Oak Tree,
So the debt is increasing. Bad news since very soon the a few Chinese super rich and a similar number of Japanese super rich will own all of the USA.
I've been watching the increasing debt with some fascination. It seems absolutely bizarre to me that there doesn't seem to be much of an effort to curb this thing. It seems rather like letting a sinking tanker go down without worrying about mopping up the oil slick and just letting it wreck everything. hmmmm....
Question, outside of buying Quan, which is not really possilbe, how does one protect against the inevitable inflation of the $?
I have no real idea. I guess that the only "big thing" one can do is to stay the hell out of debt -- frankly, I'm pretty shocked about how many people don't seem to be worried about personal debt.
For my own part, I got rid of some U.S. stocks awhile ago -- which was rather a lucky move as the currency has continued to slide relative to the Canadian $ (I live in Canada, btw). I have a bit in global equity and currency funds and they've done okay. Real estate -- I've been looking to move from my current place due to encroaching subdivisions, etc... however, the market for outlying vacant land has been softening, so I'm in no rush to buy (no doubt an effect of rising gasoline prices). I'm somewhat involved in a small business that has international sales so things like the sliding U.S. currency and the spiralling costs in materials such as plastics and steel, as well as recent hefty shipping increases are a source of concern. Fortunately, sales to other countries are still pretty good, so that's where the effort is going these days. That's about it -- basically just trying not to make mistakes -- that seems to be the name of the game these days. I'm not sure where the "opportunities" lie right now.
Anyhow, yes, difficult to chart a course considering a number of rather spooky looking economic scenarios (collapse of real estate when interest rates rise? further slide of the U.S. dollar? greater unemployment? Skyrocketing prices for raw materials? Inflation on manufactured goods? Growth in number of personal and commercial bankruptcies? More wars? Have I forgotten anything?)
hmmmm....
croc |
