Book review on Perpetual Euphoria By Pascal Bruckner

The followings is my excerpt from an excellent review by Thomas Meaney on the book French author Pascal Bruckner wrote in 2001, Perpetual Euphoria: ( the full review can be read by googling "

Be Not of Good Cheer" or click here: http://www.google.com/search?q=Be+Not+of+Good+Cheer&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a)

 

Are you happy right now? Statistically speaking, most Americans say they are. But how much should we trust their response? Whatever the inner reality, we often feel intense social pressure to pretend to a happiness or contentment that, in truth, eludes us completely.

In "Perpetual Euphoria," Pascal Bruckner, a French philosopher and social commentator, proposes to free us from this "pitiless idol of happiness." He subjects our culture's happiness-instructors and self-help gurus to such savage mockery that it's easy to overlook the seriousness of his argument. Reading "Perpetual Euphoria" feels like watching Friedrich Nietzsche give a close reading to the latest issue of Men's Health magazine.

Mr. Bruckner begins his book with an acerbic history of happiness. His version of the story goes something like this: Once upon a time in the West, the pursuit of happiness was not the chief end of life. Parents did not lose sleep over their children's prospects for self-fulfillment; instead they raised them to be burden- bearing members of their community. Christian doctrine stressed that human beings inhabited a fallen world in which satisfaction was postponed. Not only were pain and agony not to be avoided, they were, at times, opportunities to come closer to God. "It is not shameful to die in pain," wrote Pascal; "it is shameful to die in pleasure."

How did we escape this vale of tears? Instead of rehearsing the usual explanations about the rise of science and technology, Mr. Bruckner claims that the Christian attitude to pain contained the seeds of its own undoing. Many Christians naturally desired to hasten the coming of the Messiah, who would deliver them from their earthly torment. During the French Revolution, this urgent desire was secularized into utopian designs—as when idealists like Robespierre tried to eliminate the misery of the ancien regime and remake society in accordance with republican virtue. But for Mr. Bruckner, as much as for Edmund Burke, any attempt to usher in a reign of felicity will be marked by folly—and may well create new forms of misery. He notes that the more secular Western societies have become, the more sensitive they are to suffering that is no longer justifiable as part of a divine plan.

 

Mutual fund vs. ETF

Why I mostly choose to invest in mutual funds instead of exchange trade funds (ETF)? The main reason is a mutual fund is good for investing a set amount of fund at one time, meaning a fraction of a share in a mutual fund can be bought and sold any time with certain restrictions apply. Investing with ETF, I will have to trade in the multiple of shares, instead of a fractional share, in an ETF at a time.

The feature of mutual funds that can be traded in dollar amounts will benefit investors who like to make dollar cost average investments (i.e., a planned periodic investment with fixed amounts) and periodic portfolio rebalancing.

I have found in no other investment products to make pure dollar cost average investments than in mutual funds. By buying into mutual funds at a planned dollar amount periodically, an investor can dollar cost average his/her investments, buying more when the mutual fund share price is lower and purchasing less shares when the share price is higher.

Next I would like to talk about: What is the beauty of dollar cost average?

Barron’s release its 16th annual online-broker review

This week Barron’s release its 16th annual online-broker review (http://online.barrons.com/article/SB50001424052970203523604576188781715729822.html?mod=BOL_hpp_mag#articleTabs_panel_article%3D1), and it is without merit that Barron’s does not have any review on Wells Fargo Advisors as it did in previous years. However, I realize that reviewers at Barron’s are paying special attention to what they have to offer for wealthy, “active” traders like a Barron's reader.

The closest type of service to Wells Fargo online broker that I can find in the review is Merrill Edge (merrilledge.com) from Bank of America/Merrill Lynch. The review says Merrill Edge has four pricing tiers and they are confusing. The pros of MerrillEdge.com include 30 free equity trades per month with $25,000 or more in your Merrill Edge or Bank of America account.

If an investor simply trades stocks or ETFs only, I think Merrill Edge will do the trick at a very low cost unless the investor indulges in trading and uses up 30 free trades per month that come with his/her combined balance of over $25,000 in Bank of America/Merrill Lynch accounts.

To a frugal investor like me, I would like to keep my investment cost down, so Merrill Edge or Well Fargo brokerage services are for me to minimize the trading cost. I am an investor with a strategy mixing with buy/hold and periodic rebalance, so hardly I make more than 10 trades per month on average. In my nearly 2-year experience with Well Fargo online brokerage, I never use up the quotas of 100 free trade each year. In the same token, if I have accounts at Merrill Edge, the number of trades I place each month probably will not exceed 30. Therefore if I use both companies’ services, I will only use the free portion of the services.

Before I opened up accounts with Well Fargo in 2009, I made a comparison between Wells Fargo and Merrill Edge (It was called Bank of America online brokerage back then) B of A offer 30 free trade per month with combined balance of more than $25,000 and limited choice of no transaction fee mutual funds.

My choice on brokerage service

Here I don’t intend to promote or endorse any financial brokerage firm’s services, but I would recommend some of the services based on my own experience in using financial brokerage services over last 12 years.

As of today, Zecco Trade has discontinued its free online trades. And so far as I know, Wells Fargo and Bank of America are the only two full-fledging discount brokerage firms that offer free trades for their account holders with certain restrictions.

To meet my personal needs on managing my investment in retirement accounts, I have found that Wells Fargo provides the least costly IRA account service in my case.

If you own more than $25,000 in your combined asset in saving, checking, regular brokerage, and IRA accounts, you can consolidate under Wells Fargo’s banking and brokerage services and then you can have 100 free trades in each of your regular and IRA accounts each year.