This is what I try to focus our site on a lot, as I think this is one of the most needed things,.. maybe THE most needed.

Marketing is different than sales. Yes, salespeople can do marketing, but marketing can be done quite well without a sales staff.

Mutual funds are very clear about their management fees. They are required by law to disclose. And, yes, marketing costs come out of those management fees.

Non-managed, no load mutual funds can have management fees under 0.25% of the investment.

Managed funds will have much higher management fees.

Load funds can take as much as 8.5% of your investment money right off the top (or with a ‘rear end load’).

With a no load fund 100% of your invested dollars go to purchase stock for your account. With a high load fund less than 95% of your dollars get invested.

As far as “guidance from a pro”, if you are just starting out you might
want to pay a ‘fee only’ investment adviser to help you get started. That
person will accept no kickback (or shouldn’t be taking kickbacks) from the
investment he/she steers you into. They should be working 100% for you and
working for the hourly fee you pay them.

I’d advise staying away from ‘no fee’ advisers. It takes only a moment of
reflection to realize that someone is paying them. Now some no fee
advisers may be great people who will do you well, but there is no way to
tell them from the ones who will steer your dollars toward the investments
that give the adviser the largest kick back.

Some years back I had a friend who disliked the profession that he had
ended up and decided that he might want to be an investor adviser. He took
the courses, passed the tests, got the certificates, and went to work.

After a year or so he quit. He found that no matter how hard he tried he
found that the pressure was to sell high load investments in order to keep
his job with a couple of firms he tried working for. He was forced to work
for the companies’ interests and not his clients’ interests. Never forget
that money has a significant corrupting influence.

Some mutual funds are no load. Some mutual funds carry a high load with much of the load going to the “investment advisers” who sell the product.
(Would you please cut your posts into paragraphs?)

Rule one is “A good investment needs no salespeople”.

Good investments sell themselves. Informed and cautious investors seek out good investments. If you’ve got a not-so-good investment then you have to pay someone to push it for you.

What you are talking about is investment strategy. And what you say can be pretty much boiled down to one word.

“Diversify”

I paid a several thousand dollars in “tuition”, but I learned and did well after I graduated.

But, yeah, getting policymakers and even the public to understand this is, not to mention getting them to factor in externalities, a challenge.

consumers are willing to pay more, but translating that into better utility policies seems to be a challenge.

i recommend this roundtable of “good” utility company ceos if you haven’t watched it (starts about 18 minutes in) http://cleantechnica.com/2011/10/21/utility-ceos-talk-solar/

a couple of them bring this up, but seem unclear on how to turn that into better energy policies.

On the money factor — I think it isn’t the only thing for consumers at all (the iPad is not a huge success because of its price, and people do still have values) but on the utility level, cost rules the day.

We are all about the cool factor and the health factor and the national security factor here on CT, and try to stimulate consumer adoption by focusing a lot on that. But cost reduction breakthroughs are also fun, i think

Nonetheless, back to your point, I’m actually planning a piece focused on making the same point you are (I think) — to be titled “Too Cheap for Our Own Good”

Here’s an investment guy and he’s seeing money to be made in renewables. That tells me that we’re winning….

http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/alternative-energy-warnings/1934

p.s. Avoid these investment guys like the plague. They are not the route to financial security, generally speaking.

Would you be willing to pay 3 ½ cents a day to reduce the pollution from the electric power you use by 40%?

In a recent article, the San Francisco Chronicle talked about the high price of adding renewable energy to the grid. Citing a study prepared by the California Public Utilities Commission’s Division of Ratepayer Advocates, it reported that, on average, new contracts for renewable power are 15% more expensive than power from a natural gas plant. he implication is that consumers should brace themselves for big rate increases as the new solar and wind projects come on line. Perhaps it’s worth taking a minute to look at the actual numbers.

The utilities in California must deliver a third of their power from renewable sources by 2020. Their renewable shares are already close to 20%. The question, then, is what the rate impact would be from expanding to reach the 33% goal. Let’s be conservative about this. California Governor Jerry Brown is hopeful that the utilities will actually deliver 40% renewable power within the same time frame. So, let’s assume an additional 20% increment of renewable power.

If, as predicted, that new renewable power costs 15% more than the best alternative (natural gas), what would the effect be on consumer rates and bills? Here is the math:

Purchasing 20% more power at a 15% mark-up adds 3% to the overall cost of power (.2 x .15 = .03). The electricity itself comprises about half of the customer’s bill, so the additional cost of power would result in a 1.5% increase in the utility’s revenue requirement (if the current revenue requirement is 2X, the impact of the added renewables can be represented as 2X + .03X = 2.03X; the percentage change looks like this: 2.03X/2X = 1.015).

Rates would have to be raised by 1.5% to cover the added cost. For customers with an average rate of 18 cents per kilowatt hour, that’s an increase of .27 cents (a quarter of a penny) per kilowatt hour. Customers using 400 kilowatt hours per month would pay an additional $1.08 per month. That’s on top of a current bill of $72.00. For the typical family, the added cost is 3 ½ cents per day.

In our current economy, no rate increase is trivial. But this particular one is small. The utilities could raise rates twice as much this year alone just to cover inflation. And just think about how much this small increase can buy. Since California regulated utilities already get about half of their power from sources with little or no greenhouse gas emissions (hydroelectric, nuclear, and existing renewables), that additional 20% renewable power can knock out about 40% of the emissions that remain. Not a bad deal, for 3 ½ cents a day.

Cross-posted from the environmental law and policy blog Legal Planet.

Tags: electricity rates, Greenhouse gas emissions, renewable energy, renewable power