I thought I should try to be more active with my 401(K), but it turns out those things offer you very little in the way of options. Why can't we just have a tax-deferred account that we can distribute into whatever investments we want and has no restrictions as to who can use it? 401(K), IRA, Roth IRA -- they all SUCK!!!

Baby Steps

I bought my first stock today! Oh, I feel like an adult now. :)

Anyway, the broker recommended the Central Fund of Canada, and I should be able to buy about 50 shares. He suggests buying about 100 shares in CEF before moving on to other things. That will be another month's worth. Then we can start diversifying.

In other news, the G8 is meeting and talking about moving away from the dollar. They're trying to soften the blow, though, by saying it applies to all fiat currency and by saying it will take many years to do this. We'll see. If the US economy continues to decline, the situation could escalate.

In the meantime, I have sent the paperwork to my parents for opening their own account. My dad still needs some convincing, though.

My money got deposited in my account on Wednesday, but by the time I found out it was was too late to contact my broker before he left for the long holiday weekend. I'll call him Monday.

I'm taking the opportunity to brush up on my accounting knowledge and get better at reading and (more importantly) interpreting financial statements. I bought Reading Financial Reports for Dummies which takes a surprisingly real-world (read: cynical) approach. I like it! :)

Meanwhile I keep hoping my mom will get through to my dad on the importance of this. She asked me to send her the paperwork, and I'll do that this weekend.

I'm still in something of a state of limbo. My paperwork finally arrived at the brokerage, but now I have to fund my account.I have the money (a little, anyway), but my credit union doesn't seem to let me wire money to them, so I'll have to mail them a check. That will take days to get there and possibly a couple of weeks to clear. I'll see if I can find a quicker way because that is very disappointing.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to convince my parents of the importance of considering the dire state of our economy and what they may need to do about it. But my dad is very stubborn and extremely reluctant to do anything even remotely different -- let alone something as radical as investing in a foreign market. I'll visit them next weekend, so maybe talking about it face-to-face will help.

Hemorrhage

The news looks more and more grim. I'm really starting to wonder if I'll have a chance to get any money invested before this whole thing hits -- let alone have enough to actually be financially sound. The only good thing (for me, at least, not for the economy) is that the other countries seem to be intent on slowly reducing their dollar assets...which will hopefully buy me some time. But it will likely become more and more difficult to invest in the coming months (even if the economy doesn't collapse), as the weakening dollar will mean foreign stocks will be increasingly more expensive.

Our economy is bleeding out, and I'm a long way from the hospital.

Is it already too late?

I read this article today, and it really has me worried. It isn't so much the smugglers who got caught; it's the other things -- the increasing derision foreign nations have for our economy. Things really do look very bad right now, and I'm afraid it all may tank before I have a chance to do anything about it. I'm working as fast as I can, but will it be enough? Could the whole thing fall apart in the next few days, before I have a chance to even make an initial investment?

Hopefully not. Most people seem to think not. I hope they're right. But that's the problem with awakening to a new reality. Suddenly there's so much you don't know, so much you aren't prepared for. There's a period of fear and uncertainty as you try to reorganize yourself to be ready for what may come. And it's so hard to know how much fear is justified.

Nothing's ever simple

I talked to the broker today. He pointed me to some paperwork I have to submit via snail mail.

I only have a few hundred dollars to invest at the moment, but I'll have more soon enough. He told me that wouldn't be enough to properly diversify and they generally advise waiting until you have a few thousand dollars to invest before beginning. But I want to get started. There will always be an excuse to wait. More importantly, what if it takes me 4 months to save up that much money...and what if the economy collapses in 3 months. What good did waiting do me.

$400-ish dollars may not buy much, and I may lose it all by not being diversified. But I'll (essentially) lose it all anyway if the economy collapses. At that point, my $400 won't make much difference. My thinking is, if it comes to the point that my $400 matters, then $400 won't matter.

Anyway, I'll mail the paperwork tomorrow. They should get it early Monday or Tuesday. Hopefully I might even own some stock by week's end.

We'll see.

Pin drop?

China is reining in their investments in the US economy*. This is exactly what Schiff predicted, although China swears nothing should be read into it...and they seem to think they are pot-committed** as the river card is set to turn. China is also drastically reducing their trade surpluses, which undermines one of Schiff's principal tenets (that they will benefit from our collapse because of the absurd trade imbalance in their favor). China is even looking to increase investment "overseas," which would seem to indicate the US. If such is the case, it gives them significant reason to continue propping up the dollar...and weakens their independent standing, should the American economy fail. Still, they seem to be voicing stronger concerns about their role in our economy, so who knows what may happen.

* This is an older article, I know, but it is much more recent than Schiff's book.
** Key quote: "...Beijing has little choice but to keep buying US debt."

Learning

I contacted Peter Schiff's firm and got an email from Todd Engelson. He just gave me his contact information, so I'll call him tomorrow. In the meantime, I decided to start doing some research.

There are a lot of things to learn. Some of it is whether Schiff is worth listening to. No one seems to think he is a charlatan. The question is whether his advice is any good. Some people definitely think not. I suppose that is to be expected. But it seems undeniable that Schiff's global predictions have not held true over the past couple of years. Is that because we are still inflating our Bubble of Doom?

The main thing I need to learn is what foreign companies are worth investing in. I'm an arrogant American! I don't know about anything that exists outside our borders.

This could be tough.

Here I go again...

I am a card-carrying Gen-Xer. In other words, I'm lazy. So if there's a way to make some good money with minimal effort, I'm there.

Don't get me wrong, I'm gainfully employed. In fact, I am fortunate enough to make a decent living doing what I love (programming)...and I end up with a good amount of disposable cash at the end of the month. But I'm not good at saving (for many reasons), and I fear investing, so I'll jump at something that seems a sure deal with a positive long-term outlook.

That's why I got into the "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" fad several years ago. I studied real estate investing, bought books, went to seminars...and then found out that Kiyosaki is a fraud and his advice is suspect at best.

Now I've read the book CrashProof by Peter Schiff (after seeing him on The Daily Show), and I've fallen for it. For those who don't know, Schiff claims that the USA is on the verge of an inevitable economic collapse that will resemble the Great Depression if we're lucky. Maybe his predictions are exaggerated, but I believe him because his views are in line with what I was taught about economics in school. He follows sound, traditional principles.

That doesn't make him right, but I need to start saving money. At 35, I desperately need to start in making long-term investments...but I also have a little bit of time for trial and error. If Schiff is right, overseas/international investment is the way to go. So I'm going to give it a shot.

This is my story.