Don’t rely on the government, there's no time like the present to take control of your financial situation.
By AARON KATSMANAmir Yaron attends a ceremony whereby he is sworn in as Bank of Israel governor by Israel's President Reuven Rivlin, in the presence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon, in Jerusalem December 24, 2018.(photo credit: AMIR COHEN/REUTERS)Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don’t know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is! – Anne FrankOne of my favorite topics to write about is the need to take control of your financial situation. Don’t rely on the government. Two decisions this week, one on a national level and one on a municipal level, have helped reinforce my view.The Finance Ministry’s plan to reimburse employers up to NIS 7,500 NIS to bring back furloughed workers sounds like a great way to incentivize businesses to rehire. But when you dig a little into the plan you see that business owners that did everything possible to keep their employees on the payroll, like cutting their own salaries, taking loans, etc., and succeeded in their mission, ended up getting zero from the government.I am not, at all, for government handouts, but this decision lacks any moral clarity as employers who placed their employees needs above their very own get slapped in the face. What if there is a second wave of the novel coronavirus or some other economic crisis, how many will fight to keep their workers when they can just furlough them and end up profiting?The second decision, this on a local level, is that the Jerusalem municipality has decided that restaurants and bars deserve taxpayer money, but other businesses are just not that important. The plan to close major thoroughfares and create pedestrian malls, two to three nights a week, so that these places of fine dining and drinking can put tables out in the street, completely ignores that people actually live on these streets, and that they will not only have to deal with noise late into the night, but it makes for a logistical nightmare trying to get out of the neighborhood. The result – causing other businesses lost sales because people are basically locked down at home.When deciding what to write about this week, I figured I would go into depth about the negatives of both these plans, I was fired up and ready to write, and then we had a small pre-Shavuot office party complete with cherries, cheesecake and coffee. That seemed to calm me down and bring my focus back to the Shavuot holiday.Based on a Shavuot lecture given by Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein, adapted by Dov Karoll, he said, “The time of katzir (harvest), when Shavuot falls, is contrasted with the time of asif (gathering), indicating the holiday of Sukkot. What is the difference between katzir and asif? Katzir is the first point in the agricultural process at which some sort of usable item emerges from the field. At this stage, the grain has developed to a point where it can begin its humanly controlled processes. However, it is still far from being a finished product. At the time of harvest, much potential has yet to be realized before the time of ingathering.”Developing the theme that receiving the oral law was like an unfinished gift, R’ Aharon continued, “The demand to develop the Torah she-be’al peh (oral law) is not placed upon a single generation or a single individual, but rather upon the entire Jewish people for all time. Thus, at Sinai, God set before the people both the objective text, the raw material of the grain, and the requirement to develop the oral law to its fullest potential – the obligation of every Jew.”So we see that two aspects of the holiday, both the giving of the Torah and the agricultural aspect are both about potential.Combined with our own personal recalibration due to the coronavirus, this Shavuot – more than ever – should be a springboard for us to get back on track. In many respects, it’s a new beginning. It’s not just a spiritual recalibration but a financial one as well. If you think that you should be doing better financially, it’s time to look in the mirror and figure out why you aren’t where you should be. It’s time to realize your potential.I’ve written numerous times about living within means, budgeting and investing. Let’s incorporate these principles into our lives. Time flies. Before you know it you may have weddings to pay for. Then comes retirement. If you don’t start planning for these milestones, you will be up the creek when they arrive and you have no way of funding them. The government certainly won’t help! If the coronavirus has taught us anything it’s that we can live without spending money on all kinds of things. And we can still be happy.Let’s start actualizing our financial potential. Hag Sameach.The information contained in this article reflects the opinion of the author and not necessarily the opinion of Portfolio Resources Group, Inc. or its affiliates.Aaron Katsman is author of the book Retirement GPS: How to Navigate Your Way to A Secure Financial Future with Global Investing www.aaronkatsman.com; aaron@lighthousecapital.co.il.
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