Another Great Depression never happened

Just a quick little entry. A couple weeks ago I did a blog post claiming that we would NOT have another great depression in the United states. Now it is very obvious that the economy will NOT fall into a great depression. The economy is turning up in several leading indicators. The housing market is picking up, and the stock market is going up almost daily.

Will another great depression happen in the future? Sure it is possible, but I truly believe that we learned from the first one. The government is better prepared to fight off a possible depression, and after this major recession they will be even more prepared. You have to understand that during the Great Depression, there was no federal reserve monetary policy available. They could not simple cut interest rates to encourage lending by banks.

A great depression in the future is possible, though not likely. We came pretty close this year, but the efforts by the federal reserve and government (through fiscal policy) fought it off. Perhaps if this was 1920, we would have fallen into a deep depression, but the tools we have now prevented that.

Quick Way to Get a Promotion at Work

I know this blog is about being an entrepreneur. However all entrepreneurs need to start somewhere. Everyone wants to be promoted at work. Here is a quick and easy guide to getting that promotion that you want. If you follow these rules, you will be first in line for the promotion. You will find it to be a quick way to get a promotion at work.

1 - Be very friendly to ALL your co-workers. Even if you hate their guts, at least try and get along. If you feel an argument brewing just step aside, gather yourself and explain your side of the argument in a calm, cool way. Bosses want employees that can get along in a civilized manner.

2 - Make certain that everyone above you thinks and/or knows that you are a hard worker. You can do this by showing up to work early (before most of the top executives get there), and leaving after most of them leave.

3 - Work Hard! It is your career. Is it really necessary to play on your IPhone, or visit websites that help you make an income away from your job? When your at work, WORK!

4 - Don't be afraid to disagree. Your boss doesn't want people under him that constantly agree with every idea he or another top executive comes up with. If you disagree, then let him know, and explain your reasoning in a civilized manner. This is of course if you really do want a promotion at work :)

5 - Smile. Try to smile as much as you can. Your boss wants employees that are happy with their work, friendly to others, and in a good mood most of the time.

6 - Be more then an employee. You can be friends with other workers, especially those above you.

7 - Work with the mindset that you own the company (without ordering others around). If you follow this rule, and work as though any profits that the company you work for takes in go directly into your pocket, then your bosses will love you. These are the types of employees that get promotions and raises.

When it comes to asking for a promotion or raise, do so in a formal manner. If you are rejected for the promotion you want, don't argue. You can simply let your boss know that you may have to submit your resume to some other companies.

If you follow these simple rules, you should see both your job ranking and salary increase.

How the Toxic Asset Plan Helps Me

Well, the new plan is out. The goverment will buy up toxic assets from troubled banks. After doing this they will sell them at discounted prices in an auction format. How will this toxic asset plan help me and you? It's quite simple.

The new plan will be put into motion with tax payers dollars, so all Americans will be paying for the solution (However the tax might not be as big as we all think, since these bad assets still have good value). You won't see any immediate effects, but it certainly will help the banks. I know, I know. This isn't what you want to hear. However, the way I see it is that it really is the only solution. We will all see results in the future. It will be easier to obtain loans. We will be able to get mortgages at lower rates. We will be able to refinance our mortgages at lower rates. Entrepreneurs will find it easier to obtain business loans at low interest rates.

With the increase in loans being made, the country becomes more productive. The Stock market will increase, there will be more jobs, and real estate values will start to inch their ways back up.

The negatives of this plan?
- Increase in taxes (pehaps only a small amount).
- Increase in inflation as the economy begins to pick up.

All in all, I feel this is a good move on the part of the government that should and will work.

Green Technology will Finally Work

It seems like the country has been trying to go "green" for the past 25 years. Year in, and year out we hear about the future which includes electric cars, solar power, wind power, advanced hybrids (like the Aptera 2e), less reliance on oil, and energy efficient appliances. Finally I believe we have a president and an administration in Washington who is seriously trying to put this country on a "Green" Path.

Going green certainly won't be easy. However, doing so will put less pressure the US economy and cause less destruction to the environment. If we can rely more heavily on solar, wind, natural gas and electric power rather then oil, it will make the United States more independent as an economy. If there is such a thing as reverse globalization, then this would be it. The more independent the US economy is, the better.

Global warming is another topic in the news a lot lately. Supposedly the environment is getting worse then we had expected. Sure, we won't live to see the devestating effects, but do we really want the Human race to end one day because of things that could have been avoided?

I'm looking for Obama to Go Green and set this country on a path that other presidents will follow. Let's all do our part.

90% Tax on AIG Bonuses

Well this is just in.  The House has approved a 90% tax on bonuses issued to AIG executives with a househouse income over $250,000 a year.  I like this move.  It's not taking back the bonuses, but taxing it to recover the taxes the rest of the American People have paid to bail them out.  

The bill passed is 328-93.

Seems like both Republicans and Democrats agree with this bill that does not only cover AIG but other corporations that received tax payers bailout money.

Nice work!

When Fear Reaches it's Highest Point, Invest

I truly believe that when the nation is the most fearful, is when the economy (particularly the stock market) will begin to turn around. When everyone feels one way about the economy, you should try and feel the opposite of the trend.

The latest poll shows that 45% of people believe that the economy will fall into a depression. Come on. Do we still believe that this economy that has seen the DOW increase 6 of the past 8 days is going to fall into a depression? This same economy that has seen new building of homes increase 22% in the last month. People on Talkgold.com are all saying how terrible they think the economy will continue to be for years to come (Thoughts on Economy). We aren't falling into a depression. The economy is just about to start a recovery if it hasn't already.

If you recall, right before the housing collapse, the majority of the experts were saying that the housing boom will continue. People were still buying houses, stock etc. Employers were hiring like crazy to expand their businesses. Then BOOM! It all changed.

The same thing will happen with the turn around this current economic situation. It will turn around while experts and the general consensus of the economy is still negative. You watch and see.

Just a little bit of my input.

AIG Bonuses should not be taken away

So as we have heard, AIG continues to give out multi-million dollar bonuses to their executives even though the company has taking hundreds of billions of dollars from tax payers. This isn't fair, is it?

First, please understand, I don't think a single one of the executives at AIG deserve an extra penny for all the problems this company has caused this nation. They have probably been the largest culprit in this financial collapse. It was AIG's greed and lack of rules that caused so much of this mess. If it weren't for these greedy executives the economy might actually not be a disaster right now.

However with all this said, taking away bonuses that these executives were promised (in their contracts) to receive would be both illegal and unjust. They were employed by the shareholders of AIG and provided with contracts (although I'm not exactly sure of the details) that clearly stated they would be given these bonuses. Most likely the bonuses were based on some sort of incentive. It's hard to think of any incentive that they would have reached but they may simply have been based on hours worked, clients brought in, etc. This contract was issued before the whole bailout began.

Another Point. Most of these executives made mistakes, were too greedy, and took too many risks. However, these are the same executives appointed by the board of directors and/or CEO of AIG. They were the same executives that were believed to be the best qualified for the company's share holders. Greed gets the best of us. Just like it got to those of us who purchased houses that we had to foreclose on, bought stock that lost 50% of its value, didn't put enough money into an emergency (layoff) fund, or even bought a car that turned out to be a lemon. These are all risks we took. Were we all too risky? Should we not be allowed to foreclose on our homes or get out of the mortgage via a short sale because we took the risk? Absolutely not! When someone buys a house in the United States they do so knowing they have a mortgage to pay, and if they don't pay the mortgage they will lose the home due to foreclosure. On top of this, their credit rating will be negatively effected for 7-10 years. What if the government decided to end the practice of foreclosures and force all home owners to pay their mortgages off no matter how long it takes them (with plenty of added interest and late payments)? This would basicially tie all "greedy" home buyers to a lifetime of debt. This would be unfair, illegal, and unjust because it is not what the buyer understood at the time of his/her purchase.

So, let's provide these bonuses to the executives, but don't allow it to happen again in the future. With this bailout plan there should be strict new guidelines and limits for executive compensation. All future contracts that refer to bonus's should also have that fine little print that explains the incentives and bonuses may be withheld due to certain circumstances.... like this one.

Check out AIG Bailout Discussion, to see where all the billions of dollars in AIG bailout money went.

Go ahead and tell me how foolish I am now.

Are Domains Names the Best Investment?

With the economy struggling, stocks plunging, and the real estate market filled with foreclosures, everyone wants to know where they should put their money? Is it time to get back into stocks? Has the real estate market hit a bottom? Is your savings account the best bet? How about high paying dividend stocks? No, No, No, No. The place you want to put your money is in internet domain names.

Domain names are simply the website address. For example, ESPN.com, ebay.com, money.net are all domain names. The internet is growing at a rapid rate even with the decline in the economy. However it isn't even close to reaching it's potential worldwide. Developing countries are finding ways of providing internet access and affordable computers to even the poverty ridden regions. China, and India only have an extremely small percentage of their population on the net. We're not even close to reaching the potential internet population. Within the next 5 years or so I highly expect this to all change.

You can find a good amount of information on domain name investing if you are a TeamEarners.com member. More information about TeamEarners can be found at TeamEarners Forums

Anyone can purchase domains names for under $10.00 at sites like Godaddy.com, NameCheap.com, Dynadot.com etc. If you were to begin investing, I would suggest sticking with ".com" domain names as these will always be the most valued extension.

Google Cash Detective 2 - It's probably not worth it

I have seen that there have been a lot of people searching around the net for Google Cash Detective 2. Fact is, this is just another one of the e-book type programs for sale that probably won't really help you earn a substancial income online. There are literally thousands and thousands of products forsale online similar to Google Cash Detective. Fact is, only about 0.5% of these are worth the money you have to pay for them.

This product costs close to $1000.00. The thing with programs like these are that they allow affiliates to sell it, which means that 99.9% of the reviews you read are going to be positive since the reviewer is trying to sell the product for commission. It is almost impossible to find an honest review. I have not purchased the Google Cash Detective Program, so I can't provide a review. However I suggest being careful before spending $1000 on a product that you won't find an honest review on.

You can find hundreds of similar programs and e-books like Google Cash Detective at the E-Book Review Forum. These are all non motivated reviews meaning these people do not get paid commissions for sales.

How We Can Predict When the Economy will Turn Up

In my previous blog entry I discussed how the unemployment rate is considered a lagging market indicator basically meaning it can not tell the future. However there are other indicators called "Leading Indicators" that predict the future of the economy. While the leading indicators are not a tell all predictor of the economy, they have infact predicted the past 7 recessions. Also noteworthy, the fact that these leading indicators have also predicted 5 recessions that have not occurred.

So what are these indicators? Here are the 10 that make up the Index of Leading Indicators:
- The Average number of hours worked by workers in the manufacturing sector.
- The Average number of people initially applying for collection of unemployment.
- Consumer sentiment
- The difference between the short term and long term interest rates
- The amount of new orders of consumer goods and materials in the manufacturing sector
- The Money Supply (inflation adjusted)
- The S&P 500 stocks
- That amount of new permits for the building of residential property.
- The Speed in the delivery of new merchandise from the suppliers to the vendors
- The amount of new orders for capital goods that are not related to defense.

There you have it. The 10 leading economic indicators that are used to predict the direction the economy is going in. In the last update on February 19, 2009 the Leading Indicator Index has actually increased as it did in January. Does this mean that the economy will rebound immediately? Absolutely not. However it does mean that things should begin to look up.

What The Unemployment Rate Means for the Stock Market: Nothing

Well the unemployment rate in the United States has been released. It is currently at 8.1% which is the highest since 1983. What exactly does this mean for the future of the stock market? Absolutely nothing. (To see some more specific unemployment stats, check out http://www.talkgold.com/forum/r251143-.html)

Unemployment is considered a "lagging indicator" which means it follows the economic trends. If the economy is doing bad, unemployment will usually go down. It is an indicator of the economy that lags behind. So in reality, the unemployment rate could be going up as the economy becomes bullish.

The latest news that the unemployment rate is over 8% nationwide should have no influence whatsoever on whether you buy or sell your stocks. In my next entry I will discuss leading and lagging indicators, to see if we can predict when the economy is about to turn up.

Details of Obama's Mortgage Plan: Simply Not Fair

So it looks like the new plan is out from the Obama Administration to help slow down the rate of foreclosures. From the top, it looks like a great idea. However once you dig down and put some thought to it, you will realize that it is really just unfair.

The idea of the mortage plan is to encourage lenders to allow borrowers to refinance their mortgages at lower rates. This would allow more borrowers to make their monthly payments and stay in their homes. On top of this the details of the plan also state that for borrowers who make their payments on time, there will be a reduction in the principal owed by the amount of $1,000 per year for 5 years. Sure this will be great to those people who are having trouble paying their mortgage and don't want to lose their homes. However this comes only at the expense of those who don't hold a mortgage at all, hold a mortgage but aren't having problems making payments, and those who don't own homes. Why should these people who were "stupid" in making decisions by buying a home they could not afford be bailed out? What about those people who have lost 50% of their retirement savings in the stock market, or who have seen their businesses go under because of the terrible economic conditions? What about the 10% of people unemployed in California that don't own a home, or own a home outright? All these people will have to pay to help those with troubled mortgages. Where is the help for these people? The responsible people who didn't buy homes they could not afford?

The details of Obama's mortgage plan need to be heavily scrutinized, as it is the well being of the nation at risk here. Why should we help a group of people who bought homes they couldn't afford, while making others that lost 50% of their money in the stock market pay for it?

It's easy to see that there are plenty of Americans struggling in other areas besides their mortgages, simply by visiting online forums like The Investment Forum on Talkgold Everyone wants a bailout from the government, but their really isn't a feasible way of doing it.


Unbelievable!!

Globalization of the World Economies: Is it avoidable?

There has been a lot of talk recently about Globalization and whether it is helping or hurting the economy in the United States. People asking this question, and especially those who have been criticizing America's steps towards globalization need to take a step back and look at things from afar.

We are living in the age of "information". Anyone can communicate with people accross the world instantly through emails, instant messages, or video conferencing. For those of you who believe that we should try and prevent the spread of globalization, please explain to me exactly how you do this? Do we prohibit emails? Do we shut down international trade? Do we close the door to overseas innovation? Do we disallow internet access to everyone in the country? Do we ban the use of Online E-currencies and Payment Processors? Absolutely not. Without doing this, globalization will continue to spread and there is nothing we can do about it.

The United States is based on Democracy, not Communism. We are allowed to invest our money internationally if we believe certain foreign companies are good investments. Globalization is here to stay whether you like it or not, so live with it.

My 2009 DOW Jones Prediction

Since the DOW has been continuously falling for the past year, I have decided to make my predictions on what will happen to the dow for the rest of this year (2009). Today is March 3rd and as I'm writing this post, the DOW is at exactly $6,728.33. Here are my predictions.

March 31, 2009 - DOW will be at $6943
May 1, 2009 - DOW will be at $7404
July 15, 2009 - DOW will be at $7709
August 15, 2009 - DOW will be at $8330
March 3, 2010 (one year from now) - DOW will be at $9438

You can see more predictions over at Talkgold.com's Dow Prediction thread.

Let's hear everyone elses predictions, and we will revisit this post again when these dates come.

Why The Economy will Bounce Back Quickly

"We're having another great depression!"  "The stock market is going to collapse!"  "The entire country will fall into poverty!"  

These are just a few of the things that we have heard in the past few months coming from everyone from the homeless man on the side of the road to expert economists.  Sure it's a scary thing to hear especially for those of you who are close to retirement, or have a large sum of money tucked away into the stock market.  However, none of these things are true.  The economy won't fall into another great depression, the stock market will not collapse, and the entire country is far from falling below the poverty line.

The DOW is in the $6700 range right now.  That's lower then it has been since 1997.  This means that if you put money into a mutual fund that covered the entire DOW in 1997 you would actually have not made any money.  In fact you would have less value today when factoring inflation.  

Job cuts have been extraordinary.  It seems like every day there is another handful of corporations announcing layoffs in the thousands.  The unemployment rate in some areas of the country are in double digits.  There are banks requiring major bailouts from Washington.  These surely are frightning.  However, this is not the end of the world.

If any of you have taken Economics 101, you would have learned about something called the business cycle.  The business cycle explains that the economy consistantly moves up and down.  There are times when it is very productive.  Gross Domestic Product is high, unemployment is low, and the stock market is soaring.  On the contrary, there are times of recession when the stock market is extremely bearish, there is a decrease in new home sales, and it seems like everyone is being layed off.  This is a recession that we are in currently.  It's just larger then any recession we have seen in a long time.  It was created by the unresponsibility of lenders, and borrowers as well as the lack of regulation from our government.  This recession isn't all that different then any other recession when looking at the large picture.  It's just magnified a bit more.  Just like in any other recession, the economy always recovers according to history.

Let's look at what would happen if the government were not to bail out the banks, and the federal reserve could not adjust the interest rates to their liking.  Please note that during the great depression, the fed had no ability to control the interest rate.

The first thing that would happen would be that there would be foreclosures similar to what we are seeing now.  However banks would not be able to cover their losses without help from Washington.  A large amount of financial institutions would fail.  Anyone with less than $250,000 in their bank accounts would get their money returned to them because of the FDIC.  Anyone with over $250,000 in a bank account would lose the money they had over that amount.  With the loss of money by the rich, the amount invested into the stock market would fall considerably causing the market to drop even more.  Unemployment would increase rapidly because large companies would see their revenues decrease.  The economy would be in worse shape then it is now, but something would evenutually happen.  There would be a recovery. 

Without government intervention, and not the ability for the fed to decrease interest rates, the recovery time would take several years, if not a whole decade.  However there would be a recovery.  Entrepreneurs would start up their own businesses.  Many would fail because the interest rates on loans would be extremely high (since there would be no federal reserve intervention).  However many would be successful, and these successful companies would need to hire workers.  This would cause the unemployment rate to slowly decrease, and the stocks of these companies would gain value as more and more people would be able to earn an income to spend.  With the increase in income, and spending, the stock market would become bullish, banks would be more willing to lend, and people would begin buying homes again.  The interest rate would drop as banks become more confident in borrowers and the economy.  Everything would slowly recover.

With all of this said, the recovery would not come without a whole bunch of pain and agony.  This is where the bailout plan and significant decrease in the fed rate comes into hand.  The increase in government spending, bailout of banks, and lowering of the interest rate will quickly stimulate the economy.  Once the recovery begins it should happen quickly because of the enormous amount of money being added to the market.  Those who buy stocks when the market is low are the ones who make the most gains.  The bottom can not be too far off and when it is hit, I expect a quick recovery.  

You can find a lot of information pertaining to the economy at Talkgold.com's Investing Forum

Let's hear your comments and opinions.