A few years back, I had a belief that America will undergo inflation which will cause the dollar to fall. So I moved much of my long-term assets out of dollars and into foreign stocks. Heavy in Canadian stocks and into some international funds. I also borrowed money like there was no tomorrow because interest rates where relatively cheap. I used this money to travel and live beyond my means with the belief that I would pay back with cheaper dollars. The talk about deflation had me really nervous a little while back. What have I done... how could I be so stupid?? But that was then and this is now. Looks like everything has gone to plan. My 4.75% mortgage is likely less than inflation. My salary is also increasing at over 10% a year (I just trade part-time). My foreign assets did get hit early this year to do an extreme emphasis of stocks over bonds, but the recent collapse in the USD is making 2008 look great! (Not thanks to stock performance which was mediocre, but thanks to the currency exchange when converting value back to USD). All in all, thank you Ben Bernanke. I adopted a belief that was contrary to what my parents preached. Had I done that, my dollars would've been devalued to shit while getting a pathetic 1% interest at the bank. Instead I borrowed and lived beyond my means. I am now paying back the bank with cheap currency. I'm reaping the benefits of higher inflation and a weak dollar.
So sometimes the grasshopper does win. *** Aesop's Fables - The Ant and the Grasshopper In a field one summer's day a Grasshopper was hopping about, chirping and singing to its heart's content. An Ant passed by, bearing along with great toil an ear of corn he was taking to the nest. "Why not come and chat with me," said the Grasshopper, "instead of toiling and moiling in that way?" "I am helping to lay up food for the winter," said the Ant, "and recommend you to do the same." "Why bother about winter?" said the Grasshopper; we have got plenty of food at present." But the Ant went on its way and continued its toil. When the winter came the Grasshopper had no food and found itself dying of hunger, while it saw the ants distributing every day corn and grain from the stores they had collected in the summer. Then the Grasshopper knew: It is best to prepare for the days of necessity.
Enjoy your life and live a little. A beer or two won't hurt ya. At least you are not depressed and filled with doom and gloom like most of the current readers here..
When you sell your home donot forget to take your $500,000 ( married) or $250,000 ( single ) capital tax deduction. Where else can you find that kind of cash handed down to you ? IF these idiots have bought a home they would be entitled to $500,000 cash after being in the house for 2 years. But these idiots chose to live in one bedroom closets paying taxes and washing clothes at public laundromats like other pathetic losers.
ORIGINAL VERSION The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold. MODERN AMERICAN VERSION The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.. CBS, NBC and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can it be that, in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so? Then a representative of the NAGB (The National Association of Green Bugs) shows up on Nightline and charges the ant with green bias, and makes the case that the grasshopper is the victim of 30 million years of greenism. Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when he sings "It's not easy being green." Bill and Hillary Clinton make a special guest appearance on the CBS Evening News to tell a concerned Dan Rather that they will do everything they can for the grasshopper who has been denied the prosperity he deserves by those who benefited unfairly during the Reagan summers. Barack Obama exclaims in an interview with Peter Jennings that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his "fair share." Finally, the EEOC drafts the "Economic Equity and Anti-Greenism Act" retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government. Hillary gets her old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel of federal hearing officers appointed from a list of single-parent welfare moms who can only hear cases on Thursday's between 1:30 and 3:00 PM. The ant loses the case. The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he's in - which just happens to be the ant's old house - crumbles around him since he doesn't know how to maintain it. The ant has disappeared in the snow. And on the TV, which the grasshopper bought by selling most of the ant's food, they are showing Hil-Dog standing before a wildly applauding group of Democrats announcing that a new era of "fairness" has dawned in America.
Don't hate the player, hate the game. I was always known for one to abuse a situation for my own advantage. Had the federal reserve and government did their job and maintained price stability along with a strong dollar, I'd be screwed. However this country rewards irresponsible behaviour, and damn right I'm going to take advantage of it. If Bush wants to refinance mortgages for 30-year fixed at 3%, sign me the fuck up.