flyerd1


Even though I’ve already prepared for no social security benefit I definitely do NOT see it going belly up. Any required changes “WILL” be made because the baby boom generation is way too big of a voting segment. Here are three things I think either will or “should” be changed. I’m sure there will be some disagreements but here we go (it’s a little long):

1) One of the things I definitely expect to see soon is a change in the SS tax so that there is NO cap on income subject to the tax (currently 97.5K).

2) A .5% increase ($50 extra per $10K of annual earnings) in the tax itself to 6.7%. This, combined with #1 above, would add quite a bit to the fund. Ex: a person earning 197.5K would pay an extra $7,187.50. A hedge fund manager (wall Street exec, etc) making 100,097,500.00 would pay an additional 6,700,487.50 in SS tax. The tax could be reduced to .5% lower than the “current” level as the system gained its footing. That would mean a 5.7% SS tax. The .5% reduction (from 6.2 to 5.7) could then be added to the Medicare tax to fix it. The net effect would be no change in the total SS/Medicare tax (it would still be a total of 7.65%)

3) Unfortunately, I think most people (i.e. 70%+) would do even worse than the governments historically bad rate of return; therefore I’m against giving some of the money to individuals who, for the most part, can’t even manage what they have now. However, I do believe the money should be invested for higher returns in a diversified ETF portfolio something like this: 50% domestic/international stocks (ex’s: S&P, NASDAQ, IOO, ADRA), 20% commodities related (GLD, DBA, VAW, IGE,), 20% High Quality Bonds (Gov’t & Corporate), 10% Cash equivalents like CD ylding > 6%.

4) Protect SS funds from “other” uses.

5) Additionally, in the interest of saving the system, and because I believe social security should be more of a safety net for “if” you need it, I submit the following thought. I think SS benefits should be “eliminated” for people with retirement sources of income (cap gains, div’s, pensions, etc) “or” assets (minus primary house & active farmland) totaling greater than a set limit that adjusts for inflation. Purely as a starting point for debate: I would support a current income threshold limit of 2.5X the average income of the city you reside in “and/or” a 3M asset limit. For example: if your city’s avg income was 40K, and your total retired income exceeded 100K (or assets > 2M), you would not get any of the SS money that you would otherwise collect (your full benefit would simply be “reduced” between 1.5-2.5X that city’s avg income). Adjusting for salary increases, the avg income in my example would be around 100K in 30 yrs and therefore you total retired income would have to be more than 250K (or assets >5M) to lose the entire benefit. My money’s where my mouth is because I’m 30yrs from SS eligibility and I will have ZERO problem giving up my benefits when I’m spending >250K/yr and/or have assets >5M. BTW, the hedge fund mngr mentioned in #2 would get a nice fat $2100/month (6K/month in 30 yrs) “if” he somehow went bankrupt between making 100M and retirement so he “would” be able to take advantage of the “safety net” that he had paid into. Actually, the max benefit would have to be increase when the 97.5K cap was abolished. I could see the hedge fund guy getting the new max benefit of 10K/month (28K/month in 30 yrs) because he put more into it. The 10K/month amount would apply to anyone who had paid SS tax on an average income > 500K/yr every yr from age 21 (per current rules for the 2100 max payment). The 500K as of 07’ would be adjusted backward and fwd for inflation.

Unlike some, who think SS should be phased out, I still like the idea of SS (even if I never benefit from mine). I see it as an encouragement for people to take chances in their lives such as entrepreneurial risks. I think that knowing there is “something” to fall back on would provide at least a little bit of encouragement to try high risks/high reward endeavors. If, however, the business risk pays off and you create the next MSFT, APPL, GOOG, CAT, etc, etc. then there’s no reason to “access” that safety net.

Any opinions, thoughts, or new ideas that aren’t smartass in nature?

nobleisback


I realize that futures are commodities such as oil, gold, CORN (lol), and such, but where are they traded and is there a good news source for them? How can I invest in one? I have capitol.

shadowfiend@yahoo.com


For a class project I need to invest $10,000 hypothetical dollars in something i.e. stocks, commodities, or real-estate. However even my parents haven’t given me much advice because they don’t know what to do with the money we have.

What should I invest in?

Thank you! The goal is to make the most money by the time the project is finished. So I’d say maybe a month. I know thats not a lot of time but thats what i’ve been given.

devil


an investing which picks the 30 best stocks from Dow Jones Islamic World indexes, so what is the Dow Jones Islamic World Indexes? (that is a commodities plan)

Marcel Ford


While it doesn’t seem as grossly belied as six months to a year ago, prospective buyers of bulk REO (known as real estate owned, bank owned or foreclosed properties) portfolios are still experiencing immense frustration in finding product with the aftermath of “intermediaries” operating on the Internet.

Over the last eighteen months, a depressed real estate market, coupled by ever increasing foreclosure rates and a severe downward spiral of fresh mortgages, is only fueling many imploded mortgage brokers to parlay their attempts into linking buyers with banks distressed assets. These internet “brokers” with minimalistic experiences in the workings of liquidating distressed assets, create lengthy chains of “intermediary brokers” between supposed buyers and supposed sellers in their eternal search for product. The end result is they are ill-equipped in delivering product, are ineffective in collaborating with the client’s requests, and do not fully understand the protocol that needs to be followed. Oftentimes, a buyer’s assets are floated in cyber-space filtered from one intermediary source to another. Dissuasion begins to form in the buyer’s mind, he is told he can readily purchase REOs in the low 20 to 30% LTV and gets the false illusion that such packages readily exist.

Another seen result of these “broker chains” is the nefarious plot towards luring prospective clients towards “available REO packages” which emanates from some obscure place and is leaked to several of these “intermediary brokers” who cross-pollinate these packages amongst the “broker chains”.  The sad part of this is that many times it ultimately ends up with potential buyers who have the means and the wherewithal to consummate the transaction and end up finding that there is no true platform selling the assets, their time is wasted and confidence in the system eroded.

As a burned child is carried out of a burning house, buyers often find themselves entering another furnace the more they look.  We have spoken to several clients who have been searching for REO packages for over a year with no success.

Daniel Bruckner emphasizes that it is important to answer the following questions:

Has anyone explained to those looking to get into the REO bulk buying pool specific questions on the matter? Have these “brokers” ever seen a banks “addendum” for REO buys?   Do they even realize that even in a “small” trade of $40M (U.S) in REOs that there are MAJOR title issues, an immense amount of legal work, analytical costs, very complicated contracts, compliance issues and on and on? There is also a plethora of work to secure, insure and deal with the properties let alone liquidating them as well. We have seen several different law firms and countless man hours go into just the due diligence phase.

Since late 2006 to present, there have been 267 major U.S. lending institutions that have imploded.  Out of these, the most recent are Wachovia Mortgage, (FSB Wholesale), Lehman Brothers (SBF),  IndyMac Bancorp, Mortgages, Ltd and Wilmington Finance (Wholesale).

So, what is the necessitous buyer to do? 

“Become educated on the capital markets,” Bruckner remarks.  “This is where InvestorEarth’s gregariousness comes into play and gives us the opportunity to further educate those individuals’ expectations.

In a declining global market, many buyers are wrought in difficulty in their pursuit to secure an appropriate ROI. In the declining global market, the preferred investment vehicles of today include REOs, CMOs (Collateralized Mortgage Obligations), BGs (Bank Guarantees), MTNs (Medium Term Notes) and HYPIPs (High Yielding Private Investment Programs) - all which achieve above average returns during a recession. While you may be well-versed on REO’s, the mass of incoming interests lies upon MTNs, CMOs and most excitably HYPIPs. Many, possibly all of these vehicles, may appear unfamiliar to you, Once they are explained and the ROIs realized, the intoxication gravitating towards these programs becomes overwhelming for our clients and they generally want little to do with bulk REOs are they invest forward.

InvestorEarth.com plays a much broader and sophisticated role to high net worth investors and investment groups by educating those who come to us wanting to profit in the dynamic capital markets of REOs, CMOs, BGs, MTNs, HIPIPs and other popular investment commodities.

billybob


Keeping in mind the current state of the market, how would you suggest investing for long term right now (im 20). I have 2 CDs and also own about the same value in stocks (lately ive mostly been investing into stocks). I am going to be getting a fairly large check soon and plan on investing a good portion of it. So do all of you think the market is near bottom or that it will have a lot longer to go? Also with how the market is, how do you think Chinese Stocks will perform? Do you think it is good to stick to something like CDs for now?

I was thinking of probably picking up shares of SNY (which is down because of a FDA subpoena on one of their drugs, which I already have shares of), CWDK (Chinese, Probably if it drops some more), PEP (Commodities seem good for this recession and its had a large recent drop), NPB (Chinese, seems low and like it has a good future as the chinese medical industry grows (and more people have access to it)) and also SIMO (Taiwan, low price now)

Marcel Ford


While it doesn’t seem as grossly belied as six months to a year ago, prospective buyers of bulk REO (known as real estate owned, bank owned or foreclosed properties) portfolios are still experiencing immense frustration in finding product with the aftermath of “intermediaries” operating on the Internet.

Over the last eighteen months, a depressed real estate market, coupled by ever increasing foreclosure rates and a severe downward spiral of fresh mortgages, is only fueling many imploded mortgage brokers to parlay their attempts into linking buyers with banks distressed assets. These internet “brokers” with minimalistic experiences in the workings of liquidating distressed assets, create lengthy chains of “intermediary brokers” between supposed buyers and supposed sellers in their eternal search for product. The end result is they are ill-equipped in delivering product, are ineffective in collaborating with the client’s requests, and do not fully understand the protocol that needs to be followed. Oftentimes, a buyer’s assets are floated in cyber-space filtered from one intermediary source to another. Dissuasion begins to form in the buyer’s mind, he is told he can readily purchase REOs in the low 20 to 30% LTV and gets the false illusion that such packages readily exist.

Another seen result of these “broker chains” is the nefarious plot towards luring prospective clients towards “available REO packages” which emanates from some obscure place and is leaked to several of these “intermediary brokers” who cross-pollinate these packages amongst the “broker chains”.  The sad part of this is that many times it ultimately ends up with potential buyers who have the means and the wherewithal to consummate the transaction and end up finding that there is no true platform selling the assets, their time is wasted and confidence in the system eroded.

As a burned child is carried out of a burning house, buyers often find themselves entering another furnace the more they look.  We have spoken to several clients who have been searching for REO packages for over a year with no success.

Daniel Bruckner emphasizes that it is important to answer the following questions:

Has anyone explained to those looking to get into the REO bulk buying pool specific questions on the matter? Have these “brokers” ever seen a banks “addendum” for REO buys?   Do they even realize that even in a “small” trade of $40M (U.S) in REOs that there are MAJOR title issues, an immense amount of legal work, analytical costs, very complicated contracts, compliance issues and on and on? There is also a plethora of work to secure, insure and deal with the properties let alone liquidating them as well. We have seen several different law firms and countless man hours go into just the due diligence phase.

Since late 2006 to present, there have been 267 major U.S. lending institutions that have imploded.  Out of these, the most recent are Wachovia Mortgage, (FSB Wholesale), Lehman Brothers (SBF),  IndyMac Bancorp, Mortgages, Ltd and Wilmington Finance (Wholesale).

So, what is the necessitous buyer to do? 

“Become educated on the capital markets,” Bruckner remarks.  “This is where InvestorEarth’s gregariousness comes into play and gives us the opportunity to further educate those individuals’ expectations.

In a declining global market, many buyers are wrought in difficulty in their pursuit to secure an appropriate ROI. In the declining global market, the preferred investment vehicles of today include REOs, CMOs (Collateralized Mortgage Obligations), BGs (Bank Guarantees), MTNs (Medium Term Notes) and HYPIPs (High Yielding Private Investment Programs) - all which achieve above average returns during a recession. While you may be well-versed on REO’s, the mass of incoming interests lies upon MTNs, CMOs and most excitably HYPIPs. Many, possibly all of these vehicles, may appear unfamiliar to you, Once they are explained and the ROIs realized, the intoxication gravitating towards these programs becomes overwhelming for our clients and they generally want little to do with bulk REOs are they invest forward.

InvestorEarth.com plays a much broader and sophisticated role to high net worth investors and investment groups by educating those who come to us wanting to profit in the dynamic capital markets of REOs, CMOs, BGs, MTNs, HIPIPs and other popular investment commodities.

Super Man


For people who are making fun of those who claim everything is about oil. There’s also this little fact:

The Alaska state constitution claims common heritage rights of ownership of oil and other minerals for the people of the state as a whole. Citizen dividend checks are distributed every year in Alaska out of the interest payments to an oil royalties deposit account called the Alaska Permanent Fund (APF) created in 1976 after oil was discovered on the North Slope. The APF is a public trust fund - a diversified stock, bond and real estate portfolio - into which are deposited the oil royalties received from the corporations which extract the oil from the lands of Alaska. The first citizen dividend check from the interest of the APF was issued in 1982 and was for $1000 per every person for everyone in Alaska who had resided in the state for at least one year. Annual citizen dividends have been issued every year since then, for a total of more than $23,000 per person.

In 2003, each of the nearly 600,000 Alaska US citizens (residents of Alaska for at least one year) received a check for $1,107 from the APF. The total amount dispersed was $663.2 million. The $25 billion investment fund’s core experienced stock market losses which led to the dividend’s decline this past year compared to the several previous years. The amount was $433 less, a 28 percent drop from the 2002 pay out of $1,540, and a 44 percent decrease from the all-time high of $1,964 in year 2000. The amount changes based on a five-year average of APF investment income derived from the bonds, stock dividends, real estate and other investments.

Alaska relies on oil for about 80 percent of its revenue and has no sales or income tax. Alaska state government is mandated to invest 25% of its oil revenue into the APF while the other 75% of oil royalty revenue is dispersed to other government funds to finance education, infrastructure and social services. If 100% of Alaska’s oil royalties had been deposited into the APF, it is conceivable that the CD this year could have been about $4,400 or $17,600 for a family of four. But then there would have been no funds for roads, education and other public services and no funds available to run the state legislature - a libertarian dream fulfillment or a social and economic disaster, which one we will never know. If state services were to have been maintained while 100% of oil royalties were deposited in the APF, there would of course have been the need for income, sales and other taxes on wages and production.
Source(s):
http://www.earthrights.net/docs/oilrent….

Oil is just 1 of thousands of commodities, with all the thousands of commidities in your state why aren’t you getting paid?

With feds resources why can’t feds pay 50 times better than Alaska?

Kuwait pays this way $58,000 y no rent, utilities, phone, hospital bills
Dubia pays this way
Norway I’ve heard has a similar system
I hear Nigeria is working on doing this

HOW FAR WILL YOU, YOUR KIDS, AND GRANDCHILDREN GET LEFT BEHIND IN THE VERY NEAR FUTURE IF THE US DOES START A SYSTEM OF THIS KIND FOR THE US PEOPLE?

ARE WE TO BE PAUPER THIRD CLASS WORLD CITIZENS WHEN YOUR GRANDCHILDREN START TO WORK?

DO WE SLIDE FROM THE RICHEST NATION TO THE POOREST IN YOUR LIFETIME BECAUSE YOU LACK THE COURAGE, NERVE, OR BACKBONE TO TAKE ACTION NOW WHEN IT’S NEEDED?

VOTE! VOTE FOR ANYONE BUT DEMS OR REPS!
THEY ARE IN POWER AND HAVE THE CONTROL THEY MUST BEAR ALL THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR MISMANAGEMENT!

christopher d


commodities? stocks? bonds? and etf? and what about mutual fund? isn’t investing money in the mutual fund same as the 401k but without matching by the company?

euchre_king_03


I am young and have a lot of cash to invest. Since my horizon is very long and I can handle a lot of risk, i want to maximize returns. I am currently pretty heavy in China, Latin America, and Russia. What other markets do you see oportunities in? Any mutual funds or ETFs (I like leveraged one)? Thanks!

I have also been thinking about a commodity fund. Suggestions?

I agree India has potential, could you recommend an investment vehicle?