Fire the CEO's First

At the moment the CEO's of many multinational companies are announcing redundancies for huge numbers of workers to appease the shareholders to maintain dividends. Well if there is only a marginal reduction in productions the CEO's should be fired too with no package as well, as they are the ones that let the business become bloated and inefficient. A telecommunications company i no longer use sacked 10 managers in one department i know of, only to have to hire 9 of them back once they had become private consultants at a much greater fee. Every time the CEO's stuff up their answer is to announce job cuts which just adds to the lack of confidence and generally is just a ploy to disguise the fact they have not been doing a good job. Most of the lay offs end up being disgruntled employees of the poor management and retirees that were going anyway. These are the same management that piled on the highly leveraged huge debt burdens in the name of expansion ,instead of natural organic growth. It is not rocket science but just lemming mentality.

Reserve Bank Government CRETONS

I can't believe the reserve bank and governments in Australia that every time we get a head of steam in the old terms they try to put the brakes on with increased interest rates and the recessions we have to have all in the name of curbing inflation. Then when they have derailed the small business sector like a Titanic iceberg they start to throw everything overboard like it will help us float after we have already drowned. They are the reserve bank they must have had some history of cycles if they wanted to slow inflation they should have tightened money supply or credit availability. Now there is no confidence in the economies of the world they themselves panic with lower interest rates. Again they would be better off tightening irresponsible credit to those that don't need it. Small business needs the liquidity and confidence to borrow.
There are enough other baggage like red tape,government bureaucracies,competition from huge corporations to slow small business which is the real engine and employer of our nation. The taxes most of us pay come out of the profitability of these overburdened entrepreneurs.I mean government employees don't really pay tax as they don't produce anything that can be sold. Large corporations don't pay much tax as they are not as efficient and have foreign owners that charge huge fees from tax haven parent companies to avoid paying tax here. Employees of small business are not really paying the tax it is the business that pays it out of its turnover , if the operator do not produce the dollars you don't get to pay the tax. If that business goes broke no more taxes are collected and the employees become a drain on society.

Credit Leverage got us into the Mess

Credit Leverage got us into the Mess and governments will have to use the same principal with the money it doles out to corporations and the public in general.They will need to have the private sector and public match several dollars for ever dollar of government subsidy. I mean to get the money flowing again which is what this crisis is, just us not spending "in case we need it for a really rainy day". The money flow is what creates prosperity otherwise you can just think of all currencies as monopoly money, it has no value if it is tied up doing nothing . If it is locked up not flowing it decreases the value of everything that's deflation. The problem is we wait for the other guy to start spending ,not realising we are the other guy. The thing is if the government sends you some money don't use it to reduce bills, debt or waste it on beer but think what you could spend it on in your local community that will stay in your community.Maybe you need to get your roof fixed or a solar water heater or something else that will save you money in the long run. Also think of the fuel miles a product has to use to get to you .

Understanding Money and Taxes

This is reproduced with permission from Leonard Orr from "The Truth About Money". The reason i am reproducing it is that i think it is a big part of the solution and i am using "The Hundred Monkey" principle by Ken Keys To expounded it .Which by the way if you take the K out of monkey is money so this may be dyslexic but there must be some correlation between the two .I feel the same things below applies to Australia as the USA.

You will be amazed how simple money really is! Here are the secrets to money - both personal riches as well as public and government finances - in a very brief form. Now we will be able to pay the national debt just by copying and sharing this essay, if we share it with enough people. Good news for all my fellow citizens.


First, money is a means of exchange. Exchanging what? Wealth. Wealth is ideas, goods, and services. Money is not wealth, but a means of exchanging and measuring wealth. Money is ones, zeros, and paper (or now computer chips).

Second, money is a merry-go-round. All the money you don’t have, other people have. You and I get our money by supplying other people with ideas, goods, and services. We can easily double our income by serving more people. Personal creativity applied to the loves and goals of other people is the source of our loving service that leads to riches. We can have fun winning the money game by supplying our own loves and pleasures in life to others who share our tastes.

Third, now for a revolutionary lesson in macroeconomics that will get you excited! I mean really excited! We have the power to print money! Money is a means by which buyers and sellers (also called producers of wealth and consumers of wealth) exchange their ideas, goods, and services. In simple terms, economies are composed of laborers and consumers, who are obviously the same people trading with each other.

Money simplifies barter between farmers and computer programmers. Money increases the freedom of choice as actors and artists trade their abilities in the local marketplace. Money also increases the efficiency of their bartering, as it does for all of us. Now for the exciting part!
This means that the actual source of money are the buyers and sellers - citizens - us. We are the natural source of the money system. We have the natural right to create any kind of a money system that serves us in exchanging our wealth. Money is a creative and wonderful invention. It is the servant of people, not the master. In other words, we have the natural right to print money.

Now, this will amaze you. You and I also have the legal right to print money. Yes, we do! We do not have the right to print Federal Reserve notes. Federal Reserve Bank Notes belong to the bankers. This is forgery - but we do have the legal right to print money. We exercise this right every time we order personal checks at a bank. Every time we use a credit card, we are printing money out of nothing at our local store. You and your local merchant are printing new money to assist you in your transactions of exchanging ideas, goods, and services.

Coining or printing money is an inalienable right of the people. To further understand this simple and obvious fact, consider the example of American Express. The founder of American Express discovered that he had the legal right to print United States dollars, but not Federal Reserve notes. He printed American Express Traveler’s checks and sold them at a profit.

Bank of America followed with Bank of America checks and many other individuals, institutions, and banks got into the money printing business by selling dollars at a profit. When I understood this, I also started a new money system and printed money. It is not as successful as American express - yet. I believe it was American Express who created the first credit card.

Understanding money and the money system is big business, and now, I’m going to show you how to cash in on it.

As a citizen of your country, you can own the money system. Money is a social experience of communication and agreement. The value of money is determined by the buyer and seller in every transaction. All transactions are negotiable and optional. Everything can be purchased without money if we have enough creativity and salesmanship or something to trade. Profit is the creation of new money out of nothing but the imagination of the individual business person. It is put in the bank when someone pays the profit. When a business person buys a piece of furniture, for example, and doubles the price, he or she is creating a profit or new money for themselves out of nothing. All profit is a way of printing money out of nothing. When a doctor, lawyer, or breath worker sets a fee for their service, they are creating money out of nothing. The value of our time and service is created out of our imagination and communicated to our clients by agreement.
Taxes mean we produce to earn money to give to the government to buy what we produce - it is double work - it is a great injustice and ignorance. We the voters can just authorize each government to print the money for our community project needs. Our local and national governments have the right to print money for their budgets. Taxes are optional, unnecessary, and obsolete. The bankers figured this out and took advantage of it.
The bankers took advantage of the ignorance of the people by stealing the US money system from us. As a result, the US money system is the most corrupt in the world. It is time for the people to rediscover ownership of money. We have the legal power to print money. The bankers print Federal Reserve Notes out of nothing and loan their money into circulation and charge us interest. It is only our ignorance and apathy that keeps us from doing it ourselves.

Before the invention of money, kings had to tax farmers to feed their armies and workers. When money was invented, taxes became obsolete. Kings could then print money and buy food for their soldiers and workers. They also could give an equal supply of money to every citizen to make the money system work in a rational and effective way.

Government Without Taxes

The average United States citizen pays over 53% of his/her personal income in taxes. Yes! Over 50% of your income goes to the government: income taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, gasoline taxes, etc, etc.

Does this tell you why everyone is in recession or in financial insecurity? The government, like a giant dinosaur, is eating our farmers, our business people, consumers, etc. Government taxes suppress the poor, private enterprise, the arts, support for the environment - the list goes on and on.

Fortunately, we learned in school that we own the government. So why are we doing this to ourselves? Ignorance. We are ignorant about money and about our citizenship. But no more, not after you finish this essay. You are now getting yourself enlightened and armed with the truth!
The Federal Reserve Bank is a private corporation established in 1913, and very, very rich people who own it are collecting the interest on the national debt as well as on all the money circulating in our economy. Your ignorance is worth billions of dollars every year to them. These billions are coming out of your pocket. Are you going to stay ignorant?

The bankers theft of the money system in 1913 is dependent upon your ignorance. These private bankers print all the money and loan it to us at interest, called the Prime Rate. We pay them interest on our credit cards and real estate loans, etc. We are slaves, all our work pays them.
But if you claim your natural and legal power now, you can instantly double your spendable income as soon as you eliminate taxes. As the source of money with the power to print money, we the people have the authority to authorize our governments to put a credit in its checking account for its annual budget. When we use our natural right as a citizen to create a money system that serves us, taxes are unnecessary. We can authorize our government to print the money for the budget; then we must supply the ideas, goods, and services which we authorize the government to buy. The government can only buy from the people what we produce. The United States Constitution gets its power and authority from us - we the people! We, the citizens, are the sovereign rulers of our governments and our money system. We are the owners of governments and our money system.
For example:

Your city government has the right to form its own bank and put a credit in its own account equal to the annual budget – in other words, to create the money by the vote of the people. Taxes are not necessary. Taxes are an obsolete holdover from feudal society. Taxes are the result of ignorance about money. Before money was invented, the king had to tax the farmers to get food for his army. But when money was invented, the king could print money and buy food from the farmers. Taxes have been obsolete since money was invented, but we the citizens have been too ignorant to notice the Truth about money.
George Washington did this. He printed enough money to finance the Revolutionary War. After the war, however, Washington’s money system failed because he didn’t understand money enough to give all citizens a regular supply. He only printed money for government expenses, so only people who did business with the government got money. All other business people rebelled by raising prices to get some of this money. The rebellion didn’t cause Washington to distribute money in a fair and equal way so his money system failed. When they started printing money again, it was based upon gold as a standard. It made everyone equally poor, but since it was equal poverty, this move stopped the rebellion.
One of the eternal principles of a rational money system is that everyone deserves an equal supply each time it is printed. We can also print extra money for community projects which we all agree upon.

Your state government has the right to print money, just like the Federal Reserve Bank and American Express (which are both private corporations). If private corporations have the right to print money, so do public governments.
The county Board of Supervisors has the natural, moral, and legal right to print money for its budget. We, the voters, own the money system.
The United States Congress has the constitutional right to coin enough money to pay the national debt. All governments have the natural and legal right to print money. Citizens and congress people are just ignorant about money.
Now, consider this concept. You, as a citizen, deserve a monthly dividend check based upon the social and financial prosperity of your local economy as well as the gross national product of the United States economy.

Think of that! You deserve a percentage of global prosperity as well as the cash flow of every business. You deserve to prosper as a laborer or as a consumer. You deserve to be a shareholder in your economy and receive a monthly dividend check based on the ideas, goods, and services produced and consumed. Poor people deserve to be financially independent as much as the rich. As a natural divine human being, a child of God, you deserve a percentage on every commercial exchange of wealth on the Planet. All natural resources are a part of our net worth at birth and we deserve royalties on them. Individual citizens should receive taxes from the government not pay taxes to the government. A percentage of every government budget has to be distributed to every citizen equally in order to maintain our present levels of prosperity.

A rational money system works best when consumers receive a regular supply of cash. This is the way the money system works for the rich and intelligent citizens who have regular income from investments and it can be the same way for us. As a consuming human being, you deserve a regular cash flow based upon the total production of ideas, goods, and services in your economy. Multi level marketing companies practice this principle for consumers; the New York stock exchange practices it for investors; profit sharing companies practice it with employees; banks practice it with savers.

We citizens deserve an equal supply of money, monthly, based upon the total amount in circulation. The amount of money in circulation should be adequate to support our production of wealth and our consumption of what is being produced for us. If we don’t buy or can’t buy what is being produced because of money scarcity, production stops. It is ok for production to stop when everyone has enough, not because of money scarcity. Money scarcity is foolishness on our part or just bankers’ greed – if they are controlling the money system. The most popular alternative currency is called Liberty Dollars. It is backed by gold and silver and is inflation-proof. You may like to study the excellent information on their website.

Some Congress people are now trying to take the power – our power – to print money back from the bankers and give it to the U.S. Treasury, but it is doubtful they will succeed as long as the bankers can buy U.S Senators or Presidents who will block this move. We voters also have to cure our ignorance and apathy on this issue by participating in local money systems. When we join a local money system, we are learning the truth about money by playing with it. We are learning by doing – the most valuable way to learn.

In the meantime, as Congress battles about this problem, we can solve it in each community by creating a complimentary local or national money system.

Paying the National Debt

The bankers create money out of nothing and loan it to our U.S. government and charge interest. This procedure was created in 1913 to make the bankers insanely rich. Scholars tell us that the bankers had it passed during Christmas recess when they could manipulate the situation by having enough loyal congress people attend the Congressional meetings to get the Federal Reserve Bank Act passed when their opposition was not present.

Then, they created the I.R.S. as their own, private collection agency to collect taxes from Federal government employees only to pay the interest on the national debt. The I.R.S. has been a private collection agency for the bankers for most of its history. Its purpose has never been to raise money for the U.S. government, but to take money from American taxpayers. This is still the basic purpose of the I.RS.

Since the national debt is created out of nothing, the bankers never desire to have it repaid, but to make it bigger and bigger which they try to do every year so they can get more of our money as interest.

But since this money is created out of money and loaned to us, by law, it returns to nothing when it is repaid. This means that Congress does not have to repay this money by collecting taxes from us poor and stupid citizens to repay the principal, but just vote it out of existence. The national debt is created out of nothing but ignorance. It is a legal fiction. Congress and us are stupid to believe in it.

The Congress that gives the bankers the right to print money out of nothing can use this right itself. All intelligent citizens who have half of a brain to think about it can figure this out. Most citizens don’t think about it. And most Congress people don’t either.

Congress gets the right to print money from us. We, the citizens – the buyers and sellers – have the right to print money within ourselves. The traders of ideas, goods, and services, are the source of money. The workers and consumers are the value of money. Without us, money is worthless paper. It is time for us to realize the truth about money and to build and support alternative money systems.

The same things apply To Australia as above

Look for an increase in Volume to see the End It's just beer money for the wealthy

The end of a bear market in the share market will be accompanied by huge volume increases of 4 to ten times the daily average without increases in price. This is when the desperation has set in and people finally cutting their loss's to take advantage of tax right offs. This is when the smart money comes in to buy stocks that will survive the financial mess.

The really old smart money only ever buys bargains basement prices ,as a old Jewish friend of mine once told me " he never pays retail".
The best way to pick a winner is by the old Warren Buffet method of looking in your fridge or to put it another way. What do you spend money on and use, that you will have to keep using even if times get tough.
Food ,clothing and shelter are the staples. Electricity, transport to keep a job, but we will cut back on the excess's we don't rely on .
Now banks on the other hand you can never really see what they produce and if we could live without them we would or move to a safer haven such as a credit society that has no share holders to force it to take uncomfortable risks for ever higher returns. Credit societies don't have to worry about share prices to raise capital ,they just quietly grow organically on disgruntled exbank clients.
There is a system of investing to make yourself cost efficient .That is if you electricity bill is x dollars a year you buy enough shares in your utility that pay a dividend to cover your expense and so on with your phone bill and food etc. Start with the necessities while share prices are low and eventually you will never have to reach into your own pocket again.
This is much smarter than leaving it up to some wizz kid in a super company that you have no control over. As Warren said why would you take advice from someone that takes a train to work if you drive an expensive car yourself. If you buy beer, buy the shares as i am sure you will keep buying beer when times get tough to drown your sorrows. Beer sales actually increase in hard times.

Negative Gearing on existing Assets caused the Housing and stockmarket bubbles in Australia

This archaic rusty old tax system only encourages the over valuation of existing assets as the return is almost instant. Why reward investors for being lazy and getting instant gratification, we need the reward to be paid to the the investors that take the real risks and build new properties and business's. It is just an easy way for the wealthy to avoid paying taxes and increasing their capital without really contributing to the Gross domestic product of our Australian economy. We could possibly have not had the stock market collapse because there would not have been so many margin calls on stock bought with borrowed money. We could phase out the negative gearing over a 10 year period on old assets and only apply it to new endeavors from the up coming year. This would also help house affordability and young family's might be able to afford to buy in the areas they grow up in and feel comfortable with. As there would be fewer investors buying property for rental purposes in existing suburbs this would also improve the quality of life for people living in establish suburbs

Cap and Trade fiasco

Why give the same traders that have given us sub prime securities and other dubious instruments to ruin our financial systems a new tool for destruction. The cap and trade will end up in the same mess, Australia is too small a player to influence the world carbon sequestration . What we need to do is much more simple ,that is reward those that reduce carbon with tax credits and tax those that that pollute both here and abroad with a carbon tax on their products. In the end everything comes down to the economics of a profitable energy system . By having a cap and trade system we will only make countries that don't pay a penalty more competitive with our producers. Exporters should be exempt from these penalties as it is up to the counties receiving our products to place their carbon taxes on our products. Get rid of import duties and replace it with carbon taxes. Having a cap and trade is only going to sustain the polluters that much longer. Copies to Penny Wong, Minister for The up coming Enron carbon trading system. By the way if anyone thinks it will effect global free trade it will but that term only means the USA getting stuff for free and us paying more. While i am at it if the Reserve bank would stop propping up the Australia dollar our manufacturing industries might be able to compete with Asia . We might also become the tourist destination of choice, i mean it is quite obvious the reserve bank has no idea what it is doing as it was putting up interest rates when it should have let it run it's course as i said earlier in the year.

Patently Protect our Investment

If the federal government in Australia is going to give incentives to the Auto industry and others with grants of taxpayers money . Then we the tax payer need to have some ownership of the patents so we get the ongoing benefit. With all this money to go into innovation there is bound to be many patents and products developed that can then just be handed over to parent companies for little cost, or worse still no cost. Many inventions of Australia have been bought up by foreign investors then taken off shore after huge state and federal funding grants has been poured into their development . Usually just when the product is at the production stage and all the research and develop has been paid for by us the taxpayer. The stake holders such as suppliers ,employees , and initial investors are generally left with nothing. Even if the government never gets paid for the patent ownership it will still retain the ability to stop the ideas being nefariously transferred to huge multinationals with their own agendas .

Bring Back National Service

During the period around the Vietnam War the drinking age was lowered from 21 to 18 and national services was dropped thereafter.
As a direct result of this a vast number of undisciplined individuals are now binge drinking,driving dangerously causing death,indulging in hoon behavior and becoming recalcitrant long-term unemployed. I am now so desensitized to these people on current affairs programs i could easily over react to them if i came across one.
Instead of allowing these people to get off with little regard to the consequences of their actions. We as society need to teach them discipline in the form of a Nationalised basic training of between 6 months and 2 years service including ,physical, ethical, moral training and environmental responsibility .
I work in a service industry and parents tell me that their kids are well behaved. well, i can tell you that is true only when they are in sight .
These parents suffer from the kings new clothes syndrome and never had the training to properly engage their offspring in responsible manners and ethics,which the religious bodies used to endow.
Most of these people are basically good human beings but have not had a good moral compass set for them.
As a society we need to act, not to impose penalties but to imbue a sense of common community, which is what national service is.
The forces provide many community benefits including engineering projects in isolated communities and we need to strengthen them by automatically inducting these offenders who have strayed.
Perhaps then we can live our lives in a civilized community free from intrusion on our rights to go about our lawful business.
When i visited Singapore last year i meet several local young people whom were law abiding citizens that told me the would comply with any demands from authority to get out of their 1 year compulsory national service .
Now i am not saying we should apply this to everyone but anyone between 15 and 60 years old that thinks they are out side of public decency or above society standards of contributing gainfully.
We as a society changed the drinking age and compulsory national services expecting a responsible response and they have not lived up to their end of the deal. Several night clubs in Australia have recognized that 18 to 25 year old are no mature enough to handle drink and made themselves exclusively over 25 year old venues. we as a nation need to recognize it as well.
We now as the feed up give fair warning that this can be changed back . Also we should seriously consider bringing back Drunk and Disorderly charges then enforce them with zero tolerance.
These measures will single handedly increase national productivity which will stave off a recession.
A national tree planting force could also use these people for environmental establishment of carbon sinks and revegatation in areas with high salinity.

Cash is King Long live the King

I remember a story when i was a child of two kids . One said "my dad is rich he has over a Million dollars in the bank" ,then the other child infuriated said "well that is nothing my dad is richer he owes the bank more than that". The school yard egos have come to play in the investment strategies of the last 16 years. During my life sold Amway not because it was a great way to make money or was a great product which it was but because of the free business training. I did this in my twenties after my picture framing shops shops had closed for the day, some times working the model till midnight every day . Remember my shops traded seven days a week and till 9pm Thursdays and Fridays. So no wonder i no longer want to work so hard and have so few friends that are not in the business world. One of the goals was freedom which you did not really get with network marketing as you spent most of your spare time recruiting. What freedom is is the ability to do what you want when you want and i don't exclude work as i quite enjoy it a lot, most of the time. Now how long would you last without an income as might be likely in a major down turn. Well that will tell you how much democracy and freedom you have, a week , a month, a year or more. A guy on a park bench might be better off than you as he is used to sleeping out and this type of middle class homelessness has already started to the tune of 90,000 per month in the USA with people sleeping in their cars. This i have seen is very stressful for them as they are not accustomed to it. I to understand this stress of being well off then having nothing to speak of , it seems to be a repeated pattern i have taken on from my family back ground. You see my father was an entrepreneur from early like me and he taught me that cash was King. I remember in my twenties a friend of mine Ian Hewitt was arrested at midnight for non payment of his fuel account on the pretext he was going to skip the state. A corrupt police officer owned the service station he had his account. The only one that had the cash to bail him out was my father , his parents were quite happy to leave him there till the banks opened the next day ,this was before Atm's. I have always believed in having cash for a crisis or that bargain you can buy on the spot, my dad too and he has done thousands of bargain deals over his life time. Just showing the cash will generally seal the deal at your price. Your money could be safer in a deposit box at the bank than in the banks accounts. You might not get interest but i have never made a deal with cash that i could not get a 10% discount from an owner operator which is better than any bank interest i ever got.

My dad is Rich as he is wise but his wealth comes from Love as he visits my mothers ashes on the estuary on his birthday. Everything he ever created was for the love of his family and friends.

NEW STOCK MARKET TERMS

CEO --Chief Embezzlement Officer.

CFO -- Corporate Fraud Officer

BULL MARKET -- A random market movement causing an investor to
mistake himself for a financial genius.

BEAR MARKET -- A 6 to 18 month period when the kids get no
allowance, the wife gets no jewelry, and the husband gets no sex.

VALUE INVESTING -- The art of buying low and selling lower.

P/E RATIO -- The percentage of investors wetting their pants
as the market keeps crashing.

BROKER -- What my broker has made me.

STANDARD & POOR -- Your life in a nutshell.

STOCK ANALYST -- Idiot who just downgraded your stock.

STOCK SPLIT -- When your ex-wife and her lawyer split your
assets equally between themselves.

FINANCIAL PLANNER -- A guy whose phone has been disconnected.

MARKET CORRECTION -- The day after you buy stocks.

CASH FLOW-- The movement your money makes as it disappears
down the toilet.

YAHOO -- What you yell after selling it to some poor sucker
for $240 per share.

WINDOWS -- What you jump out of when you're the sucker who
bought Yahoo @ $240 per share.

INSTITUTIONAL INVESTOR -- Past year investor who's now locked
up in a nuthouse.

PROFIT -- An archaic word no longer in use.

Placing your money under the bed won't help you now!

Placing your money under the bed won't help you now, you should have done it before when this lady did as then the banks would have had less to lend recklessly . I have been asked by friends and my brother if they should put the funds they have in the bank into gold. Well i think gold will go up in value to $1200 US dollars an ounce by January 22nd simple because of supply and demand for a safe place to park funds. With President Obama installed on this date it should stabilize the money supply as this alone will bring confidence. Gold may well fall before then as the betting on the race firms in his favor. Now putting your money into gold will help you with a 25% increase in value but it will take money out of the cash flow of the world economy which we need the most just now. During the last financial crisis of this magnitude gold jewelery was sold to get income and because it was transportable between regions and a recognized stable currency. This is because in our distant past money or coins were actually minted with gold and it is in our genetic memory. Now as gold has no extensive use in the production of necessities accept computers and even that you can't eat. Then if the crisis gets worst gold may have the same value as manure although manure has its practical uses in fertilizers and methane production as used in China for their lighting and cooking in over a million homes.
I would not recommend you invest in gold as it only takes dollars out of the system, instead i would recommend you spend on things that will reduce your long term energy costs . I bought a solar hot water system a little over a month ago which was $4376 less government subsidies of $2426 so costing me a total of $1950. After receiving my first energy bill it has saved me 30% off or $60.65 for the month. This is $727 per year or 37% return on my money per year.Then with many solar hot water systems lasting more than 30 years especially with energy costs expected to increase by 70% within a couple of years according to state politicians . Electricity is already subsidized by state governments and that won't last forever. You will notice on the stock markets that the utility index's are holding their own. So this should dollar for dollar be a better investment than gold. This investment provided work for a plumber and his apprentice for half a day as well as an electrician and his apprentice for 2 hours. Now that is what will keep the world going round. Then don't stop there the government is offering huge rebates if you add solar power to your house. You can also buy very economical diesel cars now and build your own bio fuel plant converting local vegetable oil waste to run your car. This information freely available on the net. For 10,000 dollars or so you can convert most cars to run on batteries with a 100 kilometer range so with the right investment you can be self reliant and alleviate future energy costs.
There are a couple of other things to remember in this type of investment when compared to other investments is firstly you are guaranteed returns as you are the consumer. It's not like you will change brands or switch from a company you might have invested in. Secondly for ever dollar you reduce your expenditure by is more than if you had earned that dollar from an investment. That is you don't have to pay tax on it like other investment earnings and the money you would have had to earned to pay your electricity or gas bills would have had to have tax paid on it. What is more there is a cost to actually going out to make those dollars to pay the bills.

My prediction for the end of this market melt down is based on Dividend Yields

The difference between an investor and a speculator is an investor is interested in increasing their assets and getting a dividend . An asset is something that brings a positive revenue stream but the speculator is not worried if it cost them negative income as long as they think there purchase price will go up . There is no correlation to the income of the asset as long as they think someone else will want it more and pay more. When reality in the market sets in the speculators get burnt and the investors come back.
When the big 4 banks all have yields over 10% for the next financial year 2010 and Price to earning ratios of between 5 and 7 will be when we see the bottom of the stock markets here in Australia . We may then see some real blue sky as i feel we are on the verge of an economic bonanza with our dollar falling. We are more than well place to weather the economic storm hitting world markets
At present dividend yields are historically at 7.7% and PE's are around 10 so in my calculations prices should fall a further 25% to achieve these goals so that is Commonwealth bank at around $30 NAB at $16 as they have been traditionally adventurous with day traders and sub prime exposures . ANZ to $12 and Westpac to $17 as it has large retail deposits. After the banks bottomed out at these prices we will see an Asia Pacific recovery as they will be the new consumers.
Forget the USA it is a relic of the past now , we need to look to China , Japan, Singapore and other Asian tigers to show us the economic indicators now. These are the forces we are tied to and recovery will only come from their leadership. I feel Australia is well placed to take a leading role in this new world order as we are not only geographically well located in the center of the region but well placed as a broker between Asia and Europe, USA or other western nations because of our cultural diversity. Many Australians have the skill sets and connections in the Asia Pacific to rapidly deploy our business interests globally.

The incompetent economists say no one could have seen the financial crisis coming. What sort of RUBBISH is that ?

I constantly see so called economists on the news saying no one could have predicted the financial melt down . Well what rubbish ,a fifth grader with a pocket calculator would have seen this coming . I am just glad none of these numskulls are in charge of my finances. Warren Buffet the worlds best investor knows the minimum required return on investment as he just lent 3 billion dollars to General Electric which were having trouble attaining funds due to the credit squeeze at 10% per year. Now take ten percent as the base line for return. Why did anyone think price to earnings ratios of 30 to 40 equal to 2.5% for bank shares or any others which is riskier than cash deposits to be considered acceptable ? The more volatile an investment is the higher the guaranteed return should be. Also take into account inflation between 3 and 5% then you would be losing money.
This whole problem has been created by huge super funds and other large groups that have not been investing in new production but just inflating the prices of existing assets until these assets can no longer return a reasonable dividend. There is just to much of this lazy money in our economies looking for an easy reliable home even with minimal returns.
Australia has initiated many tax effective investment programs to establish new industries like wine,olive oil, tree plantations . Many will fail and this is why it is imperative they do get the support of large investors . The playing it safe mentality of super funds and investors in general has not worked out for them in the long run with the bubble bursting on property,share markets, credit markets and commodity prices. So they may as well invest in new industries like renewable energy,carbon tree sinks, fresh water recover systems and other real economy products such as food . Instead of hiding behind traditional asset based investments that inevitably become overinflated which should never have had PE's above 10 times earnings.
To those large investors i say "get off your bums and get your hands dirty creating new business's " and if you don't have the skills to start a new business what the hell are you doing handing investment money. I mean if you have enough skill to value an investment properly surely you have the basic skills to start up enterprises.

You can't have it both ways Kevin

We are told by his imperial highness that the banking institutions that Australia has are strong ,well funded and well regulated. These are the same banks that have written down billions in sub-prime losses . Firstly if they have to pass on increases in borrowings from overseas ,what were they doing lending overseas in the first place? I feel it is about time the CEO's and the shareholders bore the brunt of the decisions they allowed them to take out of greed. If these banks are so strong let them pass on the full amount the reserve bank drops interest rates by. The banks that have strong retail deposits with little reliance on overseas funding will reap the benefits of not engaging in speculative gambling in foreign shores where they have no on the ground experience of valuations of these securities . We regulate and grant licenses for banks to operate so the are not a completely free enterprise to do as they will. It is obvious the CEO's of these banks require a little more regulation ,i mean they are not like US banks but they are not Jedi knights working the force in favor of its depositors , clients or Kevin's Working Families struggling with high mortgages.
I feel we are near the end of this mess because as with a boom the experts say "we can see it going much higher" then it implodes. Well at the moment they are saying "the times could get much worst". Well an x-spert in economics is just an unknown drip under pressure. We in Australia have been working so hard and long hours , with the resource boom that has flowed on everywhere.This will give us an opportunity to holiday ,take a break and refresh which in turn should give tourism a boost. The ones in our society with eyes bigger than their stomachs will have to keep on peddling a little longer to pay off the debt but interest rates should fall to help them out. The credit crunch will end up being a very good thing as it will stop reckless lending on dubious assets and business. Like the banks that have lent to newbies in my industry of limousine services.

What will happen when Asia wants its money back from the USA ?

China and Japan account for 47% of money lent to the United States of America mainly in the form of treasury notes or bonds. They do this for a number of reasons ,firstly so the USA has the money to spend on consumer goods they produce. Secondly to keep the US dollar strong compared to their currencies so their products are very competitive when compared to any thing made in America.
It is my belief they have done it to such an extent to put their competitors out of business in the US and other developed countries in the view that once these industries have been crippled they can allow the dollar to fall as the USA will no longer have the infrastructure to compete. It is like a casino lending addicted players half of what they gamble and then letting the debt ride.
Now i have worked for the Burswood casino in Perth as a driver in the past and from what i could tell from talking to these high rollers the casino's like the Asian nations are quite obliging until the new money runs out. The Asian nations have been much more hospitable than a casino would be but they have much more to gain which is a subservient society addicted to consumer goods. I was wondering what the Asia society was going to do with all these US securities until a major Japanese corporation bought a 20% stake in one of Americas largest banks. Then i realised they intend on buying up their Western competitors at a discount prices as the stock markets fall.
The thing is if Americans are dumb enough to elect George Bush as president they are well and truly dumb enough not to see this coming.
Wait there is more the USA is also subjugated by the cheap Arab oil and Iran now knowing it is only a matter of time before the US dollar is worthless has demanded that their oil be paid for in Euros . It is only when not if that the US dollar is no longer the international reserve currency .
Even though The USA consumes one third of world production and is 25% of the world economy ,who says it has to stay that way . There is a huge middle class in Asia that have been saving rather than spending via personnel and imposed superannuation schemes that have shown a more sophisticated consumer consumption increase . Real wealth is in the countries that produce new goods and services not inflate existing assets by printing money. I mean what would you personally prefer to take home a big screen tv ,car,etc or a pile of monopoly money.
Even with an 800 billion dollar bailout of the bad bank debts carried by poor bank lenders world wide will not redeem the underlying problem of US gluttony . The only real answer is to stop importing expensive energy and pay the real price of renewable local energy.

The amount invested in the US commercial paper market fell by $95bn during the past week, increasing concerns about the availability of money for banks and companies from this vital source of short-term funding.Data released by the US Federal Reserve showed the amount invested had its biggest weekly drop since the central bank began tracking the sector in 2001.In the past three weeks, the Fed data have shown that more than $200bn has been taken out of CP, a type of short-term debt that was widely bought by money market funds.Of the $95bn weekly drop to $1,600bn, financial paper accounted for most of the decline, falling $65bn.

If you had purchased $1,000.00 of Delta Air Lines stock one year ago you would have $49.00 left.With Enron stock, you would have had $16.50 left of the original $1,000.00.With WorldCom stock, you would have had less than $5.00 left.But, if you had purchased $1,000.00 worth of beer, one year ago, drank all of the beer, then turned in the cans for the aluminium recycling REFUND, you would have had $214.00.

Based on the above, the best current investment advice is to drink heavily and recycle. And I'm trying hard to be good citizen and recycle ....

Henry Ford had the start of a good idea.

Ford had a global vision, with consumerism as the key to peace.He believed that smart managers had an incentive to do right by their workers, because doing so would actually maximize their own profits.Ford announced his $5-per-day program on 5/1/1914. The revolutionary program called for a raise in minimum daily pay from $2.34 to $5 for qualifying workers. It also set a new, reduced workweek. To generate consumers we need to pay the people producing the goods and services well. Money is just the value of exchange we put on these products, money of itself is of no value and can not be stored or exchanged for the emperors new cloths. Like Enron we can not inflate the value of our goods and services . As you must always look to what the consumer wants and can really afford without credit. Credit only increases the speed at which you can consume with an adverse affect on the volume you can eventually have thus making a pyramid scheme for assets which must eventually unfold as we are seeing now. This perpetuates the rich getting richer and the poor staying poorer.
Well my belief is that to generate prosperity you have to pay the workers that actually make the goods and services we want. That is pay more for the physical work and less for the workers that just create complex meaningless paper shufflers that eventually come undone as they are at the moment. The reason we are globally in such a mess is that we have allowed our governments to not regulate the wages of these CEO ,CFO, executive paper shufflers . We set minimum wages in most countries so why not tie the executives wages to multiples of the company dividend. With no more than a limit of 100 times the lowest paid worker , i mean if they are that good they should own the business outright and take responsibility for the losses as well.
In Australia and i suspect the USA there are poor because they make poor choices not because they don't have enough income like my grandparents that relied all their lives on support from their children even though they had more income at times.What i saw around me was poor people that made poor choices. Before my business went broke i smoked ,drank, and ate take away food . I consumed many luxury items but with my income completely diminished i realized i could no longer buy luxuries only necessities. The so called poor in Australia rationalize that because they struggle with a hard life they deserve a few luxury items. The problem is they buy all the luxury items first with whatever is left over for there necessities and expect society to make up the short fall with subsidies and to forgive them criminal activities . They even borrow the money to instantly gratify their pleasure. Due to this experience i have always limited my spending to my income with only modest borrowings to buy a house which i have now paid off by putting the money one would normally have to put into superannuation into paying down the loan which you can do if you are self employed.
I can speak to this as when i was 30 years old my profitable business went broke due to the recession we had to have leaving me with nothing except a car that was worth $2000 that i owed $3000 on. My Picture framing Business which had two factories and seven retail shops employing more than 25 people went broke.During a recession picture framing is one of the first things to suffer, my business dropped to 10% of its previous turnover and never recovered. I did not have the reserves of cash to ride out this decline in sales as i was locked into leases and redundancy payouts and holiday pay for staff.
I was then offered an opportunity to sell a little recipe book door to door for $6. My teenage friendship with Ian Hewitt was the only help i got selling this book from nearly anyone except my parents. Latter Paul Hewitt (Ian's Brother)helped me out with some employment after 5 years of selling the recipe book and a book i wrote called Help Save the Planet with tips on on being eco friendly.All the other friends and staff treated me like i had it coming for wanting to make the picture framing business bigger. It was amazing how strongly condemned i was on their hindsight even though none of them had ever risked anything of their own to create something.
There was a experiment done in the 70's where children were placed in a room with one sweet and told if they did not eat it until the supervisor came back they could have two. Ten years latter they revisited these children and found the ones that could delay gratification where much more likely to have achieved than those that could not even with a higher IQ.
This is exactly what the Asian tiger nations have been doing is not spending now with the opportunity to buy up big latter with their huge savings (it is called delayed gratification and china and the rest of Asia must be well pleased).