Filed Under (Debt, Recession) by ravi on 19-12-2008
It seems that rate cut after rate cut nothing seems to be spurring the economy back to full employment as our gross domenstic product continues to be ont he decline. Stocks have tumbled, mutual funds have flipped, and the almighty housing asset is losing value fast. Although we face grim news all day I remind myself to think “everything bad happens for a good reason”. Thank god we are in a recession now, without these bad times things wouldn’t be half off, nor would people understand that their are things more important than money. I would also like to say that I’m grateful for the recession because it opens the eyes of the public as to what our government is doing and you can actually see how this effects the routine news on CBS and other channels. The same thing is what happened during Vietnam, because of economic depression and a war people become politically involved.
People for some reason decide to spend money when they don’t have any need for useless frivolous crap that serves them or their family no good. It’s pathetic to see those who have no money on Black Friday buying a flat screen T.V. when they know that they may or may not get a job anytime soon. Not to brag but I have a fairly secure source of income, I spend money when I know that I can otherwise I keep it locked away. It seems that people have no idea how to invest money into things that can benefit either their business or themselves.
A good example of a good investment during these horrible times is FASTSIGNS. Statistics have shown time and time again that people are most likely to find your store through a sign or by word of mouth. Because of this statistic it is obvious that if you own a failing business you need to change your business practices or it may be that your sign isn’t attracting enough business. For this reason many companies decide to use the store called FASTSIGNS to make and purchase their signs.
FASTSIGNS makes great signs that will last your business for a very long time as opposed to the mediocre signs that end up failing days after the warranty for the sign expire. One must realize that some businesses integrate a failing product into their business plan, not FASTSIGNS. Check out FASTSIGNS for some great looking signs that will draw in business, stop using sings that fail.
Money market accounts are just like saving accounts except that they are not FDIC insured (most of the time). The benefit of money market accounts as opposed to regular savings accounts is that they can make you a bit more money with not a lot of risk. Now the amount of money that you will make is minimal but every penny counts. I for one have a Paypal Money market account and that seems to work very well for me although I keep a very little amount of money within it. I recommend money market accounts only if you are able to take some risk, otherwise I recommend going with a strong bank with a good history like FNBO or ING bank.
Bonds are pieces of debt sold to you at face value that yield a certain interest percent that is paid at maturity which is added to the principal value. Bonds are usually seen as safe investments because you can buy them based on their rating of credit worthiness, or you can buy treasury bills which i went into detail about a post 2 weeks ago. Buying T-bill is usually the safest investment because it is backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S government which has a triple AAA security rating. Bonds can also be bought for companies like General Electric or any other company but these carry some risk albeit a higher yield.
Some people have been talking about buying stocks now. Warren Buffet has said “it’s the time to be greedy”, and many certified financial planners are telling clients to get into the stock market. I for one disagree with that because I feel that things are only going to get worse before they get better. In addition with our unertain markets anything can happen whether it’s the dollar hitting a all time low or the house reports coming out saying that we are once again spending less thus lowering our GDP. Of course who am I to give my financial advice? I have only had a ever increasing networth since I was in the second grade.
