The tax on EPF has been rolled back. That does not however conclude the debate as to whether annuities make any sense from a post retirement perspective and whether there should be some nudge or compulsion to purchase annuities.
Most of the opposition to annuities comes from people who compare returns from annuities to Fixed Deposits / Tax Free Bonds etc. and point out to the fact that the returns from annuities seem to be somewhat lower.
With all this obsession over Make in India followed by the Make in India week that was recently celebrated in Mumbai, it is necessary, more than ever, to think of the true costs of making something in another country. India has it’s own issues & which I’m sure will be eventually solved by thoughtful trial & error. But it’s also interesting to look at history & learn from previous attempts of making stuff in places where outsiders have never had to manufacture something at an enormous scale.
Exactly four years ago, I wrote about Productivity Tools for Investors. You can read it here. This post is an attempt to update it with new productivity habits I’ve picked up over the years.
After the demise of Google Reader which used to aggregate alerts & news items via RSS feeds, Feedly and other such tools have taken over that role. Although I’m not a huge fan of RSS anymore & you’ll know why soon. I’m still a devoted Evernote user which helps me remember stuff & organise it the way I want. I also use mind maps but I have found the softwares a bit cumbersome & the maps difficult to remember. So I went low-tech & now draw my mind maps by hand. I remember them much better. Updating them is a pain, but it was worth the effort. (But this works for me & may not for others).
What has insensitive & politically incorrect humour, amazing satire about the tech world & lessons for investors in the tech space? “Silicon Valley” an HBO TV series created by the legendary writer / director Mike Judge. Mike Judge acquired a cult following for Beavis and Butt-head, an animated series and the 1999 film Office Space which was like Dilbert in a film form. Judge has amazing ability to combine relevant ideas & repackage them with humour.
Even though most people may understand this very well, let us define some terms at the outset so that there is no confusion.
Expense Ratio
This is charged by the fund house (AMC) to the scheme (investors money). Investors want this to be the lowest. (Conversely AMCs “may” want these to be the highest).
Entry / Exit Load Type 1
Although there is no financial term like Type 1, this is my own creation for simplicity sake. In this type, the entry and exit load (fees) go to the AMCs or Distributors. This is in addition to the expense ratio above. Obviously investors hate them.
These type of loads have been ELIMINATED in India. This elimination was not without its own share of controversies. More on this later.
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