With Oil prices going down, there may be a good chance that they could go a lot lower. Perhaps even below $100 and that is a good thing…
Which brings me to a bunch of items on the horizon for us as investors. We have the worst rated congress in History, or in over 230 years which is really saying a lot when you think that we had slavery, scandal, deficits, wars and more to contend with and these boobs still manage to take the cake.
The Democrats got control and promised big changes and they are not doing anything, which is good for us. By them not doing things, that usually means they won’t be raising taxes or trying to redistribute wealth or scaring businesses into leaving the country, so in actuality that is a good thing.
We have Uncle Al, aka Al Gore, who is still managing quite nicely to ignore that fact that Global Tempartures dropped a full degree last year calling for us to shut down our coal and oil industries here in the US and put several hundred thouasand people out of work and ruin millions of peoples retirement portfolio in order for us to all go green in ten years. Yea… sign everyone up for that one Al baby.
But on the good news front, we have Brazil and Czechloslovakia offering up some amazing investment opportunities as well as, and yes I am ringing that bell again, small businesses here right in the good old US of A.
While a lot of the country is hurting, there are many businesses that are flourishing and in desperate need of money to expand profits and grow. The US still breeds some of the best Entrepreneurs on the planet. Wall street ignores most, the VC’s won’t play for less than a few Million, the Banks are a joke, which leaves some big holes to fill and some great opportunities for the smart little investors like us.
I know I have promised this before, but I will unwrap the best way to get into this market here shortly. In the meantime, just start asking around in your community to find out which businesses are doing well and need money. Approach them, they will be estatic. Use Virgin Money and some common sense to put together a deal and you are on your way and you will be helping the business, all of the people that work for them, your community, yourself and your portfolio!
The Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine this week announced that 31,072 U.S. scientists signed a petition stating that
“… There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane or other greenhouse gases is causing, or will cause in the future, catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate…”
This includes the eminent theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson who is among the many distinguished signatories. For you Sci-Fi and Physics fans, he is the guy that came up with the Dyson Sphere! Pretty cool aye?
On a personal note, Dyson happens to be one of my few heroes.
Considering the whole ill founded and unproven Global Warming farce caused a landslide of ignorant, knee jerk legislation that is now responsible for about 20% or 75cent per gallon of the higher gas prices every time you fill up your tank and about 40% of the now higher food prices you pay every single time you buy food.
But hopefully this will soon come to an end.
But then again we are talking about Politicians actually doing the right and smart thing for us as US citizens and for the world for that matter, so I would not bet on it.
The recent veto of the disastrous Farm Bill by Bush may help a little.
From an investment standpoint you should note that while the Congress and Senate preach support of alternative fuels and support Corn Ethanol which costs $1.25 to produce $1.00 worth of Ethanol, (hey I never said it made sense) the bill also still supports the tariff ( tax you pay) on Ethanol made from Sugar Cane from Brazil (which actually does make sense and per acre is 8 times more efficient than Corn) making it more expensive.
Even so, I would hesitate to put a single dime into Corn Based Ethanol Ventures as the subsidies that make them viable may be withdrawn and this dumb idea could be plowed underground again where it should be.
I doubt that you are going to hear what really happened with the current loan debacle on the boob tube or in too many other places for that matter.
So, I thought I would bring this to you so that you have a better understanding of how the Loan Crisis became a Crisis.
Informative and good for a laugh and there might be a play or two in there.
Do not let the intro or the name fool you. I am going to post two of them today and post the rest of the series over the next few days. Enjoy and let me know what you think.
OK, so no I have not gone on hiatus per say, just busy as usual but in a good way. Well, what can I say about the market. It goes up, it goes down. Pretty profound, huh?
Apple, AAPL After Hours is at $187.83. Looks like we are going to get called out. This is a good thing. Give me a 79% return anytime on a Monkey Play..
Now I was listening to one of my Mentors talk the other day and it reminded me of something that I want to reiterate here.
When I talk about Monkey Plays and them being easy to do, I am not saying that you can’t lose money doing them.
If you go over to the side there and look up Monkey Plays or Investor Challenge, the name of the game is always preservation of capital and to mitigate risk. Now notice I did not say eliminate it.
When someone comes up to you and says an investment can’t lose, run as fast as you can in the opposite direction becuase you are talking with a Fool who’s money will fast be parting, don’t let part of it be yours.
Now are there some things that are a lot surer than others? You bet, and while I am mixing metaphors and whatnot, luck follows those who take action.
Have you ever noticed that there are lucky people? Well, she is the gal who is out there doing something where luck has a chance to visit. She is usually using her noodle too.
But here again, luck does not follow people that never do anything and yet these same people never figure that out. Now of course I am not talking about you but, I am sure you know someone like that which brings me to my next point.
Like some of you out there, I happen to have a few people where I see the Pygmalion Effect in action all of the time. While I truly love them to death, they have such a bad attitude about things things that not a whole lot of of good comes their way.
As T.Harv Eker says, they have become living breathing crap magnets and yet they can’t figure out why crap keeps coming their direction. They are entirely focused on and expect negative things to happen to them and guess what? It does and they do not seem to be able to make the connection
Now yoy might be saying where is he running off to this time. Well yes, I actually do have a point here and it is this.
What you focus on becomes larger and it will determine what happens to you and what finds you in life. If you focus on bad things, you will attract them in droves. If you focus on making money in a good positive way, while it may not find you in droves right a way, you have a much, much, much better chance of attracting it if making money is your focus. That makes sense right?
So, make sure that you are focused on making money and not on not losing it. If you do the first well and with some common sense, the later takes care of itself.
There are a million opportunities to make money out there, so be on the look out, do you due diligence quickly and then take action and go for it if the opportunity has merits.
Now just a tidbit on all of the opportunity that I see out there and here is the big announcement in case you missed it.
LOCAL IS IN!
Say what? I thought you were just talking about investing overseas? Yea, you move to the head of the class. I was and did talk about that, but you don’t want to move all of your money overseas…..yet.
With high gas prices, items and services that are local have the edge. As an example, right now today if you have a relatively smart farmer that has only 30 acres, he or she can be knocking down about $200,000 or more per year just selling the right items to their local markets. This is a pretty good chunk of change and there are lots of other examples just like this.
Local suppliers that don’t have to ship there products in can be a great investment. They are out there and they are looking for money to expand and the Banks are not loaning money to these folks regardless of what the Fed is doing or saying. The Banks are acting like 75 year old virgins these days and you can bet you are not getting any bub. And I am going to throw this in here too.
Also look for companies that are promoting working from home. There is simply no reason for 95% of the people that drive into work to be doing so these days. While I have been on the forefront of Telecommuting for going on 20 years now, companies that do not promote this are not worth investing in as far as I am concerned.
Now back to your little local guys and gals. With the Banks not doing the thing they are supposed to be doing, that leaves Private Lenders as the source for these great little enterprises. There are profitable companies that are begging for money out there and they are looking for your help. You don’t have to make a big investment, as little as $5,000 in the right place can have some great returns. I know I run into at least several every week and I am not even looking for them.
I will post some more ideas on how to find these growing little diamonds in the rough so that you can help them sparkle and grow larger.
And remember to think about what you are thinking about.
Let me repeat that. Global Temperatures Dropped Around 1 Degree Fahrenheit in the past 12 months On All Four Major Indicators. What does this mean to your portfolio?
OK, first off I am not enthusiastic about writing this article. Why?
Because it means I have to discuss Politics and Global Warming both of which bore me and piss me off at the same time. Although I have to admit, it does provide a certain Machiavellian sort of humor. You know the kind where you are listening to someone and you know that they everything they say is a lie and you know that they know it too?
This all stems from the fact that I do not like stupid people or people that perpetuate fraud on unsuspecting people who do not know any better.
You get two for one when talking about Politicians and Global Warming….. Yippeeee.
I am not talking about people not knowing the facts out of ignorance or making honest mistakes as we all make those. Well you might not, but I know I sure do.
But on the other hand, think about it. Both Politicians and the Global Warming crowd have to lie or tell half-truths and commit fraud everyday (or be so misinformed they should not be out in public) in order to do what they do. Guess that is the part I can’t stand.
Nevertheless, I need to tell you about this as I would venture that you have not heard about it anywhere else have you? If you have heard that the overall mean temperature dropped by over 1 degree please post a comment.
If you have, you are well informed and go to the top of the class and you can skip to the bottom, for the rest of you, read on.
If you have not heard about this, do not feel bad, it is not your fault.
Most of the news media that has a vested interest in Global Warming is not going to trot this information out until they figure out how to spin this and spin this they will.
Truth be told, I do not like to go political and truly, these days my only interest in what the idiots (politicians) are doing is what affect they will have on economies and markets and our portfolios.
This includes the whole Global Warming debacle, as this is a politically motivated movement with zero basis in fact for anyone that cares to look at the data. Actually, you have to ignore the data in order to be part of the Global Warming Agenda.
Just for those of you that do not have a life and death reason to pay attention to the weather like me, (well technically I guess we all do) I am a pilot so therefore if you want live, you need to have a good understanding of weather and climatology in order to have the chance at being able to get you an your passengers to your destination.
I have been actively flying for about three decades now and got my glider permit back in the early 70‘s. So in order to do this safely, most smart pilots that I know (i.e. ones that are still alive) become very interested in weather and many have as much or more practical knowledge as many of the talking bubble head forecasters that you see reading the Teleprompters on the Telly.
That being said, here is a quick lesson for anyone that actually wants to know hard-core facts on the subject of Global Temperatures.
There are four references that are accepted and used by all climatologists and scientists with any real credentials for global temperatures.
They are the NASA Goddard Institute Number, which puts out the GISS number, The Hadley Climate Research Unit Temperature Anomaly or HadCRUT, The University of Alabama, Huntsville Number or UAH, and finally the Remote Sensing Systems of Santa Rosa, CA or RSS number.
Guess what? All four of them show a significant decrease in temperatures over the last 12 months. One of them even shows a decrease of 1.8 degrees! This is a big, big number that blows away what the Global Warming Loons have been saying.
We have seen a a bigger drop Temperatures in the past 12 months than what the Kyoto Treaty was supposed to produce in the next 40 years if fully adopted and implemented at the cost of several Trillion dollars. We just got it for FREE!
What does this mean? Well it means that the theory that temperatures are related to Sun Spots and other factors such as magnetics is probably correct and the Carbon Dioxide has little if anything at all to do with Global Temperatures since it actually rose a bit last year while the temperature went down a degree. It also is the death knell of doom for the whole Global Warming Fraud Group…… Whoops…darn facts….
How Does This Affect Our Portfolios?
Well, the whole Global Warming initiative right now is costing your about 75 cents per gallon at the pump, and about 10% across the board for all of the food and everything else that you buy.
It is also helped contribute to the current 10 -11% real inflation that we are seeing right now this very minute for this year. …Ouch. The most recent Wholesale Pricing Index was up 1.1% in just the last month reported. Let us see that is 1.1 x 12 = 13.2% inflation.
The big question is will the Politicians stop the new Carbon Bills that could add another $1 dollar to the price of gas, and heating oil, and a lot more than that percentage wise to coal for something that has proven to be wrong? Oh and I forgot to add that it will probably raise the cost of everything else that you buy by another 10% within the year.
There is a lot of momentum going into keeping the Global Warming farce alive and hundreds of millions of dollars being pumped into politicians worldwide to continue it, so we will have to see.
I am almost certain you have not heard this good news about the huge temperature drop on the front page of the New York Time or on the Weather Channel, or on any other major news source. But then again that is a guess since I do not partake in them.
The Bad or Good News depending on how you look at it is that the results are from the very same sources that all of the goobers in the Global Warming movement have used in the past for the dire predictions, even if they did pick and choose which years to use to make it look really bad for you.
Therefore, it is only a matter of time before even they cannot ignore it, right? Well, I hope so at least.
What Does This Mean For Us As Intelligent Investors?
The Opportunity And The Conundrum
The kicker is that right now using domestic coal we can make a barrel of Oil for around $55. Less than half of what oil is it going for now.
Right here in the good old US of A in Montana, we can profitably make Oil from coal and sell the gas for around $1.74 per gallon.
Guess what else?
“At the present rate of consumption without finding any new sources of coal or improving the process, we have enough coal to produce synthetic Oil to totally and completely replace all of the Oil we import right now this very minute and it will last for the next 200 years.”
How is that for you?
The only reason I bring this up is to look at how the whole Global Warming phenomenon affects your portfolio.
So, unless they can figure a way to squelch the data, and even then this data cannot be ignored forever, the whole Global Warming apparatus is going to unravel.
It will take awhile as you have some very powerful and entrenched people and institutions with a vested interest in keeping the fraud going as long as possible so it won’t go away for several years in spite of the temperature drops.
Actually, I am waiting for them to jump sides and start telling us now that Carbon Dioxide is going to cause the next ice age. I am only half kidding here. They did exactly that in the 70’s.
The point is that I would be very careful investing in the whole Green phenomenon as the bottom is about ready to fall out of it and start looking at coal and Oil Shale companies or hard core practical present day solutions that can be implemented right now.
Unfortunately, the profitability of both ventures depends not on the economics of the process but on the economics of what both the Republicans and Democrats are going to do with the Carbon Bills in the house.
Both versions of the proposed bill could kill off coal and Oil Shale and cause gas to hit $5 a gallon very soon if they pass. So, we will have to wait and see what they do before we can tell if the Global Warming money that is being pumped into the politicians by the millions will end up kicking us right in the teeth.
Any bets? Thanks to Anthony Watt for the data! Keep up the good work Anthony! Here is a link to his site for anyone that wants unbiased info on weather. - AA
I Thought I Knew…… And The Reasons Why I Am Helping You Make More Money
As I sit doing my every once in a while inventory of what is swimming around in my noodle I come to think about what I hope I Am An Investor does for people in changing the way they “thought” that a portfolio and a business for that matter had to be put together and run. This is true with all of my endeavors. It is having the effect of turning what they thought they knew upside down for most people, including myself.
This is not something new for me. My mental world started getting rocked pretty early as my parents seemed to enjoy a somewhat different lifestyle than most. My Mom was a History and English teacher and my Dad worked in the Government with Computers way back when they were the size of a whole building and they were fairly well politically connected and because of this I got to do some very unique things at a young age.
I was also encouraged to explore pretty much anything my intellect desired.
Because of my upbringing I got to meet Governor’s, Senators, and Congressman and later on the Kennedy’s (who at the time were a big deal) and I realized that there was something not quite right with all of them at a very early age. (more…)
I will be posting an interview that I did today with Scott Duffy, the founder and CEO of Virgin Charter, Sir Richard Branson’s latest adventure in Capitalism. Check back tomorrow and find out what he has to say and listen to the interview here.
Learn the dollars and sense of what Duffy and Branson are up to and why their new venture is flying high.
“Overall, you can look at energy prices continuing to rise at least 10% short term and I predict we might see oil top $110, to even $120 a barrel before the year is out. ”
Well, it hit $110 today. Was I ever off on timing. How far can it go? I looked again and I have to say that we could hit $130 to $140 before demand starts to wane.
But think about it, with 70 million people being born every year, 85% of known reserves in the US being kept from being explored by the state and federal government, demand for India and China growing at a fast clip and with the epitaph for alternative fuels being written by the latest energy bill that was just signed into law, is it any wonder that the prices are going to continue to rise?
If you are an early bird like me, perhaps you caught Sir Richard Branson this morning on Squawk Box talking about Virgin Charter?
There were more than a few interesting subjects discussed. First his official launch of Virgin Charter, which is a system to fill empty legs of Private Jets. It is basically a registration system that allows companies to put passengers on an otherwise empty Jet. Some paying customers is better than paying for fuel on and empty plane as it flies back to home base after dropping off people at their destination.
Virgin Charter is finally open for business as of today. If you have never flown by private jet, it is the way to go. With airport delays these days even on a one or two hour trip you can waste the better part of a whole day just getting somewhere. You can check them out here at www.VirginCharter.com .
Whereas with a charter, you usually fly to a smaller airport that is much closer to your destination, and in many cases you can arrive only five minutes before you take off. This can literally save you a whole day’s worth of work.
Just think about this, if you have a whole day to work on what makes you money can you use that time to come up with an idea that will make you an extra $5,000 to $20,000 this year? If so, you probably just paid for your trip and then some.
If you take four or five people with you, the economics really makes sense when you add up what a whole days worth of lost production.
Branson also discussed the state of the economies around that world and the fact that he fully expects India to top 10% economic growth this year and China not to be far behind. While here in the US, we are going to be lucky to break 1%.
This should cause a great deal of concern. He rightfully points out that much of this can be contributed to governmental interference and protectionism that is going on here in the US.
He brought up the insane sugar subsidy that is causing America to pay nearly double the price for sugar as the world market, which in turn has caused us to use corn for producing ethanol which is 8 times less efficient per acre than sugar. This in turn has caused food prices to skyrocket. Have you seen what has happened to the price of a gallon of milk or a dozen eggs this year?
Talk about what I like to call the Stupidity Multiplier. 99.9% of all market malfunctions can be attributed to Government interference and the Stupidity Multiplier and he spoke about just a few more examples that are going on in the US.
He also spoke about the knee jerk protectionist restriction on foreign investments in US airlines and in other areas.
He rightfully points out that most of the US airlines are Dinosaurs that should have been extinct decades ago but continue to receive government bailouts no matter how badly they are run.
If you have ever flown on a decent foreign airline, you know how bad most of our airlines really are.
One other note, silver has topped $20 per ounce and to think that just a few short years ago it was at about half of that.
I am trying to get an interview with someone from Virgin Charter. We will see how responsive their PR people are.
With all of this in mind, knowing that the government is artificially keeping up grocery prices and oil prices here in the US is there a way that you can take advantage of this? Are they going to blame everyone and everything else and do even more harm trying to “fix” things? Could be some great plays coming up.
Overall, you can look at energy prices continuing to rise at least 10% short term and I predict we might see oil top $110, to even $120 a barrel before the year is out.
What Warren said about the need to raise taxes on the Rich is wrong.
For starters, check out this report from the Treasury from two years ago.
DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY
Office of Public Affairs
March 2, 2005
FACT SHEET:
Who Pays the Most Individual Income Taxes?
The individual income tax is highly progressive – a small group of higher-income taxpayers pay most of the individual income taxes each year.
• In 2002 the latest year of available data, the top 5 percent of taxpayers paid more thanone-half (53.8 percent) of all individual income taxes, but reported roughly one-third(30.6 percent) of income.
• The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid 33.7 percent of all individual income taxes in2002. This group of taxpayers has paid more than 30 percent of individual incometaxes since 1995. Moreover, since 1990 this group’s tax share has grown faster than their income share.
• Taxpayers who rank in the top 50 percent of taxpayers by income pay virtually all individual income taxes. In all years since 1990, taxpayers in this group have paid over 94 percent of all individual income taxes. In 2000, 2001, and 2002, this grouppaid over 96 percent of the total.
I have mentioned in the past that the Government and specifically politicians should not get involved in Economics but it does give them a huge club in which to garner favors and redistribute wealth which all leads to power. This is always at the expense of the consumer and investors.
As Investors we need to be aware of the back door deals that are done and take advantage of them. The following will give you a reason why not to short Oil at the moment and just how truly crooked many of our Senators are, and points out how big of liars they are as well. They can do more to harm the US economy in two paragraphs than any market changes ever can.
Read on and you will see what I am talking about. Why this is not the largest news story in the media is beyond me. My Dad actually alerted me about this.
This is from Fox News and Steven Malloy who has one of the sharpest scientific and economic minds around. You will have to dig to find this story but it is there. Here is a link to his column and story.
This one is almost beyond belief. But what is done is done. And you think our politicians really care about our economy. It also points out the real anti-technology and capitalism agenda of most environMentalists.
Junk Science: Candidates Fail Energy Independence Test
All the presidential candidates say they’re for energy independence. So why didn’t they do something about it when they had the chance?
Hillary Clinton rails on her Web site about Americans sending “billions of dollars to the Middle East for their oil.” Barack Obama warns that Middle East oil is the “lifeline of Al Qaeda.” Republican hopeful John McCain says that, if elected, his energy policy will “amount to a declaration of independence from our reliance on oil sheiks and our vulnerability to their troubled politics.”
But Clinton and Obama recently voted for a bill that can only promote dependency on oil from the Middle East. And John McCain went AWOL, not voting on the bill at all.
A little-noticed provision of the ironically named “Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007″ that was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush last December bars the federal government from purchasing fuels whose life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions are greater than those from fuels produced from conventional petroleum sources.
Before we get into the energy independence implications of this provision, it’s worth appreciating the obscurity of the provision and the fact that the media doesn’t seem to understand its import.
I only learned of the provision while thumbing through the Feb. 15 Financial Times, serendipitously noticing the egregiously mis-titled article, “U.S. risks trade dispute with Canada on fuel.” A bit of research turned up no other media reports relating to this particular section of the bill.
The Financial Times article reported on how section 526 of the energy bill prohibits the federal government from buying oil that was produced from Canadian tar sands, a reserve that holds about two-thirds the amount of recoverable oil as compared to reserves in Saudi Arabia.
Because it takes greenhouse gas-producing energy to extract oil from the tar sands, the article focused on the fact that the law could affect billions of dollars of trade in oil, particularly since the U.S. Department of Defense is the world’s largest single buyer of light refined petroleum.
But while I give the Financial Times credit for reporting this story, it really dropped the ball with respect to understanding it — this is yet another effort by environmentalists and their congressional henchmen to cause chaos in our energy supply.
Sure enough, it turns out that Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., already are pressing the Department of Defense to comply with the provision. In a recent letter to the secretary of defense, Waxman and Davis asked how the DOD will ensure that the fuel it buys doesn’t come from Canadian tar sands or from domestic coal-to-liquid processing.
Waxman and Davis apparently expect the military to expend the Herculean effort of tracing the source of the fuel it purchases and then to refuse North American oil from unconventional sources apparently in favor of oil from OPEC sources such as Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. How’s that for energy independence and security?
It gets worse if you’re one of those who believe that biofuels are the path to energy independence.
The plain language of section 526 also would seem to ban the federal government from purchasing biofuels like ethanol, since their life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions are greater than that of conventional petroleum.
“Turning native ecosystems into ‘farms’ for biofuel crops causes major carbon emissions that worsen the global warming that biofuels are meant to mitigate,” researchers from the University of Minnesota and the Nature Conservancy reported in Science (Feb. 7). Another study in the same issue of Science projected that the life-cycle greenhouse gas emission from ethanol over 30 years is twice as high as from regular gasoline.
Interestingly, Waxman and Davis specifically excluded biofuels from their letter to the DOD. Not to worry, though, biofuels likely soon will become fuel-non-grata as the environmentalists have already started to demonize them.
Similar to the case of compact fluorescent lightbulbs discussed in this column last week, The New York Times editorial page this week signaled that biofuels soon will become as politically incorrect as the Canadian tar sands and domestic coal-to-liquid fuels.
The Times opined that, “Done right, ethanol could help wean the country from its dependence on foreign oil while reducing the emissions that contribute to climate change. Done wrong, ethanol could wreak havoc on the environment while increasing greenhouse gases.”
“Done right” for the Times is what’s required in the energy bill — a 20 percent reduction in life-cycle greenhouse gases as compared to gasoline. But, of course, this is a next-to-impossible goal since the life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions for ethanol are projected to be 100 percent greater than for gasoline.
It likely will require nothing short of a technological miracle for ethanol to achieve the energy bill’s standards in the near or even distant future.
Now, if the federal government is barred from bio-, tar sand, coal-to-liquid fuels, how long will it be before such a ban spreads to contractors that do business with the federal government, to states and their contractors, and then, by default, to the nation as a whole?
It’s hard to take the presidential candidates, President Bush and Congress too seriously on the energy independence issue when none of them opposed a bill that actually makes us more dependent on OPEC.
U.S. Senate Plans to Consider “Foreclosure Rescue Scam“
Legislation
·Legislation Expected to be Introduced Soon.
·Measure Likely to be Modeled After Minnesota Law,
·But May Contain Additional Restrictions Harmful to Investors Nationwide
February 22, 2008 (U. S. Senate)
Wisconsin Senator Herb Kohl (D) has announced plans to introduce legislation aimed at curbing the rise of ‘foreclosure rescue scams’ - using a model which may include restrictions that could be harmful to all real estate investors. The measure is likely to contain some or all of the following provisions:
·Ban on leasebacks-to-owners
·Ban on upfront foreclosure consultant fees
·Ban on all “subject to” transactions
·Limitations on an investor’s ability to purchase or take an equity interest in a home in default
·Ban on all advertising related to “Saving Homes from Foreclosure”
·Restrictions on real estate seminars, which could even apply to Real Estate Investor Association meetings
The measure is likely to be modeled after a 2004 Minnesota law that governs real estate investors. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) has proposed the Minnesota law as an acceptable model for the entire United States. However, it should be noted, the members of NAR are exempt from this law. (Also noteworthy - in the Minneapolis / HennepinCounty area alone, foreclosures have increased more than five-fold since the 2004 passage of the Minnesota statute.)
On behalf of real estate investors at the national level, the National Association of Responsible Home Rebuilders & Investors (NARHRI) is already tracking this legislation. NARHRI Executive Director John Grant says that NARHRI will offer alternative legislation from the Commonwealth of Virginia, which has the support of the local realtors, lenders, consumer groups, and which recently passed the House unanimously.
NARHRI expects to see intense political pressure for passage of the legislation before members of Congress leave in the fall. NARHRI indicates it will be providing updates on this effort as circumstances warrant.
This is yet another case of political socialism (in this case) mostly by Democrats and special interests (National Association of Realtors) getting ready to really hurt the consumers and the economy on a massive scale if passed.
The National Association of Realtors is miffed because they are fast losing market share as people bypass paying 6% for someone to put a sign in their front yard.
As noted in my previous stories, nearly 75% of all properties are first noticed by the eventual buyer by the sign in the front yard and it does not matter if it is a For Sale By Owner or an Agent’s sign.
As noted by the 500% increase in foreclosures since the bill was passed in Minnesota, this bill if passed could make the current issue with foreclosures look like a light drizzle compared to a Hurricane.(more…)
While if you have watched any of the Media coverage on the Housing Market by the so called “Experts” or even the Stock Market, or Analysts of certain stocks, have you ever wondered why if they were such experts, how come the changes in markets always seem to take them by surprise?
Why do you think that possibly, when a company misses the numbers as it were and the numbers themselves being a product of the Experts it is the company at fault and not the idiot that got the numbers wrong in the first place? Doesn’t that make the expert not such an expert?
What surprises me is that these Experts are given the airtime repeatedly. Be it in the housing market, the stock market, etc.
I have found that the average man or woman on the street if they have just a bit of horse sense are far better at predicting market trends than a whole room of experts.
The tanking of the Real Estate market in Florida could be seen two years before it happened by anyone that bothered to look. The same goes with Oil prices and most commodities as well.
In the US when you have over 85% of the Oil, Gas, and Coal reserves placed off limits by state and federal government edicts do you, think that is going to effect prices? When you have a growing world population that all wants to improve their way of life and rightly so, do you think that demand might continue to grow?
When you have radical environmentalists fomenting hysteria in anyway they can with their goal of sending us all back into the stone age and we have governments and other special interest groups giving the ludicrous accusations credence as facts and passing legislation to drive up energy costs, do you really see a huge drop in energy costs in the near future?
This with all of these artificial pricing forces and that of the Monopoly called OPEC seeing no need to drop their profits, is there really a scenario in which prices are going to ever really significantly drop anytime soon?
If there is, I do not see it. So, my suggestion is not to listen to the pundits and the “Experts” and to start doing just a little bit of research on your own and use some common sense and you will beat the experts every time no matter what market you are in.
Yahoo, well not so much. With Yahoo saying that they think their stock is worth $40, it is a bit like like trying to fob off an abused Rental Car that has had the odometer turned back as brand new one some unsuspecting old lady. If the company is worth that much, then why hasn’t the current management convinced million of stock buyers of that fact?
Do they think that Microsoft is really that stupid? The fact that Yahoo has not been able to capitalize on it’s assets says it all.
Opportunities abound in Chaos and Kevlar Umbrellas
I recently wrote this for another website I work on but, I felt that it really has much more relevance for us investors. This was originally published for readers of the Muse Blueprint which helps people start their own business or want to take an existing one to the next level.
If you listen to the news and I suggest that you don’t very often, you would think that the sky is falling with the economy. Well, parts of it actually are but it does not have to be so for you. I suggest that you think of yourself as the person selling Kevlar Umbrellas, like I do.
While you should be aware of economic trends such as the US dollar’s values falling like a rock with no end in site, it does open up opportunities.
I will give you just a couple of examples. As gas prices keep going up (and they will but more on that later) , it is going to make locally made products and services more competitive against those that are not local.
Do you have a product or service that can save people from driving for instance? Do you know where one is to invest in?
Here are two of my Muses or other Businesses that I have recently picked up (another strategy I will cover is buying small businesses) that do exactly that, www.888360Pixs.com and www.888EZToOwn.com . The first is a service that provides pictures, virtual tours, and Videos of Real Estate, Boats, Cars and just about everything else. The second provides FREE Real Estate Advertising.
Ok, time out here. Here is the Definition of a Muse from my Book, The Muse Blueprint.
The Real Estate Data being used by most of the financial media and in many economic reports could be off by at least 120% in many areas and in one major metropolitan area (Central Ohio), the number used for home sales alone could be off by a whopping 374% (see chart) . To put it another way, this means that possibly only 1 out of every 5 sales are being reported.
As the Real Estate market as a whole is a major part of the US economy, this finding could have a major impact on the world markets. The questions first asked are, how could this have happened and how could this be?
It all comes down to this. Statistics = lies, lies and damn lies.
I will show you how this happened, how it became possible and the ripple effect it may have on almost every major market out there. As to the why, you will have to decide for yourself.
Since Real Estate in the US has been used as the reason for a lot of the good and bad in the markets world wide recently, with the very real possibility of the data being off by not just 10%, 20% , or even 50% but by well over 100%, this needs to be examined closely. With the Real Estate data being possibly wrong by over 100%, what does that mean for you as an Investor?
As a Real Estate Investor I have surmised that the figures were way off for at least 10 years now and started really looking into it a couple of years ago to prove to myself that my theory that housing and Real Estate sales were being grossly under reported was indeed correct.
Is Eeyore gone for good? (see previous post ) Well, he might not be gone permantly, but he does seem to be looking for better pastures today. With the Dow up about 100 points with less than an hour to go in the trading day, we will just have to see if he turns around.
This is why I gave up day trading for a living. That, and I wanted to keep my hair from falling out. But, it could bode well for momentum players and those taking profits on their Shorts.
The recent veto of the disastrous Farm Bill by Bush may help a little. 
OK, so no I have not gone on hiatus per say, just busy as usual but in a good way. Well, what can I say about the market. It goes up, it goes down. Pretty profound, huh?
This is not something new for me. My mental world started getting rocked pretty early as my parents seemed to enjoy a somewhat different lifestyle than most. My Mom was a History and English teacher and my Dad worked in the Government with Computers way back when they were the size of a whole building and they were fairly well politically connected and because of this I got to do some very unique things at a young age.
I will be posting an interview that I did today with Scott Duffy, the founder and CEO of 
In my article on 
If you are an early bird like me, perhaps you caught Sir Richard Branson this morning on Squawk Box talking about Virgin Charter?
The Experts
Yahoo, well not so much. With Yahoo saying that they think their stock is worth $40, it is a bit like like trying to fob off an abused Rental Car that has had the odometer turned back as brand new one some unsuspecting old lady. If the company is worth that much, then why hasn’t the current management convinced million of stock buyers of that fact?
I recently wrote this for another website I work on but, I felt that it really has much more relevance for us investors. This was originally published for readers of the Muse Blueprint which helps people start their own business or want to take an existing one to the next level. 
The Real Estate Data being used by most of the financial media and in many economic reports could be off by at least 120% in many areas and in one major metropolitan area (Central Ohio), the number used for home sales alone could be off by a whopping 374% (see chart) . To put it another way, this means that possibly only 1 out of every 5 sales are being reported.
Is Eeyore gone for good? (see previous