My wife and I are in the process of building a new home. It's exciting stuff for sure, with lots of things to research and plenty of conflicting information about how one should construct and design a new home.
Recently, while I was sitting at the kitchen table surfing the Web for ideas on decorative rock (about as exciting as watching the grass grow, but somebody's got to do it), a "pop-up" ad appeared on my screen that read, "I Hate Annuities – and you should too!"
Oh well, so much for a relaxing morning surfing the Internet for decorative rock. Now, someone who obviously "hates" annuities (which I "love," by the way) has taken my undivided attention away from shopping for decorative rock for my new home project and refocused it on a subject that really drives me crazy — something I refer to as "financial dogma."
How do I define "financial dogma," you ask?
I'll answer that question the same way a judge did when asked to define pornography. "I don't know if I can define it," responded the judge, "but I sure know it when I see it."
Not just limited to the financial world, dogma of all kinds is showing up in all sorts of places: at school, at home, from the pulpit, from nightly newscasters, politicians, right-wingers, left-wingers and many wingers-in-between. What's funny about dogma is that it usually comes out of the mouths of very intelligent people. The Ph.D. in economics, the financial advisor boasting more degrees than a thermometer, the well-known financial guy or gal on the radio…all assuming they're the only ones with all the answers to life's deepest financial questions.
