(originally posted and written on our other blog oct 3rd 2008)
Oct 3rd 2008
Surprise, surprise, surprise the fat cat politicians won again.
Headline: “Gloom and doom, must pass this bill or Lord Voldemort will return to kill us all.” They crammed this legislation (chock FULL of pork barrel additions) through without thought for what can happen, not what WILL happen, what can happen. These type of decisions need to be thought through more thoroughly. I know John McCain wants to be president, Obama wants pork barrel and to show he knows how to fix the economy, but come on! Have we not learned our lesson here? If we give these fat cats money, Wall Street will just find a way to exploit it, to take monies when they don’t deserve them, postpone the inevitable bankruptcy and still get their million dollar pay.
We need to look at what may happen, what do I mean by that? Well in business, and in the law decisions need to go through a what can happen filter; what can go wrong, what if scenarios. We know they want this money, I know the economy looks bad and Barney Frank and Schumer (who were at the helm steering this ship to disaster without taking responsibility) want to make you look the other way. The politicians SAY that this money is intended to help small business and Main Street. But it won’t, it won’t help you and me, it won’t get the banks to loosen the loan money for good people, it won’t save the failing businesses it is served on a silver platter to. What it will do is postpone the inevitable demise of bad business run by greedy executives who will still pay their lavish salaries and give themselves golden parachutes.
Whenever you have a client that wants to make a decision or someone who wants to plan their estate, you have to ask the decision’s result, or document, what if? What can happen and how do we, in advance, protect against a problem, or better improve the results? On a will or trust you need to look to the document and go through the scenario of what if they just passed away and we now need to enact the trust. How does what we have in front of us work and how would it play out? Did it do what we wanted? How could someone attack it or get what they weren’t supposed to? Then you fix it and rest easier that at least you tested it. Not that you can prepare for everything, but you took your time and made the best decision at the time with what you had. Another service we provide is business formations, sounds easy right? Why you can do them online, or go to one of those pay us and you help yourselves type unservices. However, you have to go through an elaborate process to form an agreement and working policy everyone can be happy with, allow the most flexibility, and in the event of a tragedy, or split up and liquidation of the company, a PLAN. That plan has to be tested early on and many what ifs asked. If you don’t and something happens your client will be on the raw end of something that could have been avoided.
Many times with estate plans for non-traditional relationships for example you can have relatives who did not support nor like the deceased come out of the woodwork and thus deny the trust and will;s ultimate goals. In that case a do it yourself will and trust will not work and you have to design a document and test what could happen.
To get back to the crammed legislation at hand, the politicians need to stop and look at what could happen with this plan in place. How could someone take advantage of it? Will it do what we want? What is the accountability? Who will answer if something goes wrong? None of these things are happening and Barney Frank and his Pelosi gang will shove this down our throats with an all to willing disappointment of a president. It will NOT do what we need and it WILL be a disaster mark my words. we dont HAVE to act now, and so what if they fail? lets slow down and think before we pony up so much money to greedy executives who made the bad decisions in the first place. So call your congressman and tell them your thoughts, and better yet, post your response to us here! Good luck and see you again!
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