United States Heading towards a Depression?

To be more exact, the drug and oil lobbyists run the show. You can't have fair government when corporations can buy the laws they want.

Every year, it gets worse and worse. This week, Anderson Cooper pointed out that Obama is setting a new precedent for future presidents* - he has his lawyer at every meeting.

The new warfare is called "lawfare". It's fought with lawyers.

* Sorry about precedents presidents in one sentence!

 

http://www.csmonitor.com/Money/2010/0604/Dow-plunges-below-10000-amid-bad-news-on-euro-and-US-jobs

Where are BreezeWood and Zibblu? I'm looking for some investment advice!

 

What's even more scary is that the DJIA is overvalued -- even at 9,931. A more sensible level would be in the 7,000-8,000 range. But, in the stock market, sentimentality often overrules sensibility.

Of course, if the Obama administration keeps making anti-economic decisions, that number will continue to go down.

I have come to see the stock market like gambling in a casino where we know all the tables are rigged. Winners and losers in the market now depend far less upon businesses providing good products and services at reasonable prices than they do on businesses greasing the palms of the right congressmen and bureaucrats. This isn't a market where any honest man can expect to profit -- or even retain his initial investment capital.

I think the winning investment during this unannounced depression is going to involve investing in or buying small businesses in nations where freedom and prosperity are on the rise. Martinelli's election is certainly a good sign for Panama. Colombia looks poised to continue improvement. For those who are more risk-averse, Singapore and Taiwan are definitely options to consider.

Find a business which is in a relatively depression-resistant niche and either buy it or invest in it. That's my call.

 

Those who's ideas were voted out of power would better serve their own interests to find the remedies for their maleficence than criticize those who have had to replace them and having to correct the past Administrations amateurish administration of government, for them to prosper in the midterms. At the present time the electrict is searching and for anything but the past. That is an unknown value presently being sought in the markets.

Cash has valuated and will continue to do so till the turn when buying a particular stock would then become a better investment for the assets set aside for that type of investment.

 

I'm just trying to find out why and how the electrict chose you as it's spokes person. Maybe it is because you understand the meaning of the word "valuated" as applied to cash? LMAO. I'm sure nobody from the electrict looks to the past longingly, especially not the 1990s.

By the way Breeze, if it were up to me, I'd promote you to be the spokesperson for the DNC.

 

Breeze, what is your native tongue?

 

Will (I guess you to Abomination), are you from Arizona?

Have you accidentally hung your first innocent victim yet?.....not the whole family we hope.

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There are some few who just would rather not be a "Good Old Boy", if that helps - beer cooler included.

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Huh? I don't know what automated tool you're using to translate whatever language you do understand to and from English, but it absolutely sucks.

Your posts are unintelligible.

 

I thought as much. Not to say illegal immigration is not a problem - that is working them for nothing while complaining the economy is in a recession.

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Yoohoo... BreezeWood... this is reality calling... are you there?

What in the hell are you babbling about?

 

An interesting dialoge....may be you are needing another beer?

 

German? I believe dialoge is the correct spelling in German. In English it is dialogue or dialog(depending on what you are talking about). You fresh off the boat from Germany Breeze?

 

For ie spell it is dialog, the variant has the same meaning....frankly I prefer labour, not used to using spell check as an old habit - excuse the frustration it seems to have caused you.

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The worst advice is from the lazy, quitters, and those that simply don't have experience.

I operate/own and partner in a variety of small businesses. Revenues per business range from 6-7 figures/business. Several would be called counter cyclical; what Will describes as "depression-resistant". Ownership of some of these businesses goes back to the 1980's in some cases. In the past I was a passive owner. Now I operate them with others.

Of the countercyclical businesses, one is doing strong. Others are so so. Of the non counter cyclical businesses 2 are strong. Others are so-so.

Of the countercyclical industry in general some areas are strong, but other areas, especially where the recession was at its worst hit those businesses hard.

In each business we tackle issues. We work on them till we overcome the obstacles. Nothing is easy. If you want to be a passive investor, you have little to no say in the operation. If you control the investment you have a lot of say....but you better be on top of the staff.

Counter cyclical buisnesses are not automatic answers to prospering in this weak economy. Frankly in at least one industry with which I'm familiar these countercyclical businesses took beatings in Florida, Nevada, parts of California, and Arizona.....All where the recession and the housing crisis hit the worst. Its easy to make simple suggestions. Its w.o.r.k to make them payoff.

OTOH; one of our businesses broke a monthly revenue record last month. I've had a partnership in that one for well over 2 decades. To get to that point we started tweaking and changing something about 1 year ago. The deep payoff occurred last month. We'll see if the payoff continues.

Advice is sooooo easy. You gotta work to make it pay off.

 

Me and everyone else that tries to make sense of your posts. Spell checking in IE, firefox, and every other explorer is automatic. The incorrectly spelled word is underlined in red. Are you saying you consciously ignore the spell check warnings because you prefer your incorrect spelling? How is anyone supposed to give credence to a word you write when you are willing to argue with a spellchecker about issues related to spelling?

Now now earl, that is more than a little arrogant. You claim you are amongst the minority whose US businesses are thriving in this difficult economy. I happen to believe you, so Kudos. To imply that every American should be doing well right now is fallacious and egotistical. Most Americans, including small business people, are not doing well at all. On an individual level, most people are specialized, meaning they know how to do one thing really well. If that one thing you do is project planning, roofing, siding, insulation, plumbing, or any other construction related field, and you live in California, the chances are you took a pay cut or are out of work. If you own a business that did one of those same activities, you are probably either out of business, or have cut staff as much as 90%. All those out of work construction people have no money to spend on a 5$ cup of Starbucks coffee, so Starbucks has closed many of it's locations in the California. If you worked as a barrista in Starbucks, or in a distribution business selling coffee grinders and coffee machines, or in the coffee import business, and Starbucks was one of your clients, you too are cutting back, and therefore spending less. You are a smart guy, so I don't have to roll through the play by play with you on this, but my point is, most of these specialists do not really have the skills and experience necessary to open up some new counter cyclical business right now.

What these people can do, however, is open up a business in Texas because lower taxes and less government regulation have managed to maintain a business climate that is weathering this recession better than places like California. They can seek business opportunities abroad in places like China where hundreds of thousands of new consumers are emerging every year. Its not a matter of quitting, or being lazy. Its a matter of being intelligent about where your strengths are, and what your opportunities in consideration of your business location.

On a personal level, I buy American whenever possible(Two ford trucks in the driveway). I fired my Gardner in support of liberal agenda which blames employers for the illegal immigration problem. I still make more money buying and selling property overseas than I do at my day job, because the buyers pay in cash and have the money to spend. Not only is it not anti-American, its the most American thing I can think of.

 

Very interesting!

I own both US-based and non-US businesses, as well as passive or semi-passive involvements in a numbers of business partnerships. I have yet to become involved in real estate, because it's not what I know really well.

Isn't real estate a bit riskier when you don't have deep and current knowledge of the local markets?

What markets do you specialize in?

 

Long term, hands on investing within properly regulated industries has the greatest potential for return.

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@ O..nation: For a person that lost the previous election and incorporates his user-name as an insult to the President and finding such magnitude in the expression for a single misspelled word it does not belie well for a resolution to the subject......As previously stated my habit is to not use the spelling check and the egregious error is my doing.

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Of course, there's always safe profit to be made when you've paid off the government to keep competitors from entering the market.

Organized crime is just so darned comfy when you've bought your way into government backing.

 

Central America (Costa Rica and Panama). There is no such thing as a risk free investment. I've always liked real estate because land always has value(unless it is near Cherynobl, or Somalia). Of course Caveat Emptor applies whether you are buying land or bikinis. The laws are different and it is definitely possible to get taken, but there is also real opportunity, much more so than almost anything I've seen in the US.

Given the choice between spelling errors and run-on gibberish sentences like the one above, I guess I'll take the spelling errors. I still find it funny that you spell words such as "favor" incorrectly out of preference. No need to beat you about the head with it, like it would do any good. Your words serve my arguments better than anything I could put together.

 

Panamanian real estate is absolutely nuts. I looked at getting involved, but the risks of a California-style loss looked significant.

I saw some properties in Playa Blanca for $750k one year and over $2M just a couple of years later. What goes up that fast often comes down even faster.

Demand for good properties seems to far exceed supply, partially because of the canal expansion pulling construction personnel away from residential work.

In the end, real estate was one of the reasons we decided not to move to Panama at this time. Everything we found that seemed good was 6-18 months out (i.e. 16 - 36 months out. We couldn't find anything we both liked that we could move into immediately.

But... I also saw some apartments in Panama City that would have made very nice income properties. I just ran out of time on that last trip.

I'm still interested and I'll probably become involved in Panamanian real estate before I die. Panama is also still on our list of possible destinations.

Costa Rica I didn't like so much. If I want to see unwashed hippies, I can go to California.