Posted on 11/22/2007 6:59:12 PM PST by PotatoHeadMick
Also, when the currency weakens, the business climate improves, a strong economy making a stronger paycheck. Later, the only thing that appears lower, is the debts you owe.
Again, I don’t want to totally dismiss the risk/threats of a weak currency, but they should not be overstated either. Frankly, a very strong, unusually strong currency is far more dangerous. See Japan as an example of that, and give it time, China will make Japan look like a very healthy robust economy...
Um... no.
Basis...
2 yrs ago, my partner and I took on the task of trying to reconstruct the entire history of our book. Our current CF is quite good, with good technology. In 6 weeks we’d accounted for nearly all the dollars in our 1200 hhld book. Frankly, I’m very proud of that project, and my colleagues can’t beleive we pulled it off.
The secret/trick of mutual fund recreation of basis? Hysales hypos, accurate as heck, and very quick. You do need to have the purchase date, initial investment, current value, at least two of those three numbers. Then, you need to obviously know if they were reinvesting divs/cg, and whether they were sys inv in, or w/d.
BTW, we’re totally on the same boat on ins products...
Great points.
Any idea GS outlook on oil? Do they think that has reached the end of the line too? You do have to give them credit, they called the number, 100 for oil, when that number looked ridiculous.
What is so hard to understand here. You have $100,000 in the bank. You spent many years saving it. The dollar tanks and in a couple of years your savings only buys $50,000 worth of stuff. If things get really bad then it can be anything down to near Zero. It does not matter what people get paid. This is money that took years to save. To top it off the fed lowers, and the bank pays no interest on money that is already losing value. It is not good for anyone who played the game in an honest way. And yes you might be able to pay off your debt easier- If you still have a job under those conditions. But you will not be able to charge anymore because credit will dry up- and even if you could then the new prices of things will be out of reach for you. But anyone with savings invested in USD will see the value of there savings destroyed. Why? So that those with Credit can get a free lunch?
It is not only Democrats that are seeing tough economic times right now. Any business related to home sales and home construction are definately feeling a slow down. And that is plenty of businesses. It is not just griping. Don’t bury your head in the sand.
List of exporting companies please.
Actually I believe that the latest economic numbers on this showed that both imports and exports were down. So much for the theory that we would sell more to other country’s.
All auto makers (GM, Ford, Chrysler).
All electronics makers (those we have left).
All our aerospace companies (like Boeing).
Our agricultural exports (yes, even our family farmers, much less ADM.)
Our wineries (Napa Valley is very, very happy about this).
Our manufacturing-for-export sector (Federal-Mogul, Bridgeport, Caterpillar).
Basically, anyone who sells goods made in the US to overseas markets.
Pick up a Thomas Directory. Chances are that everyone in that book save for US offices of foreign companies is VERY happy about this.
Conversely, those import competitors become much less desirable because of their escalating prices. As I recall, you have been a staunch defender of the Big Three automakers. Well, this is a BIG help to their recovery efforts.
Hey, you could do a great job promoting me! Go see pro, to protect your hard earned savings. If you don’t NEED 100k in cash, why not invest it prudently, in a responsibly invested portfolio of investments, or real estate?
Revel, that is exactly why people should invest, protect against loss of purchase power. Fortunately, most people get that, and don’t put their life savings into savings accoutns, bank cds, or only fixed rate investments.
A good investment advisor typically will suggest a person to have at least 6 months worth of living expenses in cash, and enough money to cover the known capital expenditures they will have for the next 2-3 years. After that, some asset allocation of investments is the right thing to do.
You were incorrect. Search FR, imports were down slightly, manufacturing and exports were up.
They need doom and gloom so we will elect them to save us.
But it is bigger than that too. Even a business that does not export benefits, especially when one of their competitors is say Canadian or Mexican. Take an apple farmer for example, that does zero export, they see less domestic competition from say Canada? Tomatoes, less comp from Mexico. Loss of foreign intervention, is great for these domestic producers.
And how about shopping malls by the borders? Mexicans and Canadians right now are flooding into our country every day, waiting in lines for HOURS just to spend their money here. And when they are here, they stay in hotels, use our stores, entertainment, etc. Things are now so cheap, it warrants flying to our country even, from Europe or Asia.
Well what I read..I read on an economic forum. The fact is that as the dollar falls then the price to import energy goes up. That kind of offsets any benefit’s of increased exports anyways.
Hmm. Never thought of hypos. Thanks. I'll look into it.
Yup, and let’s not forget those service providers in the US.
Call centers will start moving back to the US because it’s cheaper to hire US citizens to provide support than it is to hire Indians and train them up (even if you do not count in the cost of angry customers who have had to deal with Indian phone support). Canadian and UK companies will move their support centers here, along with other countries’ companies’ English-language support centers.
US Information Technology will see a nice big benefit from this as well - US programmers are pretty much the best, and now they’re some of the cheapest.
I do know that Buffet can't pick tops and bottoms. (Only monkeys pick bottoms, lol.). But he sure as hell comes closer to it than anyone I've ever seen.
Any idea GS outlook on oil
No clue, but if they're keying off of RSI's got to believe they think there's a top near here.
This assumes that there are no domestic energy supplies and/or that the foreign energy suppliers decline to price compete with the domestic ones; a case which is not true.
I don’t think that you are going to see good gains in those funds in this environment. We are heading into a recession. And a large one at that. You would have to risk foreign equities. But we are pulling the rest of the word down too. But you stand a really good chance of losing money that way too. stocks are high risk. If you go for a high return then you also put your neck out for a high loss. Probably one of the best things you could do is to just convert your money into another currency. If you had put that $100.000 into euros about a year ago then what would it be worth now? If the Euro had only gained 10 cents then you could convert back to USD now and have $110,000. And that is not counting any interest you may have earned. So it might be more like $115,000. If the Euro went up 20 cents then you are talking $130,000+. How many funds are you going to get a return like that?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.