Investing 101 for 2009 - Buy Real Assets

As I noted in a few of my prior postings we're in for a hell of a ride in 2009. 2008was only an appetizer; 2009 will be the main course. If you're like most people you invested heavily in the stock market at the behest of your corporate masters as they dangled that pitiful 401K match carrot in front of you. I know because I fell for the trick too. Well, what a way to transfer the wealth from the working class to the rich folk. The investment bankers made a hell of a lot of money selling you the charade of pouring your money into the paper casino they call a stock market. Boy have we been had. They Madoff...I mean, made off with their commissions off of securities sales, account management fees, and whatever other fee they instituted to justify their existence. And, 401Ks are just the tip of the iceberg. Anyway, this is going to turn into a rant unless I focus on what I'm about the tell you. Forget the damn 401K and stock market. The 401K was created as a way for corporations to get out of paying you a pension. See many companies around that offer pensions??? NO!!! Get with the program. From now on I want you to do the complete opposite of what these financial industry "insiders" tell you to do. So, what about 2009? How can you invest what little money you have left?

You have to prepare yourself in some way to stop taking on debt and/or to get out of debt as much as possible. You don’t want to be buying real estate or committing yourself to a financing relationship when asset prices still haven't bottomed out and you're leaving yourself open to market risk. You want to be investing in real resources: Gold, Silver, Guns, Ammunition, food cache building, etc. You can't be putting money into your 401K and hope that the new year will bring new found wealth. It's over! Hunker down and get back to basics. You need to acquire items that people assign some value to; something you can barter with in bad times.

The Fed has committed to $8.5 trillion of taxpayers’ money to bail out the worst run companies and banks. Banks are not lending to those who need it the most - well run manufacturing companies and entrepreneurs. Now the Fed Funds rate is between 0% and 0.25% for funds for banks, which means if you go down and you pay $100,000 for a T-bill for 90 days, your return is zero, which is to imply that there is zero risk to investing with the government. But, the U.S is going to default on its debts to the world and will try to print money as fast as it can to pay them off. This will cause a death spiral where they can't print money fast enough, and the money they do print will flood into circulation, thereby diluting the already beaten down value of the dollar. We're going to see hyperinflation Zimbabwe style. You need gold and silver to use as currency to buy essential items. Paper money will be worthless.

You need to start rethinking your livelihood or the way(s) you make a buck. Our forefathers were jacks of all trades. They knew farming, carpentry, homesteading, gardening. Those skills have been lost to large corporations who do it all for us now. We need to get back to basics. If you're working full time go back to school on the weekends and learn a valuable and necessary trade. Learn welding, mechanics, machine tooling - skills that you can use to fix or build things and that you can trade for food or other essentials.