How bad is it for our economy

I am not a gloom and doom type but I do believe in being prepared and I also don’t believe in just letting your money sit and wait in mutual funds and stocks when a clear bad time is on the way.   If I were you and I had my money in conventional US Stocks I would get out and do it now.

How bad is it really? I invite you to listen to this interview on the Glenn Beck show with Comptroller General David Walker. This should scare the hell out of you. You will learn how bad the pending social security nightmare really is.   Honestly we are “bankrupt” as a nation.

If you add this to the mortgage problems and our other weaknesses we are in real trouble.

So where would I put my money or more accurately where is my money going?

• First I am putting a good chunk into 2 year Australian Bonds at a guaranteed rate of 7.5% plus any gains as the dollar further weakens.
• Second Gold is a good hedge that has done very well, I will buy more and my only regret is that I did not buy more in the past.
• Third hold cash and possibly in the form or foreign currency such as in a United Kingdom or Canadian bank perhaps even buy bonds in some other forigne markets. Right not as I mentioned above Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the UK are all in great shape financially.

I don’t want to sound un American here at all but the simple fact is we are in over our heads for more then 58 trillion dollars and we have zero.   Again listen to the interview with David Walker, this man has no political axe to grind and he is the chief accountant for the United States government.   His message is simple, we are out of money.

So my advice is protect your hard earned dollars by converting them into something other then dollars.  Perhaps not all of them but pick a percentage and diversify before this bad problem gets a lot worse.

Filed under Business & Marketing | Comment (0)

Save money and become better shot

If you have read much of this blog then you know I am a big supporter of both saving money and the second amendment. In fact I take it a step further as I actually consider it a “duty” for law abiding and sane adults in the United States to be trained on how to use and to own a firearm. In fact I rank it right up there with your duty to vote and exercise free speech.

The other thing I am of course huge on is saving money. Now let’s face it ammunition can be expensive to buy especially for some calibers and makes of gun. In order to be proficient you of course have to practice a lot. The other issue with practice is time, if you live out in the country and can set up a range in your back yard, great, for the rest of us though every practice session is a trip to the gun range. Again this is costly in both time and money.

For me a big part of the solution is high quality replica air guns. I have used such guns to keep in practice and as a great first step in training new people. Air Gun Depot is an excellent source for high quality air guns and you may want to visit their site and see what they have available. The beauty is today’s replica guns are great training aids for a variety of reason’s

• They by and large are the same size, weight and dimensions as actual firearms
• To a high degree they function very similar to the guns they represent
• You can fire them indoors with appropriate safety measures or in many back yards again with proper safety measures so you can practice more often
• They help you teach safety and at the same time are safer then a real fire arm in the hands of a new shooter
• They are very inexpensive to shoot so you can practice a great deal on trigger control etc.
• They don’t develop trigger jerking or flinching in new shooters

In short I think air guns (both airsoft and conventional) are great training aids worthy of use by all firearms enthusiasts. They let you have a lot of fun for very little cost and will make you a consistently better shooter at the same time.

Filed under Business & Marketing | Comment (0)

A different kind of real estate investment

As anyone who knows my true identity could attest to I dearly love to hunt and fish. For many non hunters it is hard to understand how much hunters truly love the animals we hunt. In fact an non hunter would be surprised how much sorrow really is felt in the heart of a hunter that sees a wounded animal or an animal that is killed with no purpose on a highway by a car or truck.

OK so what in the world does this have to do with real estate investing? It has a great deal to do with it. I want to discuss with you the concept of “investing in land for generations to come”. One of my biggest motivations for acquiring wealth is so I can purchase tracts of undeveloped land, improve the wild life habitat there and do all I can to make damn sure it stays undeveloped for as long as possible.

There is of course the potential to profit from this approach if you want to. Land that can be used by hunters and is not marred by human interaction is becoming more and more scarce. I want you to understand that you don’t need to buy hundred acre tracts to participate in this type of “investing” a 1-5 acre lot in the right place can be something you turn into a sportsman’s paradise. The goal would be to find land that either adjoins protected public land or perhaps land that is so rugged that developing it will be so costly as to protect it from development.

Such land is still available in many places all over the country. In fact the harder it is to build on the less it costs and the lower the cost of the taxes on it. Switching your mind from “property flipping” to the long term investing and you start to see some real opportunities. Let’s look at them in two categories, one as investing for money and the second as investing in the future.

Strictly looking at a profit stand point, if you find some nice land especially some that adjoins public and protected land like national forest, state parks or national timber lands you can be pretty sure that simply waiting for a few years will certainly see a return of investment if you want to then sell the land. Now take some steps to manage the land for wild life and you can really see a great return. Put in some feeders, clean out some of the brush and plant beneficial trees and plants in its place and perhaps construct a low impact shelter for camping and you start to really see the potential to not only sell the land at profit but to know that your buyer will want to preserve the land as well. If you can go as far as providing a year round water supply on land that previously had no water on it your return goes way up.

Now turning to the concept of investing in the future I get a lot more excited. To me owning the land is about also caring for it and doing the things I mentioned above. Such land is beautiful and a solid way to hold and insure your wealth. Yet if you really care for and manage the land you have a chance to leave behind to your family something that can continue to provide for wildlife and sportsmen for centuries. Three hundred years from now your great, great, great, great grandson could be teaching his son about wild life, nature and preserving beautiful things because of something you started. Perhaps while showing him an ancient digital photo of you and your family and telling the story about how you gave this gift to the family.

Isn’t that a bit more exciting then a CD, government bond or flipping a multi tenant property?

My view is people should work hard to build and preserve wealth. Yet as you do it is important to think beyond the return at the end of the year, we need to think about the legacy we create. Just something to think about as you build that empire.

So where do you find land like this? You have to hunt for it and venture out into the rural world yet there is at least one very good source to search for and find land like this. It is called United Country and my only warning is if you love country living or long for a place in the mountains you can spend a day just browsing on it. Anyway I would love to hear the thoughts of other nature lovers and sportsman about this type of “land investment” so please give me your feed back below.

Filed under Survivalism | Comments (2)

Thoughts on gun ownership and the second admendment

I am going to be brief on this post and just tell you how I feel and what I think about it along with what the Constitution and its authors actually said.

First you have to understand what the “Bill of Rights” is all about. Many of the authors of the Constitution did not want a “Bill of Rights” as they were afraid any right not included might be infringed upon.   Believing that such a list could become justification for future restriction upon right. As in “it isn’t in the Constitution so it isn’t protected”.   You see you and I are not granted rights by the Constitution, no it simply protects what is seen as a “God given right” to all humans including those around the world, not just Americans.   Such is the nature of being a “shining light on the hill”.

In other words our founders believed all men had the right to arms and did not grant anything, they only sought to preserve that right from tyranny.   Next I am tired of the crap about how the 2nd Amendment applies to the “national guard” or other such nonsense.   While the “militia” is mentioned in the Amendment the “right” is bestowed upon “the people”.   No one doubts what the clear words of “the people” means in the other amendments so why would we doubt it as it is used yet again in the second Amendment.

Further one of the very authors of the Constitution, George Mason stated, “”I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials.”   Yes the only people the founders did not see as protected by this amendment were “a few public officials” in other words the government is excluded in favor of “the people”.   Understand in this Republic we are not “granted rights” or even “granted privilege” by the government, we grant privilege and power to the government at will and at will we are empowered to remove it.   Sound like “revolutionary language”, hell it should the authors were all revolutionaries and considered traitors by the British because they sought and were willing to die for liberty.

My point is you and every other American has an absolute right to keep and bare arms and more I believe the founders saw it as a civic duty to do so.   Think about how you were told in school you should vote simply because you are fortunate to have that right protected and due to that fact you should vote in order to protect that right.   Well, how is gun ownership different?   If you don’t own a gun the thought of someone taking guns away may not bother you.   Go buy one, get trained on it, be safe and understand the empowerment of not waiting 10-30 minutes while your home is being invaded and the lives of your loved ones is in jeopardy.   Do that and then think about a law taking that gun away from you. It will change the equation.

So do I think everyone should be able to own a gun?   Not exactly I think that anyone who has not taken an action to warrant giving up that right should retain it. Just like jail, you have a right to freedom, steal from someone, violate their right and you loose your right and go to jail.   So prohibiting felons, the criminally insane and clearly nuts individuals from getting guns makes sense.   Anyone else should be permitted to quickly establish their identity and buy any gun of their choosing.

I also believe it is your civic duty as a healthy adult American to own a gun of some type.   If you have no experience first take a course and learn safety and proper use. Then spend time once in a while at the range and know how to use your gun effectively.   The more of us that do that, the harder to take away our right it will be for our government. Further let me ask you what would happen to our crime rates if say 80% of home owners had guns, knew how to use them and were willing to do so?

I am a big believer in concealed carry too but that is another post.   So what does this all have to do with building wealth, cutting costs, etc. It has everything to do with it. Proper planning involves “protecting your assets” and let me ask what greater assets you have then,

• Your Home
• Your Family
• Your Health
• Your Possessions

It is a sad state that there are vermin that will take these things away from good people but there are many such scum in our world.   In your home a gun in the hand of a properly trained adult can protect those things. Either that or dial 911 and wait!   That option isn’t good enough for me, I worked hard for what we have, I love my wife, I love my son and anyone that threatens them by entering my home unwanted has a very good chance of leaving in a horizontal position.   I make no apologies for that and neither should you.

I just thought it was a good time to point some of these things out.   I am amazed how many people think we are “granted rights by our constitution” or by the government.   No one is “granted” a right, a right by its’ very nature is inherited and should not ever be taken away from any man unless he violates the rights of others.

Just remember the law that a right left unused is often lost doesn’t just apply to voting.

Filed under Politics | Comment (1)

My New Hampshire Predictions

OK the other day I made a series of predictions on the New Hampshire primary in my what are you doing in 2008 post. Some I got right, some I got very wrong. Lets review….

Republican side

1. Rudy does awful and everyone says it doesn’t matter. - Got it dead on!

2. John McCain wins and his national numbers rock because people are lemmings. - Got it dead on!

3. Mitt Romney does OK and comes in second and they say it is over for him. - Got it sort of, Romney did come in 2nd but the media has held off saying his campaign is over. - Where I went wrong, the republican base stayed with Romney in New Hampshire and only a 4 to 1 break for McCain in independents that voted republican gave McCain the victory. I am not sorry about being wrong here, Romney to me is a much better choice then McCain.

4. Ron Paul does far better then the 8% the polls say he can expect. Comes in third and gets ignored again. - I was wrong he got almost exactly 8% which still put him right in the mix with the other candidates but he did not do as well as I predicted. He did however, largely get ignored by everyone but Fox News. Why? Backlash for the debate the excluded Ron from! Where did I go wrong? I gave the concept of freedom in the minds of New Hampshire voters to much credit. Honestly this concerns me for our nation.

There were really 6 predictions there I got 4 of 6. Not all that bad and I don’t pretend to understand New Hampshire primary voters.

On the Democrat Side

1. Barock wins by 10% - Wrong and the rest of my predictions hinged upon this. Barock lost, I was wrong.

2. Hillary gets slammed and the media runs to her defense. - Wrong, clearly missing number one blew this for me. This is another place I am happy to be wrong. I don’t want Hillary but I think she is easier to be for any republican and her economics while disastrous for the U.S. economy are still better then Obama’s.

3. Edwards does ok in 3rd but the media talks about how that is “hope for his campaign” even though there are only four Democrats in the race. Idiots. - Got it spot on but this was no real big prediction.

4. Bill Richardson gets a clue and drops out. - Another easy one and Bill is “making an announcement at a press conference today”, wanna guess what he is going to be saying.

So how did I blow it so bad expecting Obama to slam Hillary? I commited a cardinal sin and believed the polls with out knowing more about the landscape of democrats and democrat voting independents in New Hampshire. I must admit I am not strong when it comes to understanding how liberals think, like Michael Savage I believe, “liberalism is a mental disorder”.

Well South Carolina is the next place everyone will really be looking at. On the Democrats I am not ready to pick a winner but I do think it is do or die for Edwards. On the republican side look for a shoot out between Mike Hukabee and Fred Thompson. I will make some predictions and go on the line with them in another few days.

Filed under Politics | Comment (0)

Do you need to fund a lawsuit

I am not big on “suing people for profit” and in fact I think that business is a big part of what is wrong with America today. Yet lawsuits have a place and they are a way for individuals and companies to attempt to right a wrong.  Business owners in particular may on occasion have no recourse other to file suit in certain circumstances.

In fact put yourself in this place for a second.  You own a small company that makes software and you come up with a great new product.  Along comes a much bigger company and steals your code, “improves” the product and basically says there is nothing you can do about it.  Such things can and do happen.  Now again you are a small company, facing a much bigger fish and you know they can drag it out and bankrupt you before you ever get a decision.

What recourse do you have?

You might want to consider Commercial Lawsuit Financing to fund your case from LawMax Legal Finance.   There are many times when you can’t get a good attorney on a “contingency basis” which is where the attorney will handle the case and all expenses and only get paid after they win the case for you.   In fact getting an attorney to work that way may be pretty easy in a personal injury case but in a business to business suit it can be very difficult indeed.

Services such as LawMax actually evaluate your case, determine if you have a good case and then if approved they actually loan you the money on that same contingency basis where you only repay the advance if you win your case or reach an out-of-court settlement!.  Again while I don’t think people should be suing for profit it is good to see that a service like this exists to help smaller companies take on their adversaries when necessary.

Filed under Business & Marketing | Comment (0)

What are you doing now that 2008 is here?

Don’t worry this isn’t one of my “get your financial butt in line” posts, well mostly not. I am just wondering what everyone is up to in general, like what you are watching on TV, etc. Personally I have been enjoying Celebrity Apprentice quite a bit. Check out this video showing what a snake that Omarosa is. Got to be one of the biggest sleezes known to man in my book. To me this is why so many people are looking to build a business of their own, to buy a business or just to find some way to be independently employed. I mean who really wants to deal with a corporate environment that has far more then its’ fare share of Omarosas.

I have also started out on a diet. Last year I elected to not go Elk hunting because honestly I was afraid I might die somewhere alone on the mountain. The last time I went I had a great but tough time. I came home with blistered and even bloody feet and was sore for a week. Back then old CostCutter was in much better shape. This year going out into the unforgiving wilderness alone seemed like a big risk. Since I am way to young to give up that type of life I am getting back in shape. Who knows, perhaps when I loose my weight I will come clean and say who I am.

Additionally I am breathing some new life into a few of my businesses with some creative ideas and looking to hire a few new creative and talented people. The search for talent is really tough right now, I just listened to this podcast on the shortage of talent in the market today and I have to really agree with the guest speaker. While real estate investing today seems to be a buyers market there is no question that in the talented and skilled employee market it is a sellers market. If you are good, have a proven track record and can deliver then today you call the shots. If you are in the market for a new position and are not finding a lot of opportunities I recommend you get in touch with a good executive recruiting firm.

On another note all together I really think the 2008 presidential race is off to an interesting spin. Ron Paul still seems to be shunned by the media despite basicly finishing in a three way tie with 10% of the vote while Rudy was at only 4%. Typical!

Today we focus on New Hampshire, I predict the following for the republicans.

1. Rudy does aweful and everyone says it doesn’t matter.

2. John McCain wins and his national numbers rock because people are lemmings.

3. Mitt Romney does OK and comes in second and they say it is over for him.

4. Ron Paul does far better then the 8% the polls say he can expect. Comes in third and gets ignored again.

Such is the stupidity of our media and the political process.

Moving on the the Democrats - Hillary has had a break down practically coming to tears because she was asked how her day was mostly because Barock Obama is now surging in New Hampshire and she is on track to loose again. Of course the news is making a huge deal of Barock’s massive support. His followers indeed love him, they laud his speeches and vision yet the news people can’t seem to find a single supporter that actually knows his position on any of the big issues. America, please wake up, support who you want but for the love of God know why you support them.

My personal view I think Hillary is a disaster for this country as our President, her health care plan, tax hikes and some other policies will only serve to make worse a recession that is flat out coming to hit us hard over the next few years.   That said Barock is worse, he want to tax more, spend more and make government even bigger and more intrusive then Hillary.  However he can speak very well, avoids the issues and is very likable.  This is why Hillary is in trouble, even her supporters realize Barock is going to be harder for any Republican to beat and are picking the best candidate to win in November.

I personally think Hillary is unelectable and if she looses the primary (which I predict) Barock is probably a 2 to 1 favorite just in odds to win the presidency.  In other words a Hillary loss in the primaries is bad for the republicans while her victory would be very good indeed for them.

My predictions for the Democrats in New Hampshire are as follows.

1. Barock wins by at least 10% of the vote and we hear all the liberal papers cheer how it is finally time, “for an African American president”. When the country has been “ready” for a long time and we are all really tired of being called racists in subversive ways by the communists running our press.

2. Hillary gets slammed, perhaps even damn near ties with Edwards. This is spun as the “end of Hillary by the right” and some how a “right wing conspiracy” or “anti women” thing by the left. The left leaning media will hold out all hope for Hillary and talk about how New Hampshire and Iowa “don’t really matter”. Of course they really don’t it is just that the media just spent the last 30 days convincing us how much they do indeed matter.

3. Edwards does ok in 3rd but the media talks about how that is “hope for his campaign” even though there are only four Democrats in the race. Idiots.

4. Bill Richards gets a clue and drops out.

So what are you up to in 2008? What do you think of our coming elections?

Filed under Politics | Comment (0)

Double your money in the metal market with no investment

Ok, hold on, don’t get to excited. Indeed I am going to tell you exactly how to get an almost immediate 2 fold return on your money. I am also going to show you how to do it with out spending any money, hiring a broker or even with out doing any paperwork. However, I have to tell you right up front you are not going to get rich with this technique.

In fact this technique is first and foremost fun to do, second it is designed again to program you mind in how you think about words like “money” and “value” and finally last it is about actually making/investing money.

Now that big lump to the left is a chunk of raw copper. Copper has skyrocketed in both price and demand over the last ten years. Copper is used in countless industrial activities and as countries like China, Indonesia and India continue to modernize the demand will continue to grow and often to out pace production capacity. This issue will be compounded by the boom in coal, gold and silver. Consider that you are a mining company and you are choosing where to go and what to do next. You can either mine coal which is far easier then any metal or you can mine silver or gold which is worth far more then copper. Or last you can mine copper which is profitable but if you had the option what would you mine?

Great! So how does this help you double your money with out spending it? The answer is in the humble penny. Currently and since mid 1982 all U.S. pennies are made from mostly zinc with a copper cladding, basically a zinc coin with a very thin layer of copper on the outside. Such pennies are worth damn near nothing from a metal stand point. However, any penny that is older then 1982 is 95% copper and 5% zinc alloy. What does this mean? Let’s do some math.

Step one - When you look at pennies that are made from 1981 back they are heavier then today’s. In fact there are 146 pennies to a pound. Yet we must consider that such pennies are only 95% copper so 1.05 x 146 = 154 pennies make one pound of pure copper.

Step Two - 154 pennies even those from 1981 back are “worth” in currency a whopping $1.54

Step Three - Copper is currently trading at the time of this writing for $2.84 per pound. Hence 154 pennies are “worth” $2.84 in raw copper and copper is a commodity you can actually sell it for very close to the current spot price.

Step Four - Calculation of our return by simply dropping an 1981 or earlier penny into a “special” jar or container is as follows. $2.84 - $1.54 = $1.30 of “profit”. Now take you profit of $1.30 and devide it by your “initial investment” of $1.54 and you have a “instant return of investment” of 84%. Not quite double but as soon as copper goes back over 3 dollars a pound (which analysts believe will be quite soon) and you are at a full 100% return.

We should also consider that copper was trading for about 60-70 cents just 20 years ago and you start to realize just how high your “return” can be if you just start tossing all you pre 82 pennies into a jar for the next twenty years.

This is a great project for adults and kids alike. The bad news is again you are never going to get rich with this and in fact copper will have to go up to say 6 bucks a pound before you will really be able to “cash in” pennies in any real volume. The good news though is there is no doubt that over the years that will happen and because we are talking pennies not many people are making an effort to store away copper pennies.

In 1959 the U.S. stopped making the “wheat cent” and while most of those have been horded away by collectors from 1959 to 1981 100% of pennies produced in the US are 95% copper and virtually no one have really collectively valued them at anything more then one cent. That is 22 years worth of pennies still traveling around in circulation which means their are hundreds of millions of these pennies out there being spent every day. I always drop my pre 82 pennies in a jar and about 1 out of 5 tend to be pre 81’s. Over the years that is a lot of pennies.

So why do this? I mean save 4 dollars a month this way and you make about 4 in return and you have another 400 fricken pennies to deal with right? Short sighted my friend, the key is you don’t do very much to earn that return and most people are making less on their interest bearing savings accounts a month in America. All you do is follow my advice and “spend cash” and each day go through your pennies and drop any 81 or earlier examples into some special container. How much easier can “investing” be?

Just consider if in 10 years you had 15,400 pennies or $154 bucks. Those pennies if copper is at 6 bucks by then will be worth about get this, 600 dollars. Retirement money? Heck no! Just another little store house of money. Additionally while I never get to concerned with numismatic value because of how highly subjective it is there is another opportunity here.

See first let me warn you if you are currently thinking of buying 200,000 or so pennies from a bank, sorting them out and melting the older ones don’t do it! The U.S. Government will frown on that and possibly make you wear some silver bracelets and break a few rocks for a few years. Such activity is illegal for now anyway. Yet as copper keeps going up (and it will) sooner or later the mint will begin to “retire” the old copper. That is a nice way to say they will take the pennies out of circulation and harvest the copper for use. Of course the government is free to do that. This will make a lot of these 60s ad 70s pennies harder to come buy and add some numasmatic value to them as well.

That is many years into the future but let me ask you this. How cool would it have been if say your grandfather started collecting 1964 and earlier silver dimes for you when we stopped making them in 65? For about 10 good years it was easy to pluck silver quarters, dimes and half dollars from circulation. Today it is very rare to find one. I happen to own a huge pile of such coins put away for me by a very smart grandparent. This led to my love of silver in the first place. Today we have the opportunity to start doing something like that for our children, their children and possibly their children’s children. What would 100,000 Indian head pennies be worth today?

There is more at work here though tied to the production of pennies and the metal price. Do you know why 1982 was the year that the penny changed to a zinc core? In the early 80s all metal prices spiked for a while and even then a penny was worth more as copper then as a penny! So zinc was a cheap alternative and coating it in copper kept the penny looking like well, “a penny”.

Today though even zinc is rising in price and it costs about 8/10ths of a cent in raw metal to make a penny. That is before production costs, etc. This means the US Mint is Loosing Money to make pennies. Additionaly so long as people spend cash we can’t get rid of the penny we have to have something in order to make change of a dollar with. I predict therefore that the days of the humble Lincoln cent are numbered! The easy solution is to come up with coin made of something perhaps even cheaper then zinc and make it smaller too.

Since no vending machines take pennies there is no problem with changing the size of the penny. Don’t think it can’t happen either, they did it with the dollar coin. When sooner or later this change occurs it will be another numismatic bump in the value of all pennies and even more so to the all copper variety. So I encourage you to take the phrase, “save your pennies” with a new vision. Start plucking the little copper disks from circulation today and just put them away.

Filed under Personal & Home | Comments (3)