From: mincy@think.com (Jeffrey Mincy)
Newsgroups: misc.invest
Subject: Re: Charles J. Givens
Date: 22 Jul 92 19:11:51 GMT
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge MA, USA
NNTP-Posting-Host: mjolnir.think.com

In article <1992Jul22.120412.14061@husc13.harvard.edu> jdavis@husc13.harvard.edu writes:
>In article <2063@tivoli.UUCP>, dfavor@logan.tivoli.com (David Favor) writes:
>>
>> [Much about Givens deleted]
>>
>> I am curious... why should this person cancel? the membership guarentees a
>> $1000 return the first year of your money is refunded. so if this individual
>> makes/saves the $1000 great. if not they get their money back. seems to me
>> there is very little exposure to loss in this situation. there is no guarentee
>> in reading the book.

I almost hate getting sucked into the big Givens debate, but.

I have the second book, it was pretty worth what I paid.  But, It isnt going to 
save me anything on cars or insurance.  I'm not going to invest in tax liens
or discounted mortgages.  Most of the book was rather obvious.  Some of the
book annoyed me.  EG,  save money by limiting your liability coverage,
then umbrella liablity coverage is good.  Secondly, he says, dont listen to 
anybodies market timing method -- Do my method.  His method is when interest
rates are low be in stocks, when rates get to %9.0 switch to money market, when
interest rates start falling switch to bonds.  Sounds like market timing to me,
(Although a simpler one than most).  Third, his advice on recognizing bogus
financial planning advice is if the planner recommends "dollar cost averaging".
Givens recommends investing 10% of your income (reasonably).  If you have 
a fixed salary then guess what you are doing when you invest the same 10% of
your salary every month in a stock mutual fund?

My recommendation is that this person buy or borrow the two Givens books,
and *read* them.  You will then have a real good idea of the type of advice
that you are going to get from Givens.  If you need more of the advice 
pay the fee, otherwise, not.  

As I said I thought most of the (second) book was rather obvious, but there 
was enough ideas in the book, some of which I hadn't thought of, or knew,
that the book was worth it.  I didnt buy the first book because it didnt
look like it was worth it.  Your mileage will vary depending on your 
circumstances.


>Also, it appears to me (with no knowledge of this system whatsoever other
>than what has been posted) that one of the strategies is to increase your
>insurance deductable, thereby saving you $x per year in insurance costs.
>
>This is dangerous!!!  Insurance companies are not stupid.  If they're
>giving you the option of increasing your deductable, then it's probably not
>a good thing for you to do.  I know that there are some cases where you
>want a high deductable (if you can't *afford* to pay the higher insurance,
>for example), but if you get in a car accident or whatever, rest assured
>that this strategy will have cost you money, not saved you money.  With a
>$500 deductable, you effectively have *no insurance* for an insured
>accident that costs $500 to fix.

I completely disagree.  Get the higher deductable.  The purpose of insurance
is to protect you against catastrophic loss.  The $250 difference between 
a $250 deductible and $500 deductible is not a catastrophe.  If you are in
an accident and you have to pay a higher deductible then of course you will
wind up paying more.  The critical factor is "if", and your expected frequency
of accidents.  If you expect to have lots of small claims then by all means
get a lower deductible.  If you expect to have a claim once every several 
years then get the higher deductible.  I personally carry $1000 deductibles 
and excess liablity.  

>Well, high deductables do encourage safe driving, fire safety, etc., so
>I guess there's something there...
>
>Jason Davis
>jdavis@husc3.harvard.edu


-- 

-- jeff
mincy@think.com