I don’t buy gloom and doom talk, like this nonsense from this week’s Newsmax:
Economist Caution: Prepare For ‘Massive Wealth Destruction’
Take immediate steps to protect your wealth . . . NOW!
That’s exactly what many well-respected economists, billionaires, and noted authors are telling you to do – experts such as Marc Faber, Peter Schiff, Donald Trump (????), and Robert Wiedemer. According to them, we are on the verge of another recession, and this one will be far worse than what we experienced during the last financial crisis.
Marc Faber, the noted Swiss economist and investor, has voiced his concerns for the U.S. economy numerous times during recent media appearances, stating, “I think somewhere down the line we will have a massive wealth destruction. I would say that well-to-do people may lose up to 50 percent of their total wealth.”
Here’s Time’s cover which has more nonsense:
What I do buy is:
+ There will always be business cycles — in which the value of assets will rise dramatically and fall dramatically.
+ Future ones will be just as severe as the 2008 one — perhaps more so, because we’ve invented more ways to gamble and there is still woefully inadequate regulation, i.e. protection for the likes of you and I. Nothing has changed. The banks have lobbied successfully against tighter regulation.
Time didn’t publish a “How to Protect Yourself.” So here’s Harry’s ten-part self protection program:
1. Limit your borrowings. If the value of the asset you borrowed against falls dramatically — a building can easily fall by 50% — the bank can (and will) take it away from you.
2. Keep at least two years of family spending in cash. It’s not good to be chucked out of your house. Your family will get very annoyed. Divorce is more expensive than the Great Recession.
3. Spread your money around. You only get $250,000 of free insurance from the FDIC on each bank account.
4. Don’t invest in any “alternative investment” created by any bank/investment bank/financial institution — whatever you want to call them. the only people who’ll make money on those investments is them — not you. Trust me on this one.
5. Don’t put money into money market funds. Many of them are just waiting to blow up.
6. Don’t believe a word the ratings agencies say. They’re still being paid by the entities whose securities they rate. Digest that one.
7. You don’t have a relationship with your bank of 20 years. “Long-term” relationships are dead. Think one-night stands. You need to bid out every deal, every borrowing you want to do.
8. Everything Wall Street publishes is designed for a purpose. That purpose does not include helping you. Check anything and everything you read.
9. Anyone can dress in a nice suit, speak well, learn to sell and rent a corner office. This means they want to sell you something for today’s commission — not for your long-term gain.
10. If all this sounds too cynical, it’s not.
Print my list. Put in your drawer. Pull it up a year from now.
There are three rules to live by:
1. Don’t lose money.
2. If it sounds too good, it is.
3. Learn to say NO. It’s the most valuable word you’ll ever learn.
The best thing Larry Summers ever did. He withdrew from running for Bernanke replacement. As a result, today’s futures are up bigtime.
Larry Summers is an arrogant, abrasive economist with zero practical skills. Normally you don’t appoint economists to jobs where they can really screw up. But they stupidly appointed Summers to bepresident of Harvard College. He so messed up the college’s monies that they almost went bankrupt. If you figure Harvard has the biggest endowment in the country, making them bankrupt would have been some major accomplishment. They got rid of him in the nick of time — but not before he pissed off all the women at Harvard by saying they were inferior, which they’re actually not.
Cataract lessons. What you should learn from my idiocy.
1. Most everyone will need a cataract operation.
2. Your new, post-op, lenses are monofocus — meaning they only focus on one distance. You choose what the distance is.
3. I chose computer distance. My new eyes focus best at 24 inches. To see long distance I need glasses.
4. Most people choose to have their eyes focuses at infinity. That way they only need glasses for reading and computer work.
5. Some people get one eye for long distance and one eye for reading. They tell me it works — after a three months of “brain training.”
Conclusion: I should have gone for two eyes distance and donned glasses for reading. Better driving. Better tennis. Much better peripheral vision. Big mistake. Don’t make my mistake when your time comes. Opt for distance.
Favorite recent New Yorker cartoons:
Bad week for making the grade. From The Week magazine:
After all 25,000 students who took an entrance exam for the University of Liberia failed the test, a university official said all the students “lacked enthusiasm.”
Harry Newton who’s kicking himself. He should have gone distance on the eyes.
No Harry , you should have chosen at least one multi focus IOL. Then you would need no glasses at all.
I believe that the FDIC insurance limit is $250,000 per depositor, so that a married couple with a joint account would have a $500,000 limit.
Yes, I know that.. But I’ve heard horror stories of when a bank is closed and the bureaucratic FDIC takes over and has to deal with the paperwork of two beneficiaries…. It takes much longer. Make it easier for them is my simple motto. Limit the complexities.
Last time I checked, the Dollar Store was selling reading glasses for $1.50.
Get contact lens for tennis. Contacts offer good eye protection against the sun’s rays too.
Brilliant idea. That’s exactly what I’ll do. Thank you.
Just a thought…your eyes need protection from sunlight while outdoors or playing tennis etc. Get some good prescription sun glasses and quit kicking yourself…you don’t need glasses indoors♥
I went for distance implants. Reading glasses cost less than $8 for three pairs at Walmart and I can stash spares all over — much less expensive than paying for distance glasses, which I’ll misplace.