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.

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.

Me2Everyone

Owning stock in a startup company is something that is a huge risk for most investors.  However if that stock is 100% free, then there is only an upside, right? 

Me2everyone.com is a startup company that claims they will be a virtual world version of Myspace.  From what I have read, you will be able to hang out with friends in a virtual online world, while also starting your own business, your own newspaper, or even selling your own products.  The idea sounds brilliant, and it's even better when you consider that all members who sign up to Me2Everyone will receive free shares of stock in the company.  So far in a little over 1 month 203,000+ members have signed up.  Upon signing up, all members receive 1000 free shares of stock.  Then for every person you refer that signs up you will receive an additional 500 shares.  If and when this virtual community launches and makes money, all the shareholders/members will share in the profits.  The goal is to go public on the NASDAQ in 2012 with a share value of $0.77 per share.  Possible?  Yes.  Likely?  No.  There are 18 Billion active shares, so this is the number of shares that will either be given out to new members or held by the original owners.  Let's do some calculations.

18,000,000,000 X $0.77 = $13,860,000,000

It's extremely hard for me to believe that an online virtual world will have a market capital of $13billion+.  

There are a ton of people discussing the positives and negatives of this new site at the Me2Everyone Forum on Talkgold.com.  Many people believe that they really don't have any goals of forming a virtual world but the whole site is created simply to harvest email addresses.  I don't believe this is what they are doing.  There will be a virtual world that launches sometime soon, but whether or not your free shares of stock will ever be worth anything is yet to be determined.

A lot of good information can be found as well at MoneyMakerGroup.com's Me2Everyone.com Forum.  If you are a member of Me2everyone, please leave a comment below with your thoughts.

If you would like to sign up to Me2Everyone absolutely free and obtain your free shares click Here

Multiple Ponzi Schemes Getting Away with Stealing

Over the past few months, it seems as though there have been a handful of multi million dollar (or even several billion dollar) ponzi schemes busted.  We have seen Madoff's scheme get busted for apparently taking $50 billion in investors funds.  The latest scam, Stanford Financial Group, isn't accused of being a Ponzi Scheme but was an investment scam that allegedly had millions invested in Madoff's Ponzi Scheme.  

There will always be Ponzi Scheme running, and there will always be people willing to put a large chunk of their life savings into these programs.  For example, Philadelphia Phillies' Relief Pitcher Scott Eyre had literally all of his liquid cash in the Stanford Financial Group when it was shut down.  Most people get involved in these schemes through referrals from friends, family members and even business partners.  

For those of you who are considering investing in a lucrative investment that was suggested to you by a friend or family member, ask yourself this;  "Does this investment seem too good to be true?"  If you answer yes then it most likely is.  All investors should always use one rule in deciding where and how much to invest.  The greater the return promised on your investment, the greater the risk is to you in losing your money.  This is true 99.9% of the time whether investing in Stocks, Bonds, Forex, Real Estate, or an investment scheme.