When you save, where do you put your money? Do you invest? The stock market is an emotional rollercoaster. A perfectly viable company will lose value because a competitor tanked on its fourth quarter earnings and if that makes sense to you I have a great system for winning roulette. Ideally a well run company should gain value over time, but more often than not, the CEO and COO is more interested in his exit package then he is in building a company. Most mutual funds and IRA's are deeply embedded in the stock market. And a bad market crash will hurt them as well. Worse still you are delegating responsibility for your financial well being to a stranger based on his past success in picking winners out of a hat.
Real estate was the darling of the late 90's. But now there are bargains out there no one knows if we have hit rock bottom. Plus with the government sponsoring eminent domain as a way of paying campaign contributors back your ownership of any property is vague at best. You own it at the sufferance of your local and state government, who may decide it would be better used to be a new mini mart or luxury condo.
Gold recently had great gains. It's in the 800's now and will probably go up quite a bit more. One of the hidden gotcha's of gold is the government has seized gold assets in the past. 1933 was the last go around, but most bullion purchases are tracked by Uncle Sam in case he is feeling frisky again. You can try purchasing collectable coins, or purchasing gold funds, but the status of those funds in the case of a government gold seizure is questionable at best. Collectable coins leaves you open to theft and requires that you find a buyer when you are looking to sell.
Savings accounts money markets, etc put you in a position where your earning a pittance per year (5% if you are lucky and the value of the dollar doesn't tank). But the dollar is going down, the rising price of oil, gold and Euro's proves that. We are down .15 Euros since 1/1/2007 and the fall is continuing. Compared to gold our dollar is doing even worse.
A new alternative for investing is to make money the way banks do. By loaning out funds to other people, prosper.com for example will let you play the role of a bank. Unfortunately your don't get the 1000% asset upscale which banks enjoy, but you do get a nice return of 10-15%.
So where do you as a well informed reader of blogs put your money? This heretic has decided to convert all of his assets to collectible Pez dispensers. Even if they don't go up in value they still have that trachea dispenser of sugary goodness.
