 DavidNow accepting new patientsPremium,VIP
join:2002-05-30
Granite City, IL
kudos:70 | reply to amigo_boy
Re: Unemployment and Wall Street I am beginning to think it might be worth converting my money to gold, cause when the U.S. economy goes bankrupt and these companies lose out all together, only thing left will be gold. |
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 ABPremium
join:2006-04-04
Leesburg, VA
kudos:3
 ·Verizon Online DSL
| said by David:I am beginning to think it might be worth converting my money to gold, cause when the U.S. economy goes bankrupt and these companies lose out all together, only thing left will be gold. Don't forget to stockpile a heavy supply of canned goods and ammo.  |
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 N3OGHYo Soy Col. "Bat" GuanoPremium
join:2003-11-11
Philly burbs
kudos:1 | reply to David
Converting all your money to gold now would be like jumping on the real estate band wagon in late 2007, or buying Pets.com stock in 1999.
Pay down debt, refinance & consolidate if you can. Don't buy anything big you don't need (car paid for? keep driving it).
Being able to keep your debt low, and sating employed are gold in and of themselves. Anyone who can do both will weather the Great Recession OK....
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Petty people are disproportionably corrupted by petty power… |
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patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY
kudos:1 | said by N3OGH:Converting all your money to gold now would be like jumping on the real estate band wagon in late 2007, or buying Pets.com stock in 1999. Gold is a bubble, just like real estate. You'd be investing at the top of the bubble today. Unless armed bloody civil war breaks out (not happening in the USA), the USD isn't going to crash. |
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Reviews:
 ·magicjack.com
| reply to David
said by David:cause when the U.S. economy goes bankrupt and these companies lose out all together, only thing left will be gold. I don't think that's going to happen. Even though things look bad due to the injection of dollars into the economy, etc., the dollar's value is relative to other currencies. Even when it looked like our financial system was on the brink, foreign investors poured money into dollar-backed investments. The so-called "flight to safety." No matter how bad things get, the dollar is always viewed as a safe haven because it always looks worse elsewhere.
Right now, foreign governments (and their central banks) are facing the question of whether to raise interest rates to stem inflation, or keep them low (to devalue their currency against trading partners) to spur exports. Particularly exports to us. China pegged it's currency to the dollar again for exactly the purpose of protecting its export markets.
So, these things tend to have a stabilizing effect. Things go bad for us, and suddenly our exports look better. Trading partners devalue their currency to improve their export markets. Which causes foreign dollars to flood into the US, raising the value (due to demand) of the dollar.
I believe the far greater threat to the US is how our markets have been deregulated, and made less predictable. I don't mean predictable in the sense that investors are guaranteed a profit. But, predictable in the sense of a used-car dealer selling you a lemon because he has all the information, and you (the buyer) don't. (The reason we passed the "lemon law.").
The maturity of our markets (defined by absence of corruption, and an infrastructure to make corruption more visible) is what's made the US market (securities, commodities, banking, etc.) the best in the world, and caused investors to put their money here.
I think it's going to be bad if/when we become no better than third-world markets where corruption is rampant, and the system is "rigged" to benefit the top players. That's when we'll face collapse.
Mark |
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DavidNow accepting new patientsPremium,VIP
join:2002-05-30
Granite City, IL
kudos:70 Reviews:
·AT&T Southwest
 ·DIRECTV
·AT&T Midwest
·Google Voice
| reply to AB
said by AB:Don't forget to stockpile a heavy supply of canned goods and ammo. Stocked! |
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DavidNow accepting new patientsPremium,VIP
join:2002-05-30
Granite City, IL
kudos:70 Reviews:
·AT&T Southwest
·DIRECTV
·AT&T Midwest
·Google Voice
| reply to N3OGH
said by N3OGH:Converting all your money to gold now would be like jumping on the real estate band wagon in late 2007, or buying Pets.com stock in 1999. Pay down debt, refinance & consolidate if you can. Don't buy anything big you don't need (car paid for? keep driving it). Being able to keep your debt low, and sating employed are gold in and of themselves. Anyone who can do both will weather the Great Recession OK.... I have been doing all those things. Next year tax time I am hoping to pay down some student debts (like $2k if memory serves) and that will save me about $225 a month.
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If you have a topic in the direct forum please reply to it or a post of mine, I get a notification when you do this.
Koetting Ford, Granite City, illinois... YOU'RE FIRED!!
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Reviews:
·magicjack.com
| said by David:I have been doing all those things. Next year tax time I am hoping to pay down some student debts (like $2k if memory serves) and that will save me about $225 a month. Being debt free is the best thing anyone can do. It opens a lot of doors if you hit hard times.
However, if you expect heavy inflation it's smarter to buy things now (even on credit) because 1) prices are depressed due to deflationary forces, and 2) you expect that to change.
If you plan to buy a car in the next 2-3 years, now's a good time to do it (assuming there won't be significant technology changes you'd miss).
If someone plans to buy a house in the next 5 years, now seems to be as good as ever. The market might still go lower, but when you look at a chart of home prices over the last 20 years, today's prices are almost back to where they would have been if the normal trend had persisted (i.e., no "bubble."). That's an indicator that prices have corrected to traditional levels. (It depends on the area. Some haven't, but they may be different, such as the DC area which, due to the nature of government jobs, wasn't hit as hard by unemployment.).
Mark |
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