On 2008-09-27 17:14:37 -0400, Gogarty said:

In article 2008092716442316807-jerelull@maccom, says...
On 2008-09-27 11:10:04 -0400, Larry said:

It's all a sham, just like 9/11. Trillions have simply vanished into
thin air. But you know that's not true. Trillions have simply CHANGED
HANDS

Trillions never existed, were only numbers on a spreadsheet created out
of pretty much thin air.

The market goes up, the market goes down. The value of my portfolios go
up, they go down. I gain/lose nothing until I sell.

(Snip)

That strategy works well enough most of the time. But these are not normal
times. A significant chunk of our IRA is in Washingon Mutual stock. This
particular part of the market is not coming back. And I am still waiting
for my Enron to recover. It's rather depressing around this house today and
the weather isn't helping.

Yesterday worth that? And today worth only this?

Portfolios must be diversified. Betting on individual companies is only
for those who do it full-time, and some of the brokers I've worked with
on the Street hand their portfolios to others to manage.

--
Jere Lull
Xan-à-Deux -- Tanzer 28 #4 out of Tolchester, MD
Xan's pages: http://web.mac.com/jerelull/iWeb/Xan/
Our BVI trips & tips: http://homepage.mac.com/jerelull/BVI/

"Jere Lull" wrote in message
news:2008092719152975249-jerelull@maccom...
On 2008-09-27 17:13:36 -0400, "Capt. JG" said:

"Jere Lull" wrote in message
news:2008092716442316807-jerelull@maccom...

Should the entire economy tank and we go into a depression, my
investments and house will have the same value relative to the price of
bread, about the only true measure.

Well, that might not be true... if you have money in stocks, say a mutual
fund, and we have a depression where the companies go out of business,
the stock will become worthless.

That portion of the mutual fund would become worthless, but a
broadly-based mutual fund will track what its based upon. I'm tending
towards index funds that "blindly" invest in every company in, for
instance, the Fortune 500. THAT could become worthless only if ALL those
companies went out of business. If that happens, we will have worse things
to worry about.

It wouldn't actually take all of the companies in a broad-based index fund
to go under for the portfolio to be worthless. It might not be worthless
initially, but I bet that if 30% went under, the rest would probably follow.
Essential industries would remain, backed by the gov't, but that's about it.

While it's true that your house will always retain some value, this also
depends on who actually owns the house.

Ours has been free and clear since '85, courtesy of my parents who married
in '35.

Well, then at least you won't get booted out, although if there are enough
foreclosures, I doubt the banks would make such a move.

--
"j" ganz @@
www.sailnow.com

Jere Lull wrote in news:2008092716442316807-
jerelull@maccom:

Should the entire economy tank and we go into a depression, my
investments and house will have the same value relative to the price
of
bread, about the only true measure.

I'm currently deciding where to invest my severance. It won't be under
the mattress.



Actually, those that had cash in 1929 did quite well for themselves,
according to my grandparents who were dairy farmers. Apples sold for 5c
at retail. If you had a dollar's worth, you couldn't carry it alone.

Those that had money stored with the bankers, of course, were the
starving one with those that had nothing all along. For that reason,
drilled into me by my grandparents, I've never kept much of the pittance
I possess in the banker's purse, where it can get lost in a heartbeat,
vanishing into thin air.

Until I got married, for 17 years, I had no debt to the bankers, which
is the root of all evil anywhere. Until you owe, you're not a slave.
Once the wife found something she liked better, I shed the debt she left
ASAP and have dealt in cash ever since. I also refuse to play the
insurance scams as much as possible, saving me thousands of dollars each
year. Not being in debt for a car, for instance, I do not buy
comprehensive and collision insurance. Take that part of car insurance
and multiply it times 32 years and see how much money wasted that is.
If the windscreen breaks, I simply have it replaced out of the pot of
money I DIDN'T give to the billionaire insurance scammers.

When I was married, she forced me to buy Blue Cross/Blue Shield medical
insurance on the 3 of us at $385/month. The only time I've ever been a
science project was for laser lithotripsy up the plumbing to burn out a
stuck kidney stone. When I was about to be released BC/BS of SC called
me to say they wouldn't pay 80% of my medical bills unless I removed my
wife from the policy because they got nervous over her thyroid
condition, which had no effect on her and resulted in zero claims so
they could keep it all, the reason they give you a policy in the first
place. I refused and they threatened to cancel my policy. "What
happens to all those thousands of dollars I've paid you all these years
you had no intention of covering my family", I asked quite pointedly.
They told me they would return my premiums...without interest, of
course, having effectively borrowed money from me for nearly 14 years at
no interest. "Send me a check by tomorrow.", was my reply. He did,
after my lawyer contacted him, of course. I paid my exhorbitant little
room bill, the doctor scammers and various "other charges" they refused
to reveal a reason for. The rest of the money I simply put into the
Federal Credit Union in a separate savings account that paid about 6%
interest at that time in the 1980's. I paid into that account the same
exact amount, to the penny, every month even if it hurt, to prove a
point to my slave wife. Soon, the credit union called to remind me we
had reached the $100,000 limit the FCUA would insure and did I want to
open another account to keep it covered. I did, they did. We continued
for years to pay into the accounts and filled that, too. Each year, we
paid ourselves a "Medical Dividend" with the overage interest on them
and just blew the money on whatever hit our fancy. $200K can buy as
much medicine as I care to pay for. Any more you might as well be dead,
anyways. Without insurance, you'd be amazed at how FAST medicine can
get you in...fixed...and out because there is no insurance tit to suck
from, extending your stay nearly indefinately if they can arrange it.
We split the accounts when we divorced. She squandered hers. Mine went
into a mutual fund which got very interesting before the tech bubble
burst. They just kept replacing my shares in EMC with twice as many new
shares a lot of times! I got out at the top of the bubble and put the
money back in the credit union at the pittance interest they were paying
just to store it and let it replace the taxes stolen from me at the
point of a gun by the goon squads at the IRS. I don't do medical
insurance or HMO scams, either. To enter a hospital of MY CHOICE, I use
one of my VISA cards. If I don't survive or become a vegetable, the
greedy bankers will recover their money in a chargeback because I will
be unable to pay those bills.....ensuring I get WELL, not addicted.
Doctors have never refused VISA, but I haven't tested it since the 80's.

What a crash will mean to me is everything I'm forced to purchase will
become dirt cheap, literally overnight, as supply will simply overrun
the nearly zero demand. They'll be begging me to buy a new everything
for a pittance....instead of my having to kiss someone's ass for
everything I buy, now. I don't buy much. Sitting here shoulder deep in
my "stuff", my collection of toys I accumulate by hook and crook used,
I'm quite happy, now. If I want something else, I simply buy it. If I
cannot afford it, I open a new envelope in the cookie jar and start
working hard to fill the envelope until I can pay CASH.

CASH IS YOUR FRIEND! EUROS, NOT DOLLARS! I forgot to mention that. I
apologize. When it took $1.10 to buy a Euro, many years ago, I decided
to turn my cash into Euros because I think united Europe is more stable
than the New World Order bankers, here. I was right! $1 is only worth
Euros 0.68 this week. Stupid Americans are still craving useless
Federal Reserve Private Corporation banknotes in some blind stupidity
they are backed by Uncle Sam. They're not. Euros are higher, so far,
and it's getting WORSE! Euro cash makes more "interest" than American
dollars at 4% interest.....and my rich Uncle DOESN'T have his hands out
for taxes on interest with Euros. I don't get interest...It's not my
fault they're worth more, it's HIS!

I also suspect, after the crash, Euros will be more valuable in a
foreign country than US dollars if I'm forced to flee.

"Capt. JG" wrote in
easolutions:

He told me that they make about $20, which was a
fortune at the time.


Anyone in NYC with $20 cash was a millionaire in 1930.

Gogarty wrote in news:20080927-211553.616.0
@Gogarty.news.bway.net:

I told her to sell everything at the peak of the dot com boom and buy a
Super Maramu. But no...



Hmm...let's all take a little look and relax.....

http://www.amel.fr/videos-amel-54/ha...it/Amel-54.wmv

Ahhh....don't you feel much better? She'll be half price after the Crash
of '09!

The guy Geoffrey bought the Sharki 41 from had a dismasted Maramu to
replace it with. He had new masts on order. The inside of his looked
exactly like this movie. The interior of the Sharki is just a miniature of
it without the washer dryer and U shaped settee and lounge seats.

There's a little piece of Amel mahogany sitting by my computer where we
installed the new 120VAC power panel by the chart table. It's a little
souvenir of my work on her....(c;

Jere Lull wrote in news:2008092719152975249-
jerelull@maccom:

That portion of the mutual fund would become worthless, but a
broadly-based mutual fund will track what its based upon. I'm tending
towards index funds that "blindly" invest in every company in, for
instance, the Fortune 500. THAT could become worthless only if ALL
those companies went out of business. If that happens, we will have
worse things to worry about.


I don't think that's true. When you hand over CASH to a MONEY CHANGER,
that money changer can simply make that money vanish at the stroke of
the pen just like old Scrooge did for Charlie Dickens. Noone will be at
the empty office with the empty safe to cash out those paper forms sold
to you as an "investment". The government won't be there to bail you
out like the billionaire bankers, either. Even if it's in an FDIC bank
account, money will simply vanish. FDIC has $50B to hand out in the
crash. They'll need $50T, not $50B, so once they hand out the available
cash to the politicians' friends, you'll be simply left out and told
tough luch. NEVER trust anyone else to hold your CASH....That's the
scam.

Of course, we've been shrinking the value of the CASH since 1913 when
the government handed over their responsibilities to the American People
to the banking *******s like Morgan, Chase, Rockefellers, Rothchilds,
etc. They depend on your cash asset SHRINKING if you refuse to let them
"invest" it for you, sucking off your wealth for themselves. What
happened in the last few weeks is UNCONTROLLABLE REVALUATION....The ever
increasing price of gold DROPPED, the money in your fruit jars GREW in
value by nearly 25%! Prices even on oil started to DROP as the
REVALUATION they couldn't seem to stop continued. STOCK prices dropped
because the market MUST maintain par value during inflation and
deflation. This HAD to become a crises because the dollars they were
loaning out at 5% interest INCREASED in value MORE than the interest you
were paying on it! Bankers were aghast! This hadn't happend on this
scale for decades! Eisenhower was president! Bread at A&P sold for
24c/16 oz loaf!

So, we dreamed up this bailout scam to protect those that caused
it.....screwing those who would benefit most from gross deflation...the
American taxpayers. Don't forget deflation HURTS GOVERNMENT
BUREAUCRATS, TOO! If the dollar gets more valuable, prices all drop, 8%
sales tax drops with it, wages must fall causing TAX REVENUES TO FALL
dropping the tax burden on GDP that's killing us. Why....how awful! We
may have to cancel some pork or....(gasp).....NASA!

Well, I'm waiting for the crash. I might even buy one of those new
$1695 Volkswagen Beetles, again. That's what I paid for the last one in
the 60's.....(c;

On 2008-09-28 01:02:12 -0400, Larry said:

Jere Lull wrote in news:2008092716442316807-
jerelull@maccom:

Should the entire economy tank and we go into a depression, my
investments and house will have the same value relative to the price of
bread, about the only true measure.

I'm currently deciding where to invest my severance. It won't be under
the mattress.

Actually, those that had cash in 1929 did quite well for themselves,
according to my grandparents who were dairy farmers. Apples sold for 5c
at retail. If you had a dollar's worth, you couldn't carry it alone.

Those that had money stored with the bankers, of course, were the
starving one with those that had nothing all along. For that reason,
drilled into me by my grandparents, I've never kept much of the pittance
I possess in the banker's purse, where it can get lost in a heartbeat,
vanishing into thin air.

I agree with this and the stuff I snipped, particularly the insurance,
having been in the biz as a programmer. Biggest insurance scam, of
course, is "social security", the most regressive tax we have.

As I think I said somewhere, diversification is the key. Some cash,
some fixed, some large caps, some small, some European and emerging
markets, and so forth. I trust the broad markets more than the banks
and governments.

--
Jere Lull
Xan-à-Deux -- Tanzer 28 #4 out of Tolchester, MD
Xan's pages: http://web.mac.com/jerelull/iWeb/Xan/
Our BVI trips & tips: http://homepage.mac.com/jerelull/BVI/

Gogarty wrote in
:

No. At the time, the dollar price of a new Maramu was $500,000. Then
the dollar went into decline. I suspect the Maramu would have held its
value better than the stock market has. Sort of like the woman
mentioned in the NY Times the other day who opined she would have been
better off buying Hermes scarves than Sirius stock.



You're just talking about new price, right? NO BOAT holds its price more
than 50 milliseconds after you lift the pen at the end of your
signature....at which point it becomes a used boat worth about half....

.....or worse.

Open Google Earth and go to:

La Rochelle
Z.I , rue Joseph Cugnot, BP 15
17182 Périgny cedex

put in La Rochelle, France. Look for the massive OTHER boatyards, which
are across the street from the tiny Amel plant, about. Look close and
you'll see a couple of maramus in the test tank behind the building last
time I looked.

I think the massive lot full of boats across the street is Beneteau.

"Larry" wrote in message
...
I did it AGAIN! Love the ride.

Friday, just as she started a little pop off 10c/share on the pink sheets,
I held my breath and punched [RETURN], dumping the $1800 balance in my
Ameritrade account into Lehman Brothers at 11c/share. It got to 40c/share
but has slacked off to about 30c today, tripling my money before the tax
bureaucrats show up for their half....(c;

It worked this way with Enron. It also worked with Worldcom!

Now some Asians are gonna buy up some assets they like. Might make
50c/share on MONDAY after the idiots in DC bail out the billionaire
bankers.

This is more fun than a roller coaster!....(c;

"Those shares are useless! SELL them to me cheap!"

What a country!.....(c;

Las Vegas is nowhere near as much fun as the Pink Sheets....

================================================== ===

Larry, I've been reading your postings about the crash of 29, etc.


"Brother, Can You Spare a Dime," lyrics by Yip Harburg, music by Jay Gorney
(1931)

They used to tell me I was building a dream, and so I followed the mob,
When there was earth to plow, or guns to bear, I was always there right on
the job.
They used to tell me I was building a dream, with peace and glory ahead,
Why should I be standing in line, just waiting for bread?

Once I built a railroad, I made it run, made it race against time.
Once I built a railroad; now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?
Once I built a tower, up to the sun, brick, and rivet, and lime;
Once I built a tower, now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?

Once in khaki suits, gee we looked swell,
Full of that Yankee Doodly Dum,
Half a million boots went slogging through Hell,
And I was the kid with the drum!

Say, don't you remember, they called me Al; it was Al all the time.
Why don't you remember, I'm your pal? Buddy, can you spare a dime?

Once in khaki suits, gee we looked swell,
Full of that Yankee Doodly Dum,
Half a million boots went slogging through Hell,
And I was the kid with the drum!

Say, don't you remember, they called me Al; it was Al all the time.
Say, don't you remember, I'm your pal? Buddy, can you spare a dime?
=====

Makes ya wonder.. the suckers who work, pay the taxes, send their kids off
to war,


they are us, we will end up paying for this madness.

"Thomas, Spring Point Light" wrote in
:

Makes ya wonder.. the suckers who work, pay the taxes, send their kids
off to war,


they are us, we will end up paying for this madness.



Every time I see someone carrying a baby around, I wonder:

How will he travel, without oil?
How will he keep from freezing to death?
What will he eat, when there's no food?
Will he be killed in the think tank's planned genocide to preserve
what's left for the moneyed elite?
Will he be left on Earth to choke to death as the overlords move off-
planet at his expense?
Will he find out where Soilent Green comes from?
Will he be the first generation to have the red light in his palm
signalling his time for euthanasia to save the elite from the rest of
us?

I believe these are all possible things....for your grandchildren to
tackle.

George Orwell had the date wrong....not the concept of constant wars to
control population and keep the elite in absolute power.

Build the gallows on Wall Street. I have quite a que ready to take
their turns pulling the handles.....me first....for humanity and that
little baby.

Money Changers. Hitler identified the problem but got carried away with
the solution. The Money Changers don't think the goyum will do it
again, or they would have changed their attitudes.

Nothing has changed for centuries.....