In the interests of Lasting Journalism

My publisher, David Brewster called yesterday:

"Steve, hits on Flip Side are declining," he complained. "People don't read humor. They want sex, money, and celebrity gossip.'

"Then why do you write about who might run for County Auditor?" I asked.

"I misspoke; people are interested in sex, money, celebrity gossip, and speculating about the race for County Auditor. But we have two crack reporters plus myself on the County Auditor beat, so you should focus on sex, money, and celebrity gossip."

I took his advice. Flip Side will cover sex, money, and celebrity gossip. Next week's post will be:

Paris Hilton's Foreign Currency Trysts
Dumps Softening Yuan,
Holds Deep Positions With Rising Euros

Today, however, we will write about money – specifically, financial planning.

Establishing investment objectives is the first step in personal financial planning.

Most investment advisors counsel you to plan carefully--list assets and liabilities, project future income, prioritize goals, prepare a budget, and control spending. Such careful and painful work, they counsel, should enable you to afford college tuitions and a modest retirement.

How exciting! Stop buying things you like. Scrimp and save. Then you can live in a retirement community, discuss hip replacements, and shell out $50,000 a year for deconstructionist soreheads to lecture your kids about 18th century sub-Sahara feminist poets.

I say: Forget careful planning and modest goals. You want to become filthy rich. How filthy is the only question.

How much do you need? Take this quick test:

Financial goals test

I want to:

1. Get rich quick
2. Make a pile of dough
3. Gain wealth beyond the dreams of avarice
4. All of the above

I prefer:

1. Megabucks to chump change
2. A fast buck to a slow buck
3. Genteel wealth to genteel poverty
4. All of the above

I would be happy if I:

1. Won the lottery
2. Inherited a fortune
3. Made ten million dollars speculating in commodities
4. All of the above

Test Scoring

Take your golf handicap and multiply by $1,000,000. This is how much money you will need.

If you are a two handicap, you can be satisfied with a mere two million. Breaking par every third day, you can live happily on this modest amount.

However, if you are a 28 handicap, you will need a minimum of $28 million even to approach contentment. After a round with two out-of-bounds, three shots out of a trap, two lost balls, countless slices, and seven three-putt greens, your only solace is "At least I'm rich."

You may think you could achieve happiness by lowering your handicap rather than increasing your net worth. Forget it. The only way to lower your golf handicap is to cheat. Why cheat at golf and be ostracized, when you can cheat at accounting, insider trading, and post-dating stock options, and be hailed as a visionary business leader?

If you do not have a golf handicap, your investment objective should be to accumulate $10,000,000. This goal is easy to remember with the mnemonic "Ten million bucks; anything less sucks"

Hire my shameless twin brother firm. With ClipFinancialAdvisors it is easy to make ten million dollars. Most of his clients do this in their month. However, they start with $15 million.