Ray Dalio is a Greenwich-based hedge fund manager. I don’t know Ray, but by all accounts he is a very successful operator with excellent performance and a smart guy.

Dalio has recently been playing his hand at making far out comments in order to gain attention. Dalio is generally very discrete and responsible (for example, he did not go on CNBC when Bitcoin hit 19,000 and say it was going to 40,000 like other frequent CNBC guests). Nonetheless, his latest piece of advice is not for you.

You see, Dalio stated to CNBC that saving money in cash is “the worst thing you can do.”

Dalio correctly stated that cash is tax disadvantaged and that you are taxed on interest at ordinary income rates, making cash a less advantaged asset class from a tax perspective than many of other alternatives where income generated has favored treatment (dividends from equities, for example) and where capital gains can be achieved.

But, Dalio overlooks the fact that cash is always going to be there from day to day. You won’t loose 2/3rds of it as you did in 2000 – 2002 or as you did in 2008 – 2009, or as many of his Greenwich-based hedge fund brethren have done in a rising stock market over the last several years. And, if you aren’t old enough to remember those periods or familiar with these types of losses, you can read about the losses people have recently had on bitcoin or look at the market’s fall in just the week after Dalio’s comments.

For those people who aren’t billionaires and who are dependent on maintaining their current asset levels in order to secure the education of their children, cash is a necessary and appropriate place to be and it can be an appropriate place to be with a substantial part of your portfolio for long periods.

To boot, cash doesn’t earn the 0.09% that Dalio assumes that it earns when he says that it doesn’t keep up with inflation. The leading online savings accounts are paying upwards of 2.25% at the moment, and 1-year online CDs can be found at 2.70%. Dalio needs to familiarize himself with the rates on BestCashCow before he makes incorrect statements such as that.

Note to Ray Dalio, as of the date of this article, cash, even if it were only earning 0.09%, has outperformed the stock market, the bond market, EM, bitcoin and real estate in 2018. It is certainly looking like it might outperform these asset classes in 2019 as well.

It’s very hard to figure out when and how to discuss money with your children. It’s almost as difficult, surprisingly, as talking with them about sex. But there is an easy way, one that also gives them at the same time an unusual introduction to math, especially fractions and multiples.

Today, banks (and there are an unusually large number of both online banks and brick-and-mortar banks) compete with one another to offer the best interest on both short and long-term money accounts and CDs. In fact, there is a dizzying array of offers out there of constantly changing rates.

For parents and children the new environment and competing banks offer a perfect opportunity for introducing easy to grasp but highly important skills in money management concepts and division and fractions. Equally, bank interest rate competition also provides an environment of very low risk, making things both fun and safe. Many online banks – including Ally and CIT – make it particularly easy to open a savings account for minors. Such a savings account is a far safer place to put allowance, presents or earnings than trying to teach your kids to experiment with small stock purchases as a way to introduce concepts of income generation and the like.

What makes it all even better for introducing math and money matters to children is that there are a number of sites, including BestCashCow, where the primary focus is on tracking and making easily available changes and fluctuations of interest and CD rates over short periods of time and across the spectrum of the nation’s banks.

In particular, this site and RatesAndInfo.com have great calculators that offer a real resource to demonstrate to your kids the value of compounding money throughout their lifetimes, and the importance of incremental improvements in a savings rate when compounded over time.

JP Morgan Chase has always been a torchbearer in the banking arena. Under Jamie Dimon’s leadership, it has become a pioneer in mobile banking, provides some of the most valuable credit card offers for consumers and small businesses, and does everything better than other major money center banks.

I, however, would note that it remains quite remarkable that people still keep savings or CD monies with any of the major money center banks. Savings and money market rates are just much higher with online banks and even some local banks and credit unions. Money center banks do sometimes entice people with aggressive promotions.

When I learned that Chase was introducing a new online brokerage, I was intrigued. As I indicated in an early article when Chase first announced this intention in August, I thought Chase could instantly become a leader in this space by making discount brokerage services available to its vast clientele, giving away free trades and making the account easy to open online.

At launch in October, Chase's online brokerage was branded as You Invest. Since the launch coincided with Chase's launch of Sapphire Checking, many were also told through credit card forums and other blogs that they could meet Chase’s 60,000 Sapphire point bonus for Sapphire Checking through a You Invest account. (I suspected and have now confirmed that was incorrect.) I nonetheless wanted to see if I was right that Chase would instantly be a leader among discount brokerages with You Invest, so I was quick to try out the platform. Experiences can differ, but my view is that Chase produced a product which wasn’t even 1/10^th baked and that never should have seen the light of day. I would almost call it disastrous.

The interface is awful. It is completely bare bones and lacking in functionality. Finding anything in the interface – such as a trade or balance history - is basically impossible. For a company that has always focused like a laser on getting the user experience right, Chase seems to have just completely left it out of the equation here.

Placing a trade in this program is difficult and cumbersome, requiring many more time-consuming steps than Schwab, Fidelity or TD Ameritrade. Active traders will find managing or adjusting a trade to be frustrating. There is no options trading or after-hours trading. Chase didn’t seem to involve anyone who knows anything about what an active trader looks for or expects during the trading process.

The absolute worst experience, however, comes if and when you need to reach someone by phone. The first and second line customer support representatives are completely unable to figure out their own system or answer even the simplest questions about either the interface or account activity. Online brokerage CSRs are generally well trained and can field simple account and interface questions. My own hunch after one series of phone interactions is that Chase has not trained its staff specifically for YouInvest, and is using the same phone staff that fields checking and savings account queries. Getting an answer about your account will take 30 or 40 minutes, and then may be inaccurate or outright incorrect.

Surprisingly, but true, Chase has introduced a product that is just grossly unfit for any market, much less for the one that they are addressing.

Chase desperately needs to pull back its You Invest product.

Until they do, view it is as “You Avoid”.