in there kind of chuckling is better than going in there dour and beat down," he says.

5. Leave for the interview early.

Feeling rushed or worrying you might be late can throw off your mojo, so it's a good idea to give yourself more travel time than you think you need, says Ms. Carbone, who learned this lesson from experience.

Driving to her first interview at a temp agency, she knew her car needed gas, but she was running late.

"I figured I could just wait until after the interview," she says.

She had just enough gas to make it to the office, with 10 minutes to spare. But she missed the turn into the parking lot and ended up back on the highway, trying to turn around. Her car ran out of fuel and shut down.

A passing jogger told her she was about a mile and a half from town. Ms. Carbone had to make a decision.

"I grabbed my resume, locked the car doors, and started running on these back-country roads in my suit," she says. "And it was freezing." Although she got to the interview 20 minutes late, she called first to tell the interviewer she was having "car trouble" -- and still got job offers through the agency.

Pretty good stuff but doesn't talk about the most important part of the interview--the first two minutes.  If you don't score in the first two minutes, forget it.  The odds are that you will not get the job.  I say that from being on the other side of the table and talking with a lot with hiring managers. 

So don't hem and haw, stumble, mess with your hair, slouch, spill a cup of coffee, avert your eyes, or yawn in the first two minutes.  Don't do these things at all but especially not in the first two minutes.  Smile, sit up straight, and think.  And the only thing you need to think about is how you are going to convince this person that you are the person that is going to make the bosses life wonderful. 

Because here is what the boss is thinking--hiring somebody has one of two results.  One, the hire is great and work gets done and the company makes money and everything is great.  Or two, the hire is a disaster or marginal at best.  Now the boss has more problems to deal with and is even deeper in the hole.  I have no hard evidence but I think marginal or disaster hires outnumber great hires by at least 2 to 1 so the hiring manager knows he/she has a 33% chance--not great odds.

How do you convince the boss, in two minutes, that you will beat the odds and his dying words will be "The best thing I ever did was hire so and so"?  Do all the things in the article above but they are more along the line of things to make you comfortable.  How do you make the boss comfortable?

1)  Dissect the ad.  Print out the ad you are responding to and take it apart word by word.  I saw one the other day that said something like 'have the ability to work with people with exciting personalities."  It wasn't that exactly but close and it meant be able to work with a bunch of psychotics.  Get your people skills out in the first sentence.  The ad is written to give you an idea of the environment and the expectations--read between the lines.

2) Size up your future boss in ten seconds.  If there are pictures of kids, soccer teams, husbands, wifes then you have a pretty good chance of having a half way decent boss.  Look for clues to what makes this person tick and relate.  Don't patronize but engage.

3) Know what your boss does.  If you are applying for a job in marketing, figure out beforehand how the company markets.  In some companies like Proctor and Gamble or Pepsico, marketing is done by brand management.  In industries like pharmaceuticals, sales is marketing.  Try to get some information beforehand on how your future department operates in the company.

4) Know something about the company.  You don't have to memorize the annual report but get an idea of who is running the company, what it does, how long it has been around.  With Google, there is no excuse for not knowing the company.

5) Get through the first two minutes.  Smile, sit up straight, and be ready to spit our your positive story because you will get the "Tell me about yourself" stuff then.  And be ready to do it confidently and sincerely because if you don't nail it in the first two minutes, the odds are against you. 

The Clothes Make The Man

Cahoots writes on Sucking Downward.

"good advice i think, the only prob is some times getting another job is not a great option coz of responsibilities or bad market. And in case of people who don't deal with clients (like me) our firm really doesn't care how we dress...i am wondering if i shd still spend money on good clothes...usually i don't."

I hate to write about what I consider to be trivial matters and clothes is (are?) trivial.  But they make a difference or we wouldn't spend billions of dollars on them and have fashion magazines and all that stuff.

And people judge people by how they dress.  Trivial again but true.  And there has never been a better time to dress well and dress well cheaply.

Lets take Cahoots.  Cahoots says her firm (assuming Cahoots is female, maybe not) doesn't care how the employees look because they don't deal with clients.  But if you are wanting to advance in your firm then your clients are not the outside clients, they are 'clients' as in your bosses.  And one way to get in the 'club' is to dress like the other members of the club, the club being the management that runs the place.  So if your boss dresses one way and you, a member of the great unwashed, dress another way you are telegraphing to them "I don't want to be a member of your lousy club" and you never will be.   

Some people literally wear their individuality on their backs, and fronts.  They are saying I will dress the way I want so screw you, judge me on my talents, not my clothes.  The good employee that wants to make more than the minimum wage says 'why introduce a non-issue like clothes into my career plan?  Dress decently, eliminate the issue and judge me on my real contributions to the firm.'

And it is easy and while some expense is involved it is not a deal breaker, not with the expanse of options out there.  First the easy part.  Determine if you want to be part of the club, the managment.  You probably do because that is where the money is and I always wanted to be in on the decision making process rather than being told about the decision after the fact.  So lets assume you have some amibition and want to make the big bucks. 

Now for the next easy part.   If you have concluded that you are a grooming nightmare, you are probably right.  If you are all in black or nose rings or way oversized droopy jeans and your bosses are in golf shirts, you have a problem.  Or if you are the one in the golf shirt and they are in the other stuff, you have a problem.  Which is the solution.  Look over the management team starting at the top and pick out the one or two that suit you from a physical match up and the ones you wouldn't mind dressing like.  Take a quick inventory of what they wear and duplicate it.

But they have more money and shop in real expensive stores, you say.  Not really.  Clothes are cheap if you do it right.  If you work for a company with a business casual policy (and who doesn't?) just take your list and head to Eddie Bauer, Lands End, Target, Gap and so on.  Better yet go to their outlet stores.  A stop for us on any trip south of here is always the Bass andLiz Claiborne outlet stores.  Sue shakes them down and comes away the best dressed at her job.  For next to nothing. 

If you are in a stuffy, suit type environment you may have to wait awhile.  Department stores have their major sales twice a year.  Just call for the dates.  I figured I needed four good suits in my inventory at any one time so bought one in the winter, one in the summer and so on.  I needed eight good shirts, four blue and four white and so a call to Lands End when they had their sales twice a year and a box ended up on the front porch and I was good for another six months.  Ties the same way.

Does it cost money?  Yes.  Will it kill you?  No.  Is it worth it?  Maybe not if you are Einstein.  But for those who are not rocket scientists, it probably is.         

Cars Will Drive You Nuts

Went through an interesting couple of days doing car analysis.  Seems it is hot over in western Louisiana these days and the air conditioning in my son's vintage 1981 Porsche has never been very good.  Actually, Porsche air conditioners were never any good until the 1990's.  Ferry Porsche, the son of the founder and the guy that ran the company for about forty years, hated air conditioning with its reduction in the performance of the car.  But Ferry drove around the Black Forest and not the southwestern United States.

So a couple of weeks ago Marc called and said we have to do something.  Not sure what WE meant but figured it had something to do with money.  And the debate soon centered itself on either 1) being reasonable and prudent or 2) going nuts over a car.

The reasonable and prudent part centered on a truck.  The nuts part was a 2002 BMX 3 series.

Trucks are great.  A late model 90's can be had for way under $10,000 and the air conditioning is very good.  As in incredible.  Comfortable to drive but no BMW.  But you can throw all your household belongings in the back.  We have a 1992 Chevy pickup and I asked my mechanic when I should sell it since it was getting a bit old and has 256,000 miles on it.  His answer, "Never."  Seems the 90s were the best times for trucks and Chevy made the best (we're Chevy guys) and they never break.  Well, the engine never breaks as long as you change the oil.  My mechanic admitted everything else will break but everything else is replaceable and obtainable at the local auto store. 

The parts that break and the associated cost, including labor,  are:

Alternator $190

Battery $60

Radiator $200

Water Pump $300

Fuel Pump $350

Tires $300

Starter $150

Brakes $300

Air Conditioning ? but last time I paid about $400 to get the whole system pretty much upgraded.

Not bad for way under $10,000.  And they look nice if you like trucks.

Now for the BMW of which, of course, the 3 series is the top of the line.  Six speed manual transmission, 330 hp out of a six cylinder engine, variable handling setups, GPS, and every electronic thing you can think of.  And huge repair bills when something breaks and expensive to buy.  We looked at three here in town and the average price was north of $40,000. 

But it drove and looked great.

And then Marc found one on Ebay for "Buy It Now" for $27,000.  In Houston.  And the seller was a dealer with a 99.5% approval rating and it was still for sale after not selling on Ebay.  I talked to the dealer and pretty much concluded that the car had not sat at the bottom of Houston harbor for a year and the low price was based on his low overhead and fairly high mileage of 81,000.  Note to prospective car buyers--don't worry about mileage.  High mileage means highway driving which puts very little stress on a car.  Stop and go driving puts a lot of stress on a car.  I always look for cars with high mileage because it is the only thing a prospective buyer can look at.  You can't look inside the cylinders but you can look at the odometer and gasp, "It's got 90,000 miles on it."  Plus, cars with low mileage means the car sat which isn't real good for it either.

So a top of the line Beemer for $27,000.  Add in title and tax and the whole package would be about $29,000.  Plus a lot of repair bills when all the electronic stuff started going haywire.  But not that Marc can't afford it.  The military pays pretty good for putting your life on the line and he just got a promotion to first lieutenant with a $700 monthly pay increase.  I was going to hit him for a loan. 

The finances would work something like this.

Truck Purchase Price, all in, of $9,000.  Dip in to savings, pay cash, sell the Porsche for $10,000 and put the money back in savings.  Net effect is to be $1,000 ahead.

BMW Purchase Price, all in, of $29,000.  Pull $11,000 out of savings pretty much wiping that out, borrow $18,000 from a bank, probably First National Bank of Dad, then sell the Porsche for $10,000 and have an outstanding loan of $8,000.

Actually prudent and very doable if you want to wipe out your savings and go a little bit in debt.  But he certainly has the cash flow to handle it.

And he decided on the truck.  Oh, the cost thing certainly weighed in on the decision but so did a base assignment.  He is going to be based sometime in North Dakota and I don't think North Dakota has a BMW dealership.  Even if they do, it is not near where he is going to be. 

Sometimes finance decisions aren't just about money.

   

 

The Marine Corps and Housing

Finance is simple.  Maddeningly so.  So is the Marine Corps.  I read that the Marine Corps does everything in threes; three marines to a squad, three squads to a company, three companies to a ... and so on.  I may have that all wrong but it makes sense.

And most financial problems, or opportunities if you are a Pollyanna, come down to three variables.  And no more so than in housing.  If you look over at the categories on the right you will see one about buying a house for something like 30% off.  And here is a summary of how we did it 30 years ago and then how it is happening again, I hope.

Back then we had salaries of x, a desire to live in a particular area that just happened to be and still is, the most expensive part of Chicago and the house we were looking at was way too much money.  There are the three variables.  Oh, there are tons of others like the number of bedrooms, baths, condition but if you can't get the decision making down to three variables you, in 99 out of 100 times, do not have the issue in focus.

So here is what we did about the variables.  The first variable-nothing.  Our salaries would go up, we hoped, but not in a month and not by enough to close the gap so the first variable was actually a fixed variable.  The second variable was location.  We looked at other areas but kept coming back to this area so another fixed variable.  The only variable variable was price.  The one variable that most people think is the fixed variable.  This was back when dinosaurs roamed the earth but the actual price is not the important thing, the bargaining is.  The owner wanted $124,000 and the house sat.  Finally she lowered it to $110,000.  I figured we could afford $90,000 max.  In bargaining most deals are struck in the middle so I had to figure out how to come in around $90,000.  Added $70,000 and $110,000 together, divided by 2 and got an average of $91,000.  So told our realtor to offer $70,000.  She howled and we went up to $72,000.

Howls from the owner.  But not silence or flat no.  Finally got the house for $88,500.  Sold it six years later for $156,000.

Fast forward 28 years to last Sunday.  As Yogi Berra said, deja vu all over again.  We are in the process of designing a new house and the three variables popped up again.  First, we have made the decision to build a new house.  We have a beautiful lot and a primal urge says new house or you will stay in the old one and grow old.  Makes no sense but there it is.  So the first variable is fixed. 

Then came the plan which no matter how we drew it ended up eight hundred square feet bigger than our present house.  Huh?  Sue tried to nickle and dime it and get a few square feet here and there.  My point was we didn't need a dining room, a living room, kid's rooms (there are plenty of hotels nearby) or three baths or a guest bedroom.  I could live in a trailer with no problem.  BUT we ended up with all those things and to just cut room sizes made no sense so the plan was fixed.  Variable number two now is a fixed variable.

Variable number three is cost.  The one variable most people think is fixed.  Not to me.  I fixed up that house in Chicago and I renovated three othe houses so here I go again.  And the challenge is huge because the cost of building here is $110 a square foot.  And to get the house built for what I think we can sell the existing house for is $60 a square foot.  And I think I can do it.

This exercise is not about building a house for $60 a square foot.  It is about finding the one variable that you have control over and is the key to financial success.  If you can't find the variable you will not make the project work.  See, finance is simple.   Now I have to figure out how to build a house for $60 a square foot.

Surviving

Cahoots wrote concerning the Sucking Downward post--

"good advice i think, the only prob is some times getting another job is not a great option coz of responsibilities or bad market. And in case of people who don't deal with clients (like me) our firm really doesn't care how we dress...i am wondering if i shd still spend money on good clothes...usually i don't.'

Forget the clothes for the time being and concentrate on "getting another job is not a great option coz of responsibilities or bad market."

Cahoots is absolutely right and I don't want to appear flippant if suggesting the way around a problem is always to get a new job.  Getting a new job is the last resort.  The absolute last resort.  You should quit your present job only if you strart carrying a gun to work with plans to whack your boss.  Or something close. 

So if you have responibilities and expenses (who doesn't?) and you have to work, you have to learn how to survive.  So here is how I survived working nine years for one company, eleven for another and two each for the last two.

1)  Realize that work is work.  Work may someday be your passion or calling but if you are miserable right now, it is work, you are trading your time and talents for their money.  I worked for a subsidiary of Nestle and at a conference in Switzerland a top exec got up and said something like "We pay you for the work you produce.  We are not here to make you happy or self fulfilled.  If you are unhappy or unfulfilled, utilize your personal time to resolve these issues.  While at work, work."  Anybody that has sat through a Swiss business meeting knows thats how those guys talk.  No HR nonsense, no mission statements, just short and sweet.  And the guy was right.   

A company will not make you happy if you are unhappy.  So do your work and go home and pursue your passion.  If you want to write a book, write a page.  If you want to fix the house, fix a light fixture.  If you want to go back to school, check out night classes.  Get in shape, work out till you drop.  Or get a punching bag.

2) Responsibilites.  Contrary to what you read in the papers or watch on TV, I believe that most people love their spouses, partners, kids, parents, siblings.  But if you are supporting them, you have responsiblity.  And that can weigh you down.  At one point; with a mortgage, utilities, dental and medical bills and food bills that were killers, I started complaining and basically feeling put upon.  I had the weight of the family on my shoulders.  I basically just wanted to bitch a little but my wife, not one to put up with much self pity, said "ok, what is is you want to do?"  Didn't take long to get past the dream of being tight end for the Chicago Bears or winning a world series for the Cubs and then hit a stone wall.  I didn't know and I didn't have a plan.  Her point was come up with a plan or quit bitching.  Everybody has responibilities and that is good.  Just don't blame others.  Recognize you have them and if you feel you are overwhelmed and you convince yourself that you are doing all the work, come up with a plan to spread the work.  You might be surprised at the result.

3)  Evaluate your situation.  Figure out the following--Do I like my company?  Do I like my boss?  Do I hate my boss?  Do I like my co-workers?  Do my co-workers hate our common boss?  Is my boss a unique moron or is all senior management (defined as anybody above you) a bunch of morons?  Are there opportunities within the company but outside my department?  Is this a badly run company or an industry leader?  Would I be better off somewhere else or is the grass always greener?  This happened to me.  My first job lasted a long time and I became convinced I worked with some of the stupidest, most bureaucratic idiots on the planet.  Finally went to another company and the previous guys suddenly looked like brain surgeons.  Talk about panic.  Made the most of it and things slowly, very slowly, improved.

4)  Evaluate yourself.  Are you a good employee?  Do people like you?  More importantly, do people respect you?  Are you good at what you do?  If you can honestly say that you are giving your all to the job and you are a honest, ethical, bright worker getting screwed by the Man, then it is time to look for another job.  If not, try to be and see if anything happens in the workplace.  Give this enough time--6 months to a year-- and then reevaluate whether you are a honest, ethical, bright worker getting screwed by the Man.

5)  Always be looking for a new job.  Keep your resume up to date and make the effort to network.  I hate that word but to me it really means going to meetings in your field, meeting new people, keeping in contact.  I didn't do enough of it and wish I had.  One side benefit--It will keep your mind off the lousy job you have.

Sucking Downward

Sucking up is the accepted or better known path to corporate success but sucking downward helps too.  Sucking downward means not just looking to your 'superiors' for advancement or ideas but also being nice to the people below you because you never know who you are going to meet on their way up on your way down.

Here is an article on sucking up I saw at the Wall Street Journal Online.  Browse and then go to Uncle Bill's 10 steps for success.

Why Mr. Kiss-Up Keeps Getting Ahead
	By Jared Sandberg

It's one of the most enduring mysteries of the workplace: How can talented people languish in their jobs unrecognized and under-compensated while others, some seemingly dumb as a stump, thrive and rise?

The answer lies largely in a skill often cited by experts as one of the greatest determinants of career success: "Managing up" -- more or less the ability to influence your boss to invest in your ideas and advancement. It's one of the cluster of so-called soft skills, including social graces and leadership talent, that have gained almost as much popularity in companies as it has among the legion authors and coaches who profit from it.

But managing up is a skill so soft it's squishy. It's easily mistaken for something else: self-promotion, manipulation, covering one's fanny, and glossing over the ugly stuff. Sometimes it looks like upward managers are noshing on the fruits of others' labor by presenting their staff's work as their own; other times like they're kissing up -- one of those perceptions that is in the other eye of the beholder.

Managing up is supposedly distinguished from fawning because it's not done for personal gain but for the benefit of the company that will nevertheless result, some career coaches tell you without irony, in personal gain.

It's easy to do badly and hard to do with your dignity and friendships uninjured. "This is fraught with danger," says Robert Cialdini, professor of psychology at Arizona State University. "It's one thing that's especially subtle and textured in the way that it works."

And yet, like buying insurance and flossing, we're all supposed to do it. That's because the notion that you are master of your career is a quaint one. "Many people believe that if you are doing a good job and accomplishing something, your bosses necessarily know this, but they don't," says Jeffrey Pfeffer, professor of organizational behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. "The only people who can help you are people above you."

That means, he says, you have to do two things: Tell your boss about your accomplishments and tend to the relationship, including face time, flattery and asking for advice. But those things, I point out, can sound like gross ingratiation, the kind that wins enemies and loses self-respect. "I guess," says Prof. Pfeffer. "But how are you going to fare in a competition against people who have fewer inhibitions?"

The good news is self-promotion may not work as well as it seems. Arizona State's Prof. Cialdini and Prof. Pfeffer co-authored a recent study in which they found that self-aggrandizers don't pull the wool over the eyes of others as well as they do over their own. The bad news: You have to all but deputize someone as your campaign manager. "Your most subtle and savvy strategy for managing up in terms of presenting or promoting your general accomplishments is to have that information come from the lips of someone else," says Prof. Cialdini of his study's findings.

Among the most effective ways to manage up, he adds, is to give ownership of your ideas to your boss who is likely, by virtue of being your boss, confident that his ideas are better than yours. "Point out that what you're recommending is logically consistent with a stand they've already taken," says Prof. Cialdini.

For Jane Vawter, an IT program manager at a nonprofit, managing up is effectively getting to know your boss's preferences, tastes and quirks and then aligning your own with them all so you can "get him/her to allow you to work the way you want."

It sounds exhausting. "Some are more work than others," she says. But she concedes that anyone who has a good relationship with the boss, rightly or wrongly, "can easily be perceived as someone who kisses up."

A bigger problem than managing up well is working for someone who manages up to the exclusion of down and sideways. Even the boss being sucked up to won't necessarily appreciate it. Paul Nesbitt, founder of an engineering firm, remembers one employee who was so good at telling him what he wanted to hear that he once listened to a retelling of one of his own stories he had just passed on a few days earlier. "He repackaged it so well he had me listening for a while," he remembers. "Wow, that's really neat," he thought briefly.

One administrative assistant at a family business, who says she prefers to remain anonymous rather than go into protective custody, has a colleague who manages up by keeping her boss in the dark "so he has to rely on her." Meanwhile, she doesn't help her own reports move up and has withheld approval for training expenses. "You can get an audience with the Pope easier than trying to get her to do something sitting on her desk," she says.

Upward-only management is one of the intractable problems that even consultants admit is intractable. What's an employee to do? "People ask me this question all the time," says executive coach Marshall Goldsmith. "Prayer is one alternative." Surviving as best you can and looking for another job are others, he says. "I'm a consultant. I'm not a magician."

End of article.  Not a bad article.  But not great.

So here are the best ways to handle your boss and your career learned from years of screwing up by Uncle Bill.

1)  Your boss has more to worry about then you.  Your boss has a spouse to deal with, a boss to deal with, probably kids to deal with and mounting bills to deal with and, oh yeah, his or her career to worry about.  Anything you can do to make life easier for your boss will make life easier for you.  Helping and doing what you are paid to do is not sucking up.  Not helping puts you over in the problem category and your boss, as stated, already has enough problems.

2)  This assumes your boss is not a nut.  If your boss is a nut, then find a way to work around the mental illness or get out.  I had two bosses that were certifiable.  The first one got promoted and promoted again till he thought he knew more about the cereal business than the chairman and then he got canned.  Cheers went up throughout the company.  The other one flew from Dallas to Sydney for a two hour meeting and then flew back.  That guy was nuts.  I found a better job.

3)  Be a Boy Scout.  Be prepared.  In a meeting, have a pad of paper and write what you think and summarize it.   Doesn't have to be Hamlet, just a summary of the problem and a plan of action.  Make recommendations, not ask for them.  I made that mistake once and my boss responded with that "What am I paying you for?" look. 

4) Do it right even when people aren't watching.  You may not get credit for it right away but you did something noble and you know and somehow that gets out, even if nobody saw it.

5) Suck down.  Look around and see who seems to have their head screwed on right.  Get to know them because they, and you, may be running the place someday.

6) You can say no, just come up with another solution.  I was in corporate and operations hated us because we always said no.  No more money, this is illegal, or can't do it for tax reasons or any other reason just to say no.  Because some people like to say no and often times the idea was a dumb one and thank God, somebody would say no.  But if you say no, think of another way to get what the guy wants done done.  Because people remember people that say no.  They also remember people who try.

7)  Smile.  Walk confidently. Laugh easily but try and not laugh at somebody.  I said try.  Nobody is perfect.  I was the worst at laughing at people but hopefully it was laughing at the pompous ones.

8)  Leave work after your boss.  At least at the beginning.  If your boss leaves at 9 in the evening either rearrange your schedule or, all together now, get a new job.  One of my nut bosses loved to work till 9, 10, 11 at night.  The thing is he didn't get to work till 10:30 in the morning.  I got up at 6 because our kids had to get to school.  I found a better job.

9)  Dress well.  Superficial, you bet.  But if you go in a store and have to pick between a clean, neat box of cereal and box with a dent in it or a bit crumbled, you will pick the clean, neat box everytime.  Same goes for people.

10)  Never think you are going to be anyplace forever.  This doesn't mean slack off.  It means you are a one person product.  All you have is you.  So make it the best product you can and get the best price for it.  People will pay.

KISS

Keep it simple, stupid.  Not the easiest thing to do though it seems obvious.

Here are some 'sins' I see often in investing and then some tips from Money (I know I blasted this rag the other day but it does have some good stuff hidden away) magazine.

-Inconsistency.  Investors start and stop.  They get all excited and vow to be good investors and then stop when they want to buy stuff or get bored.  Make it automatic.  Set up your 401(k) or Roth contibutions and, if you are lucky, your after-tax contributions and don't touch them, the amount anyway.  Let dollar cost averaging take over.  Let Vanguard, Fidelity or your company take the money and live on the rest.  If you can't live on the rest, seriously rethink your spending or rethink your career.  Cash comes from only two places--reduced spending or increased salary.   

-Keep an eye on the big picture, not the pieces.  Lots of investors will obsess on one stock or fund and lose sight of what the whole thing--the portfolio-- is doing.  That is why asset allocation is so important.  You should reach the point where no one stock or one fund will sink the ship.  And that goes for your company match as well.  Learn the lessons of Enron. 

Here's what Steve Savage and Jeremy DeGroot at Money say--

1)  Don't sweat timing--here they apply it to buying a fund or stock after it has had a good run-up.  And then selling when it underperforms.  Put more simply--don't buy high and sell low.

2)  Don't chase performance--pretty much the same as above except they warn that chasing short term winners will skew your asset allocation since assets that have performed well in the recent past usually come from the same asset class.  So if you buy them you are piling into one sector and a sector that is high by historical standards and is probably looking for fall.  Which leads to point 3.

3)  Get the right mix-- Figure out your asset allocation and stick with it.  The allocation I use for my son is 70% S&P 500, 15% international and 15% small cap.  Looking back I should have had more in international and small cap.  But to jump into that right now would be chasing performance.  In asset allocation you have to buy the losers along with the winners.  Because a frog today may be a prince tomorrow.  My son got a pretty hefty pay increase so we will take a lot of that to alter the asset allocation.

4)  Rebalance at least once a year--This is hard and I don't always do it.  But I should and so should you.  And you can do it easier than I can because you, like my son, can DIRECT NEW SAVINGS INTO WHATEVER CLASS IS BELOW ITS TARGET WEIGHT.  In other words, if you are low on international, shift gears and tell HR to go from 20% International to 80% International until you are IN BALANCE.

That's about as simple as I can make it.

Tax Cuts Impacts

The Congress extended two tax cuts the other day--the 15% tax on dividends and the 20% tax rate ceiling on capital gains.  The stock market showed its appreciation by going down 200 points.

Oh, well.  And I don't want to get into the argument about tax cuts for the wealthy or raising taxes to pay down the deficit.  The top 5% of taxpayers already pay something like 50% of the taxes so don't go too hard on them.  Plus we could consider cutting spending as a way to reduce the deficit but that ain't going to happen.

So let's look at the impact of cutting taxes.  There have been only three instances in the last fifty years of significant tax cuts.  The first was Kennedy.  Yes, a Democrat cut taxes.  And the economy went up.  Then Reagan cut taxes in the 1980s and the economy and the stock market went on a tear.  Then W cut taxes in the early 2000s and the economy came back as did the stock market.

Now if you are good, you would say Yeah, but the market went up in 1994 when Clinton increased taxes.  And the stock market was at a record high just before Bush came in.  Correct, but the market in the late 90s was running on fumes and unsupportable PEs so a pullback was in the works.

But, in general, tax cuts are good for the economy and here is some proof.  Oh, and consumer sentiment hit a new low the other day so this should brighten up everybodys day.

-Real GDP has increased $1 trillion, or 11%, between 2003 and the end of 2005.

-Since the tax cuts, 5 million new jobs have been created.  That's more new jobs created here than in Europe and Japan combined. 

-I guess all the bicycles are not made in China as our industrial production has increased 11% over the last three years.

-In less than 2 years over 3.9 million new businesses have been started.

-notwithstanding the last couple of days, the market is up.  The Dow is up 42% and the S&P 500 is up 55%.

-Corporate profits are up 46% since the start of 2003.

-Dividends paid out by corporations have increased from $149 billion to $200 billion.

-Capital spending has increased by 30%.

-The household assets of American families has increased $15 trillion while liabilities have increased only $3 trillion.

-Foreign direct investment in the US has increased 90% since 2003.

-The overall assets of the nation have grown 30% to $160 trillion in three years.

That's enough.  Not all of that is due to tax cuts but a lot is.  And if it ain't broken, and it ain't, don't fix it.  Just quit reading the daily newspaper because you won't find any good news there.  I had a boss that did that and it got him out of a truly depressive state.  Got me out of one too.

Try it.