Over the long term, the survival of the entire global economy almost certainly depends on the continued profitability of the companies which provide the world’s goods and services. Without that, the tax base on which governments rely virtually disappears, lenders to those businesses don’t get repaid, and even that hedge against global disaster, gold, won’t Read more »
Lesson 17 – What Insurance Is and Isn’t
Did you ever hear the story of the man who thought he had enough life insurance but died anyway? Apparently he didn’t quite understand the concept, and neither do most people. I’ve seen people insure packages worth $100 at the post office while not having any disability income protection. This is nuts! The purpose of Read more »
Lesson 16 – Fool’s Gold
If you’ve ever Googled my name, you undoubtedly know that I’m a libertarian. In fact, way back in 1982, I was the Libertarian Party nominee for California treasurer. I didn’t win, but I got an extremely high percentage of the vote in all marijuana-growing districts (which is rather odd since I may be the only Read more »
Lesson 15 – How to Slowly and Safely Go Broke
Everybody knows that stocks are risky. Everybody is right. Even a typical globally diversified stock portfolio, the S & P Global 100 Index ETF, lost 56% of its value between that Halloween date in 2007 that I mentioned in the last lesson and March 9, 2009, which by a strange coincidence is National Panic Day. (I’m Read more »
Lesson 14 – The Joys of Bondage
Look, I get it. If you’d put all of your money into long-term Treasury bonds just before interest rates began the longest and steepest decline in U.S. history, you would have done really, really well. And if you had sold all of your stocks on Halloween in 2007 and put all of the money into Read more »