Steak Houses and Retirement plans

Well,  last night the wife and I went to one of those free retirement planning seminars.  To our joy it was at Ruth's Chris Steak House.   The filet was OK,  but not nearly as good as Houstons. 

The seminar itself was not what I expected.  I've been to legitimate seminars by the likes of Raymond James and this was totaly different.  It was put on by an organisation calling itself the Maximum Wealth Institute..   The fact that when you Google the name you get no hits should send off alarm bells.  But I digress.   

The average age of attendies at the event was probably 55 to 60 or so,  mostly educators (teachers) about to retire.  In my opinion an age at which you  should have your retirement figured out many years ealier.   Hopefully people get their stuff together in their late 20s or early 30s,  if not you might be in trouble later on.

 The pitch was "Get the equity out of your home and make it work for you."   "Borrow at 8% and invest at 6% and still make money because of the tax advantage".    A complete bunch of horseshit if you ask me.  Just mortgage your home to invest in annuities (insurance).   They tell you the money you pay to the mortgage is tax deductable but fail to mention you have to pay income tax to deduct it from,  it is not a tax credit..  Lets do the math,  I paid in $5k in taxes and have $13k in interest payments that are "Tax deductable"...  Hold on, I just got screwed out of $8k,  down the shitter....  We will not mention the front loading on the annuities and all the bullshit fee's these clowns are soaking you for.One could rant about it for hours.

We ended the 2.5 hour seminar feeling guilty.   At our table was a true believer,  coming back for a visit with his sales guy.  At points in the Powerpoint presentation he would mumble in agreement.  All I could think of is that this poor sap worked his entire life just to get soaked by these creatons and now his hard earned cash is buying me a steak...

I would suggest anyone take up these seminars,  its sorta like watching a street magician.  Just don't lets them at your cash.  Also ,  you can find one or two points in the presentation worth taking notes, because to give it the air of being above board they do dole out a few useful tips/ mention some useful ules to understand.