Several million? I would look at a mix of: 1) carefully selected muni bonds (there is homework involved) 2) partnership/stake in a business with recurrent patronage 3) some dividend paying equities with stable price to book 4) some physical silver: www.tulving.com 5) some cash in fdic covered accounts
Investing sages: where can I put my money for long term security? We can start by putting this in the right forum...
With all due respect to you and any business operators, I wish running a business such as in making and selling cement is as simple as a buyer-seller box. In most cases, it will drain my money and energy. Why bother to get muddy if I could trade any cement company's shares?
Question for those who know. I never understood the whole hedging between bonds and stocks. I know bonds go up when stocks retrace and vice versa. If that's so, how do you make money, seems like you end BE no? How do you make it work ? Thanks
I think your understanding of how a church works is waaaaaay off. First, you dont "invest" in a church, you give charity to it. People that give to the church feel happy about what they give, they feel peace and in general feel like they did something good. Generally most people that attend church are happy and enjoy it, so how is it a bad thing if they give a small portion of their income to the church? I'm sure you "invest" a large portion of your money to the church of booze & hookers which gives an average annual return of 23 hangovers, 15 pukefests, 1 liver damage, chlamydia, syphlis and maybe even Hiv. The money you spend on those "preachers" will definately be used to fuel their drug ridden lifestyle and add to the decay of society. Now...which is the better "Investment"
Different strokes for different folks. You point out how OPPORTUNITY is hammering on a person's door and the door is never opened. It is an interesting thing to travel such roads and have the experience of "putting the pieces together". Often small tweaks just simply eliminate the competition in a single stroke. I put my energy into problem solving. For me the best way to problem solve is to provide money to others. Money is free and applying it is fun. Take a tour of Mud Island some day and see how a set of ideas had money applied to them. One of the inventions that made it possible was just how to do creation as an effective process.
The only reason the church of booze & hooker gives an average annual return of chlamydia, syphlis and maybe even Hiv and the real church does not is probably because these 'men of god' rape little children who are not infected with STD's 'yet'...
Instead of dropping a fiver in the basket each week, give 'em a lump sum. A Charitable Gift Annuity is a contract between you and a charitable organization. You agree to make a gift to the charity and in return, the charity agrees to make income payments to you for the rest of your life. What are the tax advantages associated with a Charitable Gift Annuity? Some possible tax advantages include: a federal income tax deduction for the donated assets, deferral of federal and state capital gains taxes upon the sale of donated appreciated assets, avoidance of taxes on future capital gains, and exclusion of the entire value of the gifted assets from the value of your estate for federal and state estate tax purposes. http://www.ins.state.ny.us/que_top10/que_life_cha.htm
Excellent points. All true what you've stated so nicely. The best you can do is to have a stash of fck-you money, about 2-3 yrs. worth of hard cash held in a combo of $, Yen and 3-mo. treasuries. I personally decided against treasuries for the reasons you stated. It might not happen now but sooner or later, its inevitable. As for whatever you have in other accounts at smaller banks and such, that could all just disappear but this is the best anyone can do given that pure cash management in person is tough given the "location" problem.
Thanks for the suggestions thus far. For those of you kind enough to pm me with warnings on ET advisors, again thanks for your concern but I can assure you building up a fair sum and having a large disposable income develops skills in spotting the wolves. I am considering making the purchase of a sizable chunk of quality agricultural land for a long term hold (20+ yrs) and developing the whole organic cycle from seed to sales. I need to thoroughly research this but it seems like farmers are being squeezed while the big retailers are making a killing. That creates a gap in the market for someone who can finance the middleman process between production and retail. My expectation is that farmers will not benefit from coming increases in food costs whereas retailers will, but those who can complete the cycle from animal mouth to human mouth can score big time. I don't need the income from the farm and combining land with food seems a safer bet than treasuries. I hope to be able to eventually earn a lot more this way than dividends from defensive stocks and if things get really bad I can live off the farm. Any better ideas?