Thoughts on the first three chapters of Guru Gap
I'm re-reading The Guru Gap by David McKnight, because I was irritated at it for the first read and thought it was a bit ridiculous and disingenuous. At a slower read while making highlights, I still think his tone is off-putting and while his math and examples are technically correct, they are irritatingly missing the point that others try to make. He complains that "the gurus" have one size fits all advice, and that HE has individual math based advice just only for the smarty smarts that happened to pick up this book. In short, McKnight pushes annuities. His premise is that you can get an annuity for far less than the nest egg required to pull the same amount using the stock market. He complains that "the gurus" are leading people down the wrong path, either by following Dave Ramsey, who says you can withdraw 8% of your portfolio annually (McKnight, you're right, here, people should NOT withdraw 8%) or Ramit Sethi and others who ascribe to the 4% rule. He ...