California’s Oprah Effect

It was confirmed this morning that Oprah is going to leave syndicated daytime television to do something on her own network in a few short years. Interesting in reading some of the reporters and bloggers who have been following the story. Many of them reporting now that Oprah would like to move out of Chicago to California but…her financial team has been preventing her from moving her to California completely because of our exorbitantly high income taxes. In other words if Oprah is living in another state, she saves about 10% on her income, which is a lot.  It is estimated that she is  making $275  million per year on broadcast projects. Do the math. That’s $27 million bucks in the coffers if she just stays under the maximum days allowed to stay in California and not be a resident. She has a mansion in Montecito down near Santa Barbara, but she has to limit her time there if she wants to avoid our state income tax. That just confirms what we have already seen over the past few years…a migration of people out of high tax states like California to lower tax states like Texas, Wyoming, Florida where they can still visit California,  but pay far lower taxes.

If It’s Too Good To Be True…

I’m sure you saw the story in the Bee today about a local insurance agent, William Sassman,  accused of running a ponzi scheme and ”duping” a lot of people who lost a lot of money over the years. How many times do we have to hear this sort of story before we learn our lesson. First of all, an insurance license is not that hard to get…you take a four-day course then you take a test. When I was doing it, there were an awful lot of 18 & 19 year olds in there doing it  to get their insurance license. It is not that hard. Having an insurance license does not mean someone is qualified to invest your money. Secondly, if you want to check up on your advisor, there are websites at the SEC, FINRA, & other regulatory bodies as well, where you can check on your advisor or your “prospective” advisor to make sure he or she is on the up and up. This guy was not licensed or registered to sell securities, but it appears that folks really did not check on him either. You can check to make sure your advisor is licensed by a federal regulatory body and see if there are complaints against him or her. Finally, some of the promises being made by this man to his clients were outlandish! It’s trite, it’s cliche…BUT if it’s too good to be true it probably is. If you don’t check with federal regulators about someone you are thinking about giving your money to, then it’s your own fault when it disappears.

Happy Friday …

 I know this posting is not financial in nature, but I think it was worth going “off balance sheet” to offer what may be the best 12 minutes of your day.  If you have kids who ever complain of being “tired,” make sure they watch this with you.  As a side note, Tom Rinaldi, the reporter in this story, used to work at KCRA.  He now works for ESPN and is the best storyteller in the industry bar none.  Have a great weekend!

http://vodpod.com/watch/1165857-walk-on-espn-video