Financial News
« Previous EntriesWorldwide financial crises turn people toward gold
I suppose it’s no secret that, in times of financial crisis, people turn away from negotiable currency and various sorts of stocks and bonds toward good old-fashioned precious metals.
Not surprisingly, then, I just saw an online article that says Europe’s financial instabilities are turning investors toward gold coins. The story I read said the one-ounce 2010 American Eagle bullion coin seems to be increasingly popular.
The only thing I know about gold coins, really, is that my wife has some vintage U.S. two-dollar (I think?) gold piece that was mounted in a bracelet her father bought for her when she was a young girl. At the current rate of around $1,200 per ounce for gold, I really have no idea how much her little bracelet would be worth. Besides, she keeps it as a memorial of her departed dad, so you can bet we’d never sell it.
Are you investing in anything these days? If so, are you investing part of your money in gold, silver, or other precious metals? Curious minds want to know, so leave us a comment and let us know your best gold investing strategy — or not, as you wish.
Home repairs offer harsh distraction from news, newspapers
Sometimes I sit here trying to keep informed and make at least somewhat intelligent comments about “the news” — then sometimes I just get, should we say, distracted by home repairs and maintenance.
It’s the home repairs and maintenance part I hate the most! And nothing ranks higher on the “hate list” of such stuff for me than plumbing problems. When you live in a really, REALLY old house (just over 100 years old, I think), you find out that pipes are fragile and pipe joints generally cannot be budged with anything short of a bulldozer. Not a good combination.
But the biggest problem is that I am completely ignorant and inept about most home repairs and maintenance — and plumbing probably comes in second on that list of ineptitudes, just below electrical issues. (I have this irrational fear of someday working to install a beautiful new Moen kitchen faucet while I’ve forgotten to unplug the garbage disposal and being seriously injured or killed by electricity combining with water while I’m standing in it.)
My last two home repair projects both have been plumbing related. I reinstalled some plastic drain pipes that connect the garbage disposal sink drain to the main sink drain in the kitchen. (My son did the installation initially and cut the plastic pipes about 1/4-inch too short. Takes after his dad, I guess.) And I actually replaced the small faucet in our nearly-antique-but-really-just-falling-apart-from-age bathroom sink. (That one I got right the first try; the pipes are easy to reach and I generally have to replace it twice a year.)
Ah, well, the joys of home ownership. Now I’m going to wash off a bit, settle down with some coffee, and read about the many ways the latest Wall Street multi-billionaires have found to make money off our home mortgages.
Common sense helps you reduce identity theft risks
You don’t have to be paranoid to think someone’s out to get you — you just have to live in our credit-oriented world and read the daily accounts online and off line about identity theft horror stories.
If you have a Social Security number — and virtually everyone in America DOES — and you have bank accounts, investments, and just about any sort of credit card, you are at risk for identity theft. No matter how secure we make ourselves, if someone wants to badly enough, they probably can find out personal/private information that gives them some sort of a toe hold on our financial lives.
That’s the bad news.
The good news is, of course, that we can be forewarned of the risks and help reduce them. There are identity theft protection plans offered by many banks, insurance companies, and other financial institutions. I’ve never used one, but I have heard that some are very affordable and very useful.
There is the simple step of disconnecting our Social Security numbers from our finances and public records as much as possible. For many years, the state I live in automatically used Social Security numbers for drivers’ license numbers. As identity theft issues grew, and as individuals protested the practice, our state joined most others in assigning random numbers to drivers’ licenses instead of using Social Security numbers.
I guess the bottom line is simply to use as much common sense as possible. Don’t give personal information of ANY KIND to people you don’t trust or know. And then, well, okay, maybe a bit of daily identity paranoia is wise.
Even in real estate hard-times, dream home raffles aid good causes
It’s exciting to know that, even in real estate hard-times, “dream home raffles” for charity generate aid for good causes.
We’re having a “Dream Home raffle” to benefit St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital, in the area where I live, and it seems like a terrific idea to me. I haven’t followed how ticket sales are going (for $100 you get a chance at a newly built house in a nice subdivision which has been valued at $375,000), but I hear a lot about the raffle (the drawing is next month) on local television newscasts, so I assume it’s doing all right.
But I began to wonder — actually, members of a men’s Bible study group I attend at church on Tuesday mornings started the speculation — about what sort of frills and doodads such homes have, and most importantly, what sort of tax wallop is waiting to smack the winner. As for the quality of the home, I think median home prices in today’s market in and around Springfield, Missouri, would place this home considerably above the median, and I’m sure it has some nice features built into it. (I wonder if it has vessel sinks? I just recently read about vessel sinks and think I’d like to have some.)
As for the tax man’s cut of such a deal, I suppose there’s an explanation about that part if I were to buy a ticket, or inquire about one of the tickets. Speculation in our small group this morning was that you’d probably have to pay at the highest tax bracket, or perhaps pay at some sort of tax rate for gifts and/or gambling winnings, since you’d be getting the home as a result of a raffle.
Anybody reading this know how such things work for taxes? What about all those excited people who win money and prizes on TV game shows? How do they get hit with taxes? Anyone who knows about such tax matters, leave us a comment and enlighten us.
Is the world filled with people who only know how to PANIC at the news?
Is the world really filled with people who only know how to react with panic when they read or hear the news?
I ask because everything negative or dangerous going on in the world seems to inspire panic or near panic, whether we’re talking about economic trouble or swine flu. From the 24/7 cable channels to Internet blogs, no one seems to pause and reflect on ANYTHING. Instead, everyone runs around screaming: “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!”
Look at the economic downturn, for example. As grim as the economy is worldwide, there still are people out there finding the best buy on everything from TV sets to cars to stock prices. I realize that’s not really good news for people who have lost huge chunks of their retirement funds or even their jobs. But for those with even a little bit of money for buying or investing, these are not bad times.
And then there’s the huge crisis (?) dominating the news cycles yesterday and today — a swine flu epidemic (?) spreading throughout the U.S. and Mexico. I would not pretend to minimize the potential problems associated with this new strain of flu. Health officials are urging everyone to take two major precautions to maximize their chances of being infected with this or any other flu: 1) cover your mouth when/if you cough or sneeze, and, 2) wash your hands with lots of soap and hot water frequently.
But whether you’re facing hard times economically or you’re worried about the flu outbreak — DON’T PANIC. Don’t take foolish risks and don’t ignore real dangers — but DON’T PANIC.
Got it? Good.
More from the recession front lines: Even luxury car sales are declining
Alas, economic hard times are even hitting luxury car manufacturers and sales, according to an online article I read recently at a Tampa Bay area newspaper website. (You remember newspapers, don’t you? Those large pieces of paper with lots of words on them that many of us used to read for daily and weekly news in pre-Internet days? You do remember, don’t you??)
Apparently Rolls Royce is doing best in that area, only dropping from 37 sales in February 2008 to 36 in 2009. Alas, Ferrari sales declined for the same months from 135 to 90, and Lamborghini went down from 84 to 70. All that makes you wonder, though, have Ferrari parts or Lamborghini parts increased in sales over the last year as owners focus on repair and maintenance so they can make do and hang on to their aging vehicles, rather than replacing them? No word on that.
I know you can make a case that the “rich” or “super rich” suffer during economic times just as the rest of us do. After all, to the man or woman who’s accustomed to living on, say, $1.7 million annual income it would be a radical cutback to make a go of it on $975,000. (And I’m only half sarcastic about that. Really.)
I mean, wow, how many Rolls or Bentleys can you possibly buy and maintain if you’re facing such a hit in income?? Hard times are upon us all.
Economic crunch hurting, or are you flying under the radar so far?
So, is the economic crunch hurting you and/or your family, or are you flying under the radar so far?
Certainly the state of the economy here in the U.S. and worldwide is impacting every area of every life in one way or the other. But so far, for my wife and me and for our kids and their families, we’re doing all right. No job losses or cutbacks yet or likely in the immediate future. One family member has taken some serious hits on some stock investments. But hanging in there will eventually mean recovery. So far, that loss is only on paper.
No one in my immediate circle of family or friends has faces foreclosure, nothing really even that has hurt any credit reports or raised any immediate need for credit report services.
I wish we could say this has been our good fortune because we were so materially and financially secure that we have stayed above the fray. In reality, our good fortune has been that we’ve had so little materially and financially that our family has sort of been truly “flying under the radar” and the heavy economic blasts have gone over us.
So far so good.
How are you faring through this economic crunch? Recession got you down? Facing job loss or perhaps already lost your job? Comment and let us know what’s on your mind regarding the economic battles going on out there.
Helpful information about why, how The Fed is handling economic crises
The CBS show “60 minutes” has a great interview and feature going on as I write this with Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke. Very revealing, and it helps understand why the Fed does what it does and why they believe current governmental efforts to deal with this horrendous economic situation will work.
Bernanke certainly seems to have the credentials for the job, and with the help of Congress, the Federal Reserve board seems to be getting things straight.
I know very little about economics and frankly have little expertise for saying, “No, no, no, this won’t work,” or “Yeah, this is what needs to be done.” I suspect I’m not alone on that. I further suspect those who see simplistic answers to this whole mess of our economy and the world economy are probably wrong.
So, quit reading my babbling right now, turn on your television and — assuming it’s possible in your area right now — watch this. Or look for excerpts online at CBS News and/or YouTube. Very revealing, interesting stuff.
Here’s hoping the stimulus plan will help the economy
Here’s hoping that gigantic federal stimulus plan will help the economy. Despite what Rush Limbaugh and others have said, it really is in the best interest of us all to turn the economy around. So now the federal cash drawer will open and we’ll have to see what happens.
It’s important to note at least two things about this plan:
1. NOBODY, not those who backed it and not those who opposed it, believes all will suddenly be sweetness and light and economic prosperity. If you think those supporting it feel that optimistic about it, you haven’t been paying close enough attention.
2. There are a multitude of idiotic, just plan dishonest charges floating around the Internet and elsewhere about what’s in the huge package of legislation we’re calling the “stimulus plan” or “jobs bill.” Neither label, by the way, is entirely correct. If one thing about this legislation is seriously wrong, it’s the way it was rushed through so quickly that it probably contains lots of problems and lacks lots of details.
Unfortunately, no one can guarantee this will work. And there are those who say the best thing to have done might honestly be to have done nothing. How doing nothing would have helped, I personally don’t understand. When hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of savings and investments are going down the drain monthly, what part of “nothing” really will solve the problem?
What, really, does the economy hold in store for us in 2009?
Give me your best guess — will the economy improve significantly in the U.S. and worldwide in the coming new year? I really don’t know, either.
I spent some time earlier today reading some posts about “best-guess” economics, and believe me I did NOT come away feeling happy about the future. The good news is that these were not economists, merely some online marketing people who had read some articles related to the future of our financial system, housing markets, and the credit industry. In other words, they may or may not be right. If the last three or four months have proven anything they have proven that not even the “experts” know what lies ahead for the economy.
Unfortunately, when the entire economic structure of the known civilized world is hurt or “broken,” there are no quick fixes. There aren’t any simple POS systems we can set up and quickly manage all the economic chaos going on out there right now.
But I choose to have faith. I have faith that the U.S. is a fundamentally strong nation and that sound leadership and sober decisions by all of us can get us out of this mess. I reject the dire predictions of a “Second Great Depression.” For one thing, as a sort of “junior historian,” I know the present situation has similarities with the first Great Depression, but a LOT of differences, too.
We’re all in this together, and I choose to hope (and pray) that we’ll ultimately get through this together.
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