Strategic Planning and Investing for Individuals: Asset Protection, Diversification, and Passive Investing for Cash-flow and Lifestyle Liberation

By John Michailidis

What do mid-level executives, entrepreneurs, nurses, small-business owners, doctors, dentists, attorneys, chiropractors, real estate agents, and other middle/upper-middle class earners have in common? They are being fleeced by Wall Street!

For those earning $150K-$300k+ annually there is a better, safer, more l

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brain Forge Press
• Release date: Sep 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9780978819019

John Michailidis

John Michailidis, MSIRE, JD, is an attorney and entrepreneur with degrees in economics, international real estate, and law. As a young man he served with the U.S. Army as an 82nd Airborne paratrooper. With a career spanning 30+ years as a broker, property manager, author, educator, mentor, group investment sponsor, and coach he actively works with those interested in fortifying their futures, preserving their assets, and leaving a legacy that lasts.

Book preview

PART I

Core Concepts

THE REALITY OF THE TIMES WE LIVE IN

As I write this sentence, the 2020’s are turning out to be very interesting times indeed. While I cannot know exactly when you are reading this, I confidently imagine that the world is as tumultuous as ever. Economic bubbles, ceaseless government money printing, the eroding of personal privacy, biohazards, pandemics, wars, geo-political disputes, rollercoaster stock and commodities markets, civil discord and unrest, political intrigue and corruption, ever shifting social mores and values, and increasing government intrusion into the lives of individuals. What a mess.

But who is to say that your personal finances, destiny, and legacy need be left to the capricious events of a turbulent world? People talk about the economy being bad, or the economy being good, and I ask myself what the heck they are talking about and whether or not they even know what they are talking about.

What is the economy? Is it the stock market? If so, which one – the New York stock exchange, the Tokyo stock exchange, the Frankfurt stock exchange? Is it the commodities market? If so, which commodities – gold, oil, silver, copper, pork-bellies, corn, lumber? Perhaps they mean currencies markets, or labor markets, or the price index, or the manufacturing index, or the housing index? Truth be told, almost nobody understands what they are saying when they parrot the words being endlessly blathered out by TV pundits, talk-show hosts, bloggers, and YouTube soothsayers.

A quick review is in order to help get your thinking on the right track. Economics is nothing more than the science/study of how scarce resources are allocated. Say you make $200,000 a year – what choices will you make throughout the year with respect to how you allocate that $200,000? That decision making process is the core of economics, plain and simple. You might not think of yourself this way, but you are an economist, each and every day of your life.

You are obviously not going to purchase a private jet on your $200,000 a year income, because you simply do not have the resources to do so. In fact, no matter how much money you make, your resources will always be scarce relative to what could possibly be purchased – you might be worth $20,000,000 and a private jet is well within your means, but a fleet of 100 jets is not. Every economic actor comes up against the reality that their individual resources are limited to some extent, so the decisions they make are necessarily confined to those within their means (or, maybe not – more on this later). Economics is about the choices people make with respect to goods, services, savings, investments, relationships, and time (did you catch that hint?).

That said, even for choices clearly within your reach, the fact of limited resources means that all choices cannot be selected, so some choices must be discarded in favor of others. You can afford a Lexus, or you can afford a BMW, but you cannot afford a Lexus and a BMW – one must be selected at the cost of the other. Economic choices necessarily mean that there will be winners and losers in the game of choices.

And the game of choices does not only apply among competing choices within the same category. You can choose between a Lexus, or a BMW, but alternatively you can choose between a Lexus, BMW, and a much less expensive used Toyota that leaves you enough free cash to make a down payment on a small rental house that generates income. Alternatively, you could choose between a Lexus, a BMW, a used Toyota and small rental house, or a motorcycle, small rental house, and several ounces of gold coins. The reality of economic decision-making is that every allocation decision is a choice amongst an infinite number of possible choices and combinations of