Diversify, yes...BUT. I've learned this mentality of chasing the almighty dollar as the #1 priority in life is BS. 10 years ago I lived on a huge gated property, drove a new Mini, ate out 5 times a week, ran the tech department for the biggest concession food company in eastern Canada. Company car (a Matrix) and all the perks. I rolled out of bed and made decisions on multi-million dollar accounts,
NONE of that bought happiness or peace. The opposite. It was a life of 24-7-365 warfare with the board, sales department and customers. I make 1/3d of that now but have 10-times the peace I did then. If you loose everything (I did twice, 09 and 15) you can just make it back again. No biggie. If you fall down most people are good (at least in small towns) and will help you get back up again. Once you are, take your turn to help the next guy.
Life's not easy but so long as you are breathing you can make something of it. Those chasing power and security in owning things and piles of cash are fooling themselves. Life can kick it out from under you in a second. There is no security.
Honestly, Willie...I've only been in jail once in life. 30 days.....apparently telling a judge I will not pay a fine and your mother gives good blow-jobs isnt proper. Spitting on a court officer and giving the finger doesnt work out so well either.
I will still say and think whatever the frack I want....the whole thing back then was a political correctness issue. 1993.
I still have no intention of obeying speech or thought laws, and if anybody thinks they are getting a dollar in the swear jar..........
Just try and take it. I may have done my 30 days, but the goddamn scum never did get one single penny out of me.
**** 'em.
[This message has been edited by MidEngineManiac (edited 01-01-2021).]
I heard a report that Iran is now using bit coin officially, as a means to end run around sanctions I assume. It's just one small economy, but people would like to have Iran's oil. Iran has oil, but not refineries. Nations like Venezuela have refineries.
Will nations like Iran lead another larger nation to those currencies? The BRICS nations have been a concern for 10 years for further dealing outside of the USD.
"Decoupling" is a term we should be aware of. It happens when other nations move off of the USD. If you listen to Alex Jones he'll use the term, "super-mega-bad-hyper-stagflation." It sounds devastating. Oh, my.
Life's not easy but so long as you are breathing you can make something of it. Those chasing power and security in owning things and piles of cash are fooling themselves. Life can kick it out from under you in a second. There is no security.
Agreed, though what I'm getting at is I do prefer some planning to no planning.
What ever you do, ignore Dave Ramsey. He's a pay-off-your-debt guy, but an idiot about investing and wealth storage. Similar opinion about him on mortgage rates.
Here's a chart of gold pricing. We know gold doesn't change in actual value. You know what it says about your USD value. 2000 is about when Bush opened the Southern border. Soon after, it was the attacks which exposed all the bubbles in housing, hedge funds and thus, municipality investments.
Trying to time the market will almost always lose, unless you are insider trading. Usually, it’s best to just throw cash in and let it right. Adjust your portfolio based on your age and expected retirement, lowering exposure to variable stocks as you get older, in favor of bonds or otherwise.
I have adjusted here and there between large and mid cap based on COVID impacts, and I bought some individual stocks here and there (like SNOW or MSFT), but it’s all emotion and intuition, only my play money.
What ever you do, ignore Dave Ramsey. He's a pay-off-your-debt guy, but an idiot about investing and wealth storage. Similar opinion about him on mortgage rates.
Here's a chart of gold pricing. We know gold doesn't change in actual value. You know what it says about your USD value. 2000 is about when Bush opened the Southern border. Soon after, it was the attacks which exposed all the bubbles in housing, hedge funds and thus, municipality investments.
/QUOTE]
I am going to disagree with you about, " ignore Dave Ramsey." Most people are in horrible financial shape, the best thing they could do is to get out of general debt and finally to be an adult with a paid off home will make the day to day living much safer. The other part is to get the spouses on the same page about goals. We had about $200K in annual income and I felt broke, could not accumulate money to buy a car, buying dinner was going to be on payments, and there was no plan on how to pay for our kids college without school loans or "sell our house" to get money. I ended up creating another $650K of debt on top of the $700K that we already had and managed to make $60K of annual income after expenses about the time our son should have been choosing a college. If my wife would of allowed a discussion about money, spending, planning without getting angry, we could have done much more with what we had at the time. As to Dave being an idiot about investing, you have to consider his history to understand why he is conservative. For myself, I know margin allows the possibility of amazing gains but I am not interested in the risks involved.
You think the economy is bad now, give liberals till summer and it will be 10 times worse. Up everyone taxes, re-regulate the hell out of businesses, huge shortages and foreign relationships in the toilet (except for China, who the Bidens adore).
What ever you do, ignore Dave Ramsey. He's a pay-off-your-debt guy, but an idiot about investing and wealth storage. Similar opinion about him on mortgage rates.
Here's a chart of gold pricing. We know gold doesn't change in actual value. You know what it says about your USD value. 2000 is about when Bush opened the Southern border. Soon after, it was the attacks which exposed all the bubbles in housing, hedge funds and thus, municipality investments.
/QUOTE]
I am going to disagree with you about, " ignore Dave Ramsey." Most people are in horrible financial shape, the best thing they could do is to get out of general debt and finally to be an adult with a paid off home will make the day to day living much safer. The other part is to get the spouses on the same page about goals. We had about $200K in annual income and I felt broke, could not accumulate money to buy a car, buying dinner was going to be on payments, and there was no plan on how to pay for our kids college without school loans or "sell our house" to get money. I ended up creating another $650K of debt on top of the $700K that we already had and managed to make $60K of annual income after expenses about the time our son should have been choosing a college. If my wife would of allowed a discussion about money, spending, planning without getting angry, we could have done much more with what we had at the time. As to Dave being an idiot about investing, you have to consider his history to understand why he is conservative. For myself, I know margin allows the possibility of amazing gains but I am not interested in the risks involved.
You're not disagreeing. You're agreeing that he's a get-you-out-of-debt guy. And I listened to him for probably a decade to base my judgement that he's an idiot when it comes to investing and wealth storage because that's his track record I can illustrate. AND when it comes to mortgages he's been an idiot. When rates went to 7 something he would shout at people, "Where do you think mortgage rates are going?! UP!!!". Rates went to 6. He said the same thing still. They wen to 5. He said the same thing still ignoring how much of an idiot he has been. Then they went to 4 and below 4. He's not very good at predictions.
People call in and have cleared their steps and ask about buying gold. "No. Gold is a terrible investment." They didn't ask about investing in gold. You buy it for diversification and wealth storage. No, I don't have any. just a few pieces of jewelry.
But even though he's pretty good at advising people on how to get out of debt, he will tell people to pay stupid tax when they can't afford what they have now. He's sometimes an idiot there too Usually it's sound conservative advice. Some woman called in saying they bought a car from family for $2500 but it needs $4000 in repairs. The idiot never asked what the car was worth. It could've been a Bentley but instead he screamed at the woman that it's stupid to put 4k into a $2500 car and he ran her into a commercial and thanked her for the call without letting her explain.
He's a head case. Always dropping names of people he's met or knows to pump himself up.
Valero, unlike CITGO, is not a foreign owned corporation. Valero is a publicly owned company, head quartered in San Antonio Texas. The only foreign refining facility it owns is the Pembroke plant in Wales UK which it bought from Chevron. It's name is an offshoot of the origin of it's current operation , origin being San Antonio de Valero – the original name of the Alamo. It began before that, as a Texas pipline company called Coastal LoVaca Gathering Company. The name change to Valero came in 1980. Coastal LoVaca is still a Valero subsidiary as far as i know but operates under name Valero Transmission Company.. Valero Energy is engaged mostly the upstream portion of things (refining). Just as Exxon sold off all it's company stations and convenient stores, Valero spun off it's downstream business (retail) to a Canadian company, (CST) but still retains all it's upstream production, refining, pipeline, and distribution assets as a North American fortune 500 company.
Top institutional stock ownership of Valero is ,in order of shares owned:
The Vanguard Group. Blackrock Inc. State Street Holdings. Capital World Investors Ameriprise Financial. Bank of NY Mellon Charles Schwab FMR LLC Geode Capital Management BlackRock Investment Management Columbia Management Investment Advisors LSV Asset Management Fidelity Management & Research Co...
Top mutual fund holders are, in order of shares owned:
Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund Vanguard 500 Index Fund Select Sector SPDR Fund-Energy Select Vanguard Mid-Cap Index Fund Fundamental Investors Inc SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust Fidelity 500 Index Fund Vanguard Institutional Index Fund-Institutional Index Fund Schwab Strategic Tr-Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF Income Fund of America Inc
Not being political here... meaning I'm not saying what I'm saying to try to scare anyone or convince anyone that they should vote Republican. My belief is that we are at the point where it no longer matters.
I believe that likely Biden will go easy on China and in 5-6 years (maybe less?), the USD will no longer be the world currency. With China exacting it's influence all over the world, and the United States spending trillions into national debt that it cannot pay back, there's no logical reason why it would be. We will become similar to Russia. Our country will bounce back, we may lose some territories, but our economic dominance will be no more. I'm not saying that this will happen in 6 years, but I am saying that the USD will no longer become the dominant currency in 6 years, and that perhaps over the next 30, we'll see an economic collapse of the United States.
There isn't much you can do other than invest in assets. I expect inflation to occur and in doing so the only thing that will have value is tangible assets. Gold is stupid. You can't do anything with it, you won't be trading it for cans of beans, and historically with the exception of some highs and lows... gold generally is not going to be entirely worthwhile.
Real estate in select areas will be valuable, but they have to be in areas where people want to live. Beach communities, or trendy areas that have a lot of culture.
In the time being though, I'm focusing on saving all my money in the stock market. I don't have any debt except my mortgage, but I'm no longer paying any extra towards my mortgage debt because the inflation will take care of that for me. I am, however, investing all my spare cash into the stock market because the stock market generally gains with inflation. That is... the stock market still goes up when inflation goes up. Let inflation devalue your debt... that's what the US government is doing, might as well do that too. Use the stock market as an inflationary hedging tool.
Beyond that, I have a 5% trailing stop-loss on all my stocks and ETFs.
Not being political here... meaning I'm not saying what I'm saying to try to scare anyone or convince anyone that they should vote Republican. My belief is that we are at the point where it no longer matters.
That's the big take-away; the federation no longer has to worry about retribution at the polls from voters. They already have it in the bag so the voter doesn't matter anymore. It's time we consider that McConnell and Graham have possibly been on the inside of faked elections for a couple of cycles now.
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There isn't much you can do other than invest in assets. I expect inflation to occur and in doing so the only thing that will have value is tangible assets. Gold is stupid. You can't do anything with it, you won't be trading it for cans of beans, and historically with the exception of some highs and lows... gold generally is not going to be entirely worthwhile.
You mean hyper-inflation. Inflation is already happened. Price inflation is happening.
You mean hyper-inflation. Inflation is already happened. Price inflation is happening.
Inflation happens every year. What I'm saying is that I expect it to become a real problem in the future... the 4-8% inflation we see every year is peanuts compared to what I think we'll see in the future.
Not being political here... meaning I'm not saying what I'm saying to try to scare anyone or convince anyone that they should vote Republican. My belief is that we are at the point where it no longer matters.
I believe that likely Biden will go easy on China and in 5-6 years (maybe less?), the USD will no longer be the world currency. With China exacting it's influence all over the world, and the United States spending trillions into national debt that it cannot pay back, there's no logical reason why it would be. We will become similar to Russia. Our country will bounce back, we may lose some territories, but our economic dominance will be no more. I'm not saying that this will happen in 6 years, but I am saying that the USD will no longer become the dominant currency in 6 years, and that perhaps over the next 30, we'll see an economic collapse of the United States.
There isn't much you can do other than invest in assets. I expect inflation to occur and in doing so the only thing that will have value is tangible assets. Gold is stupid. You can't do anything with it, you won't be trading it for cans of beans, and historically with the exception of some highs and lows... gold generally is not going to be entirely worthwhile.
Real estate in select areas will be valuable, but they have to be in areas where people want to live. Beach communities, or trendy areas that have a lot of culture.
In the time being though, I'm focusing on saving all my money in the stock market. I don't have any debt except my mortgage, but I'm no longer paying any extra towards my mortgage debt because the inflation will take care of that for me. I am, however, investing all my spare cash into the stock market because the stock market generally gains with inflation. That is... the stock market still goes up when inflation goes up. Let inflation devalue your debt... that's what the US government is doing, might as well do that too. Use the stock market as an inflationary hedging tool.
Beyond that, I have a 5% trailing stop-loss on all my stocks and ETFs.
I suspect it will happen sooner than the timeline you stated.