"News that's not known, or not known enough."
Helen & Harry Highwater's cranky weblog of news and opinion.
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"News that's not known, or not known enough." Helen & Harry Highwater's cranky weblog of news and opinion. |
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Making money the old fashioned way: Smart friends
One in 6 West Virginians is on food stamps
The total cost of helping West Virginians eat is thus between 10 million and 25 million a month (uncertain how many people per household) West Virginia is pretty poor! So let's take a look at home prices using our good friend, Yahoo (requires images, javascript and cookies). Use search, then click "Price" button to invert the list so that low prices are shown first. Voila! 3rd = $31,000 3 bdrm 2 bath, w/tenants 10th = $89,000 3 bdrm, 2 bath Note: #10 is priced below the median, and looks pretty nice. Hope they have air conditioning though, because in summer... ... whew... it's gonna be as hot as Satan's jock strap in West Virginia! And winters are cold, I think. The lesson is: all prices are relative to other prices. If West Virginia were a rich state then houses would cost more, but it isn't so they don't. Even with the US dollar so cheap, how many Germans want to invest in Charleston fixer-uppers? Here is an article from the lovely Aden Sisters about why commodity prices are going to keep rising: The mega commodity move: Why it's happening
So, it looks like things are going to get worse for USers and THEYers before things get better. Massive global money inflation is happening, along with a global world war in currencies We have to figure out the value of things and compare that to the cost. According to the Aden sisters commodities, including gold, oil, etc. will keep rising for another 10 years or more. But these prices have gone vertical in the last few months and are therefore, relatively expensive Over at stockcharts.com the ":" symbol is used to create a chart showing the ratio of two different prices. So we can get a chart showing the price of gold in terms of oil via "$gold:$wtic" or "GLD:USO". Also, there are real estate ETF's (mutual funds that trade like stocks) for both the US and the rest of the world: US: IYR, VNQ, RWR World except US: RWX, DWR. And here is the global (world) stock index symbol: $DJW And stock index symbols: US: SPY, VTI World except US: VEU OK, so look, globally except US, real estate has fallen much faster than stocks ("RWX:VEU" ratio). Same deal here in US ("IRY:SPY") In fact, it appears that real estate is now OUT-PERFORMING stocks in the US! Could that be a result of the fact that the US government has begun nationalizing real estate losses but haven't yet guaranteed losers in stocks? It even looks like US real estate vs. gold has bottomed (use "IYR:GLD"). NOTE: IYR, VNQ, RWR, RWX and DWR are not "real estate" per se, but rather ETFs that track indexes of companies that own real estate: REITs and commercial/residential property investors. DWR is not recommended as an actual "investment" because the volume is so low ALSO: The 3 year chart of the US Dollar Index (3 year $USD) looks like a drunk falling off a balcony. We know cats bounce, even dead cats. But will the dollar? And when? In theory the US could become like Sweden or Belgium and raise taxes dramatically while socializing all services to the max, and eventually, perhaps, with a shift towards an export-oriented economy, we could dig our way out of our hole(s) and the dollar could rise again (monkeys not fly out of ass either!) In the meantime, work on contingency plans (?) ... conserve resources and accumulate "stuff". Nothing wrong with 1/10th ounce gold American Eagles, which are legal tender
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