Archive for 'Industry Updates'

Stop me if you have heard this one. The President of the United States and all of the legislators decide to lessen the bad part of the business cycle. When the economy runs into tough sledding they simply agree to give money to the companies and industries that are having hard times to make sure that the hard times go away and the pain stops. The President is of one party and the legislators, who are in control of both ...

Hopefully there is a lot in a name and generally more than meets the eye! Who said that? Actually as far as I know it was I who penned those words. Why do we care? Because there is much concern in the financial and governmental circles about a name and what it actually means. I’ll get to that in a moment.

If you decide to take a trip overseas to see some of the historical monuments we have all heard of, ...

What is the media trying to do? We know they are trying to control the election, but that is a given. Are they trying to create or at least intensify a recession in this Country? Is it just their nature to only show the dark side of a problem or do they just have the inability to even understand there is another side? Two things I have noticed which at first was a trend but now is a fact: The ...

The stock market isn’t even recognizable, let alone similar, to the way it was designed. The idea of buying stocks, classically, was to get a dividend that would give you a return on your money. “Growth stocks” were more expensive, higher price/earnings ratio, because they would most likely yield a higher dividend in the years to come. Dividends were what companies strive for to keep their investors happy. I dare say that the younger generations couldn’t tell what a dividend ...

As I begin writing this column I must admit two things: I never thought I would ever have to write a column like this and I believe that as bad as the credit and financial system in the United States looks at this time, it will make a full recovery and we will be able to move past this exceptionally painful period in our nations history. Before I lay out some rules that you need to consider I want to ...

Correct me if I am wrong, but the main thing hurting the economy is real estate—specifically too much real estate that is sitting empty because of an epidemic of foreclosures. There are many ways to deal with this, but the most direct way is to have people buy these “empty” homes and take them off the market. Again we have to figure out who is most likely to do that for the good of the country, and hopefully themselves? You ...

Perhaps you think I am kidding? The deteriorating credit markets are holding the economy hostage, and no matter what the industry comes up with, nothing seems to help. But before you cry “Uncle…Sam,” look at this cautionary tale from the Coachella Valley, best known for the city of Palm Springs, California, where our government directly and indirectly has set up a conundrum of epic proportions. Through the Stimulus legislation, they have come up with a form of jumbo loan with ...

The business of the United States of America is business, and as we await John McCain’s pick for a vice president, we have settled for three politicians among the two tickets—McCain, Obama, Biden. McCain was a military officer before becoming a politician and the other two have only been politicians, which probably doesn’t give them the skill set to watch over the nation at this very critical time in the business cycle. If we do not start minding our business, ...

The statement above means: once people learn how to make money in residential real estate, there is no going back. Many people believe that real estate as an investment is dead, buried and never to be seen again, but I sincerely believe they are wrong. As I write this, there is a new class of millionaires-in-training who are preparing to get wealthy in real estate. They are buying all the foreclosures, in good areas, they can find. About 3% of ...

Not everyone who owns a house or has bought one lately has lost it, nor have very many realized real financial losses. There are certainly a lot of paper losses, more than we need or should have had, but I believe most people will get through the mess okay. Some will actually be big winners and those are the ones I wish to highlight. What is their secret, how did they figure it out, and how can you be just ...