A recent articl,e Is $1 Million Enough to Retire On?, got me thinking. According to the article, the average American thinks that retiring on $1 million is more than enough.
However, living on a $1 million isn’t what it was a few decades ago. It will only generate between $40,000 and $50,000 a year in income. Assuming that your house is paid off and your kids are independent, that sounds like a decent amount to live on.
I’ve been under the impression that after the collapse of the residential real estate market, the commercial real estate market will follow.
My assumption is three fold: 1. Unemployment is much higher than is being reported.
2. Consumer spending will drastically slow down.
3. There will be a credit crunch regarding mortgages for commercial lending
Warren Buffett was recently featured on CNBC where he discussed oil depletion and the fact that we could be close to peak oil production.
He says that we’ve been “sticking straws in the ground” since the 1850s and all of the easy to reach oil has been tapped. We’re consuming 85 million barrels of oil every day and the demand from countries like India and China is just increased. Existing production is maxed out and the fields seem to be in sharp decline.
Legendary investor Jim Rogers has been bullish on commodities since 1999. He started out bullish on oil and metals and to a certain extent on soft commodities like orange juice, coffee and grains.
Here’s a great 10 minute video on his current economic views and what he’s investing in right now.
As always, he calls Ben Bernanke a clueless moron and has a great explanation for why lowering the interest rates is bad for the US economy. That’s always entertaining.
He thinks we might fall into the same trap as Japan and see 17 years of stagnant GDP. That’s downright depressing.
Its the eve before Black Friday. I went to grab an ice cream cone and stopped to admire the lines outside BestBuy. It was 11pm and there were probably 250 people camped outside in the cold. Even the parking lot was entirely full.
Thats one reason I like to shop online at Ebay. Its great for buying new or used stuff at great prices. Its especially good for increasing my coin collection. I started buying gold and silver coins 2 years ago. I’ve bought them all from online retailers like Apmex.com or from Ebay.
According to Bloomberg, Jim Rogers is in the process of getting all his assets out of the dollar.
“I’m in the process of, I hope in the next few months, getting all of my assets out of the dollar. I’m that pessimistic about what’s happening in the U.S.” Rogers said.
“The yuan is the best currency to buy right now, I don’t see how one can really lose on the renminbi in the next decade or so. It’s gotta go. It’s gotta triple. It’s gotta quadruple.”
In Part I, I discussed the various options available to stash my savings to get the maximum rate of return, while preserving liquidity.
I decided to split my savings into 3. The first half while be kept with Bank of America in their flexible 5 month CD currently paying 5.1%. After 7 days, I can withdraw the money without penalty. Not a bad option, since it balances liquidity with return.
However, one of my main concerns is the devaluing of the US Dollar. Its currently lower than its ever been in history. No one knows where the bottom is, and because Ben Bernanke has hinted that he’s going to continue to lower the interest rates, I feel the bottom is still far away.
Even though the markets were down today, my stock portfolio was up 3%. This was mainly because I’m heavily weighted in Oil and Gas Canroys and they were all buoyed today on news of a major takeover. Abu Dhabi’s state-owned utility company, National Energy agreed to buy out PrimeWest Energy(PWI) in a deal worth $5 Billion. PWI was up 30% on the news and all other canroys were up around 5% as well.
On Tuesday, Ben Bernanke cut the Federal Funds rate by 50 basis points (or 0.5%) to 4.75%. While most people may not have expected a cut of this magnitude, they definitely were expecting some sort of rate cut. There’s been too much bad news regarding the economy to think otherwise.
During the July 4th weekend I went to Las Vegas along with some cousins. Rather than book 3 rooms in a hotel at over $200/night each, we decided to stay in a vacation rental. It worked out to be less than half the price and it was a lot more fun.
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