The Quest For Financial Independence In A Welfare State

I live in Finland, the country in the north that is known for Santa Claus, Nokia, and sauna. To be fair, I don’t really know how people from other countries perceive Finnish culture or economy. Finland is typically known for its relatively high education and functional welfare system that was quickly built after World War 2. Because of these benefits, it is a common saying here that being born in Finland “is like winning the lottery.”

Except it isn’t. The public sector in Finland has grown tremendously throughout the last decades, and governmental debt is also through the roof, leading to an unsustainable situation. The private sector can’t fund the bloated public sector, whose wages are actually higher on average, for much longer. Ridiculously high taxes come with the deal, as well as progressive payroll taxes that discourage high earnings. Really puts you in the mood to become an entrepreneur, doesn’t it?

As another author noted previously, the ideology driving the whole country is plain socialism under the disguise of “social democracy.” This includes the scourges of cultural marxism, feminism, equalism, mindless immigration from Islamic countries, and all the fun stuff that runs civilizations to the ruins. I’m sure active ROK readers are familiar with these.

Digging for a solution

It becomes clearer by the day that it will be difficult to count on the government to continue handing out benefits. So what’s the best way to deal with this? I decided to make the best of it and invest my way off this shit. To accomplish this, what investing strategy should you choose, and do you have to be Warren Buffet-like mastermind to become financially independent? The answer is no, and I’m going to tell you why.

Investing is a topic far too large to cover in one little article. So I highly recommend that you get into the basics by reading books, and of course the internet is full of useful material. So I will only tell you about my strategy, why I chose it, and why I think it’s going to work in the long run.

At first I studied about investing as much as I could, and acquired vast amounts of knowledge about the topic. Basically, there are many possibilities to choose from if one wants to start investing. Stocks, bonds, real estate, and different kind of funds etc. You can choose just one of them or combine different instruments to your portfolio. Hell, you can even lend money to your friends with an interest rate. You should definitely look into different allocations because allocation itself is the one main reason that explains over 90% of the expected returns.

Enter index funds

After my studies I chose to invest in stocks via passive index funds. Index funds are basically just funds that attempt to emulate the overall performance of a certain segment of a market. ETF’s (exchange traded funds) are certain kinds of index funds, but their fund units are traded on the stock market like any other stock.

There are a lot of indexes that measure the change in different markets, so there are many possibilities to form an index fund. Basically what you’re doing is buying many different stocks at once. By buying several different index funds, you can adjust your strategy to the direction you want. That way your portfolio becomes diversified on its own. Even by buying just one index fund, your portfolio can gain most of the benefits related to diversification. I recommend that you visit http://www.ifa.com/ for further exploration.

I mentioned earlier that the instrument of my strategy is a passive index fund. The key here is “passive.” Active funds and active stock trading mean that the trader, broker, or in the case of funds a portfolio manager takes a certain view of the market which is supposed to beat the market in returns. The problem with active trading is that even the so-called professionals rarely know what they are doing, and timing the market—trying to pick the right time to buy or sell—is actually impossible. Those points have been shown in studies over and over again.

Of course there are exceptions and people who have continuously beat the market returns, but how can you know that your portfolio manager is one of those? With active investing also come the costs of activity, including trading costs, taxes, and the different fees for managing the portfolio. Passive investing lets you mostly avoid those because the fees of the portfolio manager are significantly lower, hence the bigger returns in the long term. You of course have to pay taxes after realization of the investment, but with funds one can avoid it as long as possible.

Passive index funds actually don’t even have portfolio managers per se. They just have people to take care that the fund is balanced and thus represents the index it is emulating. What most people don’t realize is that the whole financing industry and the products it offers to common people are mostly bullshit. Most investing products and active funds are just there to make money for the companies offering them via managing fees. Don’t believe that they care about how your particular investments are doing.

In fact, many funds are actually so called “hidden indexes,” where the portfolio manager is too afraid to take a real view on the market to make extra returns. So, he just makes it an index fund and still collects the higher fees related to active funds. And why would he take a real view and risk it, because if he takes a wrong view it would cost him his job. It’s better for him to go and “be wrong” along with the market indexes against which the performance of the portfolio manager’s fund is measured.

The time-saving advantage

Considering the fact that most people have day jobs, hobbies, and some hustling to do on the side there’s not too much time left to monitor the stock market, which is quite pointless anyway in the aggregate. Trying to foresee the future of the stock market even based on past returns is nearly impossible, especially without complex algorithms.

The average market return rate is considered to be from 8% to 9% per year. So from that you have to extract the fund managing fees etc., which in my case are 0.5% on average, significantly lower than in active funds. Inflation and other things should also be taken to account, but the real path to financial independence is dependent on your lifestyle choices. I have a good view of the amount of money that I need to “retire” and I try to invest as much as I can on a monthly basis. That gives a nice time-based diversification also—look up “dollar cost averaging.”

My goal is not to retire in a sense that common people perceive it, but rather to become financially independent so that I can give all my time to my real passions like music and weight lifting. The key is not to make hasty decisions based on market positions. The market goes up and down, and the basic psychology behind the behavior of most investors usually forces them to sell at the wrong time. With passive investing you ride out a depression, all the while buying cheap stocks and waiting for the market to go up again.

The key is to find your strategy and stick to it. This simple idea works because so many people really can’t commit to it—in Finland, in the U.S., or anywhere else. Determine an allocation and instruments and start investing constantly. Other sites give a decent introduction to safe withdrawal rates, the amount of money to save for retirement, and the concepts behind it. Start now, and build for your future.

Read More: I Will Teach You To Be Rich

185 thoughts on “The Quest For Financial Independence In A Welfare State”

  1. Too bad your wisdom is lost upon the powers that be here in the USA. We haven’t cut back on the size of government since the 1920s.

    1. As I’m fond of pointing out, for all his supposed ills, the only American who managed to shrink the size of government in the US, albeit temporarily, was Tim McVeigh. Who shrank the Federal government by several thousand square feet in one bang…… Take from that whatever you wish…..

      1. Likely he was a government agent.
        The whole psycho white male militia man is the archetype the left loves to demonize and use as an excuse for draconian laws.

        1. He was no government agent. What he did was far past a government scheme for political power. If anything, it resurged a new group of militant anarchists. McVeigh had the ability, accidental or not, to predict the future of the US 20 years or more in advance. He warned us of an out-of-control progressive government.

  2. The economy is now collapsing at a rapid speed.
    With unemployment at such a high level, and hyperinflation out of control, it is obvious that people are now starting to panic.
    With the politicians, banks and corporations and the bought and controlled mainstream media constantly lying and screwing over the public, it really is shocking to see that that with the deteriorating standards of living, people are too busy playing their smartphones and tablets.
    My advice to anyone reading this: develop an exit strategy. Living in the west is proving to be harmful financially. On top of that with all your constitutional rights being robbed and eroded infron of your eyes, your freedom is starting to disappear.
    The politicians, banks and corporations are robbing us, wrecking the economy and taking us to war, and still people don’t want to say anything about it.
    Fuck humanity.

    1. There is no where left to run.
      The baby boomers have 75 to 90 percent of the wealth and political power. They don’t give a damn, so long as they are taken care of.
      Baby boomers were the death of the West. PERIOD.
      Those of us youngsters LUCKY enough to have a good job (paying 50k plus in a major city as I live in is working poor) are slaving 40 to 50 percent of our life to pay for parasites (social security, public sector slime, obamacare, pub education, etc…), and the other 50 to 60 goes to basic living and student loans.
      The trap has been set.
      Asset taxes are coming, civil despair and unrest, as well as social atrophic action due to all the old people and art history majors having no funding source for survival.
      Still, I’m optimistic because I have it better than 90 percent to my male peers, which makes me grateful. Young men are SCREWED.

      1. Asset taxes-I am aware of this and worried at the same time as I own property. Fucking bloodsucking vampires.

      2. We could always fuck them over by choosing to monetize the national debt. That would make boomers care a lot. And we would be debt-free in no time.

        1. Probably but they claim to be doing otherwise. If there intention was made clear that they were going to monetize, inflation would sky rocket and seniors’ saving accounts would become worthless.

      3. You are correct. There is nowhere to go. This is not 1945, where everyone could just run to the US to escape tyranny. It’s over for the common man.

        1. Its already happening.
          Take for example, in the United Kingdom, the government is now charging people to pay money for carrier bags and apparently, the government will soon charge people admission fees just to visit the parks in London such as Hyde Park and Regents Park.
          If this is not proof that the government is broke, I don’t know what is.

        2. My strategy is to focus on job skills that will still be in demand no matter what, then minimize my cost of living, so I can reliably make enough money to get by, while moderating the taxes I have to pay. I know that taxes will be high, but I have to get by somehow.
          As for jobs that are in demand no matter what, the economy is not going to collapse to the point we’re all out in the woods trying to trap rabbits for supper, while living in the woods. I expect in a worst case scenario, the world economy might have a short term decrease in GDP of 20%, with some countries or regions seeing a decrease of 40%. There will still be new smart phone models and improved cancer treatments coming out throughout the “collapse”. Also, there will be parts of the world that will continue to prosper throughout the crisis. For example, I think the Calgary-Edmonton region will remain prosperous throughout the coming time of troubles.
          There will still be an elite, and there will still be large government and corporate organizations. If you can provide services these organizations need, you can make an income and weather the bad times. Also, your connection with these favored organizations will provide some opportunity to benefit from favoritism.

        3. Good analysis, but what about the society at large? As a regular person, how do you escape the inevitable dysfunction coming from the monkeys all around you. You’re driving to work, then suddenly some disenchanted jackass who just lost his job starts taking pot shots at motorist stuck in traffic.
          It’s kind of a masturbatory fantasy in the manosphere about societies collapsing back to the stone age. Many of us have a silly fantasy that somehow we will fare better under more primitive and natural circumstances, as opposed to the operating under the constraints of modern society. We are all rational men here. We know society will not collapse to the point of having to live in the woods and hunt game to survive.
          However, the evidence of societal decline is all around us now. What happens when your hometown rapidly turns into Detroit and you don’t have the money and resources to move or relocate? This is a scenario faced by millions of people in this country. Ask anyone who lives in the inner city. They have nowhere to go.
          When the shit hits the fan, it happens to everyone on an individual level, on their own personal timeline. The shit will never hit the fan for Warren Buffett. He has too much money. But the shit will hit the fan for Joe Schmoe the plumber from middle America.
          Are you closer to Warren Buffett, or Joe Schmoe?

        4. What is proof is the greater than £7tn debt that the British government will never be able to repay.

        5. You can’t be too hard on the Regular Joes. We’ve got generations of people who have been spoon-fed “patriotism” and “compliance” since before they could walk.

        6. I think a lot of people will be truly screwed. Formerly middle class people reduced to living in poverty, and formerly solid working class people reduced to slums.
          It’s an article of faith that a red pill approach to life can enable a man to come out somewhere near the top of the heap. Of course, to be truly elite in the coming times will require some kind of Cathedral credibility, which is anathema to most of us. Still, I think there is a workable path.
          A common vision for the future is that America will become like Brazil, where there is a portion of society that is educated and advanced, and a portion that lives in squalor. I think the key is to do what it takes to fit into the upscale portion of society. Having a skilled trade or profession of some sort is essential, but more important is the need to game the world.
          It’s been pointed out many times (including a recent ROK article) that approaching women and sales are very similar. Applying for jobs, handling work place politics, getting the boss to take you under his wing, these are all skills that can be practiced and learned.
          If a man recognizes the pattern that is playing out in the economy as the collapse plays out, he can cultivate skills that remain in demand, then use career and social game to get into the right circles and get by. I think if a person can get into the upper 30-40% of society, it will probably be sufficient to come through with an intact modern lifestyle and personal finances.

      4. The thing for young men to do is… nothing. Without the productivity of young men the system collapses. There is no fix to these problems. Let it all burn and start from the ashes.

      5. PC idiots were the death of the west…letting their government borrow massive amounts of money, allowing mass immigration and wasting money on socialist projects including foreign aid.

        1. It also goes further back, with the establishment of the Central banks such as the Federal Reserve, Bank of England and not bringing back the gold standard.

      6. Orange,
        What percent do you deserve?
        Do you really think you are that different than previous generations?
        Say how’s that smart phone, lap top and video game console treating you?

        1. Oh yea, the boomers invented iphones! That justifies all of it.
          The narcissism that won’t die…

        2. You did not say what percentage you deserve. Further, my point was you are whining about your awful life despite all the new toys you enjoy.
          Quit crying and go out and make your life. When all the boomers were your age, life was the same. Except you have more toys, lattes, 1000 cable channels, and reality shows.

      7. “There is no where left to run”
        “Asset taxes are coming, civil despair and unrest, as well as social atrophication”
        When is this all going to happen? Can you give us a time line?

        1. [I didn’t intend to exploit your question as a platform to rant about the ethics of government power, but I see an opportunity to present the case why I believe these events are highly probable to occur in the near future]:
          I wish I could give an exact estimate, but from what I know it is near impossible to predict these events even somewhat veraciously. These large-scale, high-effect events typically require some type of an “unpredictable” catastrophe as a catalyst for large-scale government intervention, which leads to the retrenchment of rights, which could be anything, for example the aforementioned asset taxes.
          That is part of what makes 9/11 such a suspicious event; it conveniently provided the government with justification to pass otherwise invasive legislation (see: “Patriot Act”,”Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003″, “FISCA/EPCA”, “Total Information Awareness”,”2007 Protect America Act”, “2008 Patriot Act”, “FISA Amendment Act of 2008, “PRISM”, the introduction of closed-operations FISC courts regulating the bounds of the NSA, and keep in mind that “secret courts” are free to utilize “secret interpretations of the law”, and more recently the Utah Data Center, to name a few) granting them power to do things they would never have been able to get away with normally, all in the name of “national security”. Generally speaking, for every additional piece of legislation providing government more power, an equal amount of individual freedom is destroyed, and the potential for clandestine government abuse of power expands.
          Less than a year ago, I composed a 23 page essay on the “Ethics of US Clandestine Domestic Dragnet Surveillance” (Ethics in Engineering), largely focused on the NSA among others seeing that they are performing the majority of US domestic dragnet-style surveillance; I can tell you the history I uncovered on government abuse of power was horrifying. The ethical dilemma implicated is one of “Individual vs. Community”. This represent the balance between “individual freedom” (the right to privacy in this case), and community safety (see: “national security”). I found that the the corruption involved in US military organizations far outweighed their benefits.
          Two relevant quotes from 2013 court-case “Klayman vs. Obama” contain highly unsettling words, from the mouth of our own Federal Judge Richard Leon, on the topic of our own bulk-domestic-telephone-collection programs:
          1) “[…Given] the utter lack of evidence that a terrorist attack has ever been prevented because searching the NSA database was faster than other investigative tactics – I have serious doubts about the efficacy of the metadata collection program [for investigating time-sensitive terrorist threats]”
          2) “I cannot imagine a more ‘indiscriminate’ and ‘arbitrary invasion’ than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen. [Surely] such a program infringes on ‘that degree of privacy’ that the Founders enshrined in the Fourth Amendment”.
          And yet the operations continue. This is why I fear government power. There have been so many documented cases of abuse, from STELLARWIND, to the Watergate Scandal, to COINTELPRO (most significant, IMO). The financial/political incentives are simply too much of a risk to allow government to have the ability to spy on its own citizens, in most cases without requiring a warrant (or an unjustly granted warrant authorized by FISC). And if these are the scandals that HAVE been revealed, how many cases of abuse of power have gone uncovered? (Slippery slope, but it does make one wonder.)
          So from my analysis of the situation, our government bodies won’t hesitate for a second to inaugurate any immoral/amoral legislation it feels is necessary to cover their asses for another term; including asset taxes, printing money like never before, tax-hikes on the rich, and on.
          And at the rate at which the entitlement programs have been growing, alongside the mainstream rise of feminism, growing separation between rich/poor, continued promotion of factionalism between races/religions/sexes by seemingly government-owned media (see COINTELPRO), rising unemployment rate, government deficit-spending increasing, it just seems to keep getting worse, at a faster and faster rate.
          And who knows what the Greek-debt crisis could mean for the US. Is it possible that we could find ourselves in the same position? Are we “too big” to fail? Because their isn’t anyone big enough to bail us out if we do.
          -“Enjoy the Decline”-

        2. I think you’re right on the money. As a former spec ops guy, I worked with a lot of gov’t 3-letter agencies and there’s definitely an “us” vs “them” perception of the general public and the difference between on-the-ground facts and what got reported always blew my mind Looking at these “fortunate coincidences” like 9/11 and all these data-collection gov’t programs, if you ignore the commentary and look just at the design and the outcome, the overall goal becomes pretty obvious.

        3. Ok I agree with your assertions, but fuck, dude, all I want is some kind of rough estimate time frame — will it happen in 5 years? Will it happen within 10 years? Within 15? No one is holding you accountable if your estimate is off, but just give it your college try…

      8. Couldn’t agree more with you and Truth above.
        Asset taxes: Spain has already done it. Other Euro countries on the way. The West will follow. Japan is ramping up QE in the East. China is fortifying its ties with Russia.
        Affordable Care Act/Obamacare: Beefing up the medical industry to prepare for the massive generational die of that has just begun. Get the young hooked under the guise of protecting their health cheaply so millions of dollars from the young and generations unborn yet can be taxed to pay for the massive burden that was never properly planned for after WWII.
        Politicians/banks/corporations: Design, implement and employ media, gadgets, ideas, ways of life that keep the sheeple just above groveling status; hungry but not starving. Inundate them with increasingly expensive technology ensuring the debt spiral and consistent wage slavery. When the common man has to actually think about how he is going to get the basics because he is buried alive in debt, no longer can he deploy his mental faculties in a way to see that he is that way because he is being taken advantage of.
        Unemployment/wage deflation: Today’s youth and up and coming generations don’t mind this or at least they think “Ah it’s too big to change, I’d rather just deal with it (face back into iPhone).” Scroll on over the ROK article title “Part-time economy.” This is exactly what I am talking about; the youth can’t even properly describe this problem let alone try to rant about it as privilege.
        Something interesting to think about: I always question my friends about it:
        If I told you Social Security was not going to be there when you retire, why are you paying for it right now? Answer: I don’t know (don’t we just have too?), but I think if you just properly save in other ways you should be fine. It kills me a bit more inside each time. 3/4 of the young don’t even know what it is, why they are paying for it (over 6% is quite a lot!) and don’t care if it’s there or not in the future.
        Most young people today were raised in a manner that made them too entitled (useless college degrees), too lazy (part-time work so they have time to “travel and experience life” and too dumb (gadgets).
        Exit strategy is the perfect plan. I’m 26. I have 30+ years of working left in my life. I am saving as much as I can, vigorously investing in companies both old and new (from blue chips to startups), delaying all gratification in favor of building up an early nest and then I am going to peace the fuck out right before it all crumbles. Screw the American dream, screw the giant house, forget the wife, abandon the notion of dieing at my desk by slaving for at a job 30 years. End rant.

    2. I guess I am a bit of a white knight because I cannot turn my back on the West. Simply because I know that if I do, it’s probable that people who also see the problems destroying the West may as well. Like the people who use this site.
      And that is egotistical, I can see that but it is a feeling I cannot get over.
      My grandfather would not have given up, to do so would be a betrayal in my mind.

      1. Daniel – the problem is, when USA became sufficiently successful, safe, and comfortable – standards everywhere started getting dropped.
        Suddenly womens’ ‘issues’, aff action, political correctness, massive gov spending…….
        The people become disconnected from the hard work required to maintain it. If you work hard to make it safe, women don’t appreciate it at all, they will always tear it down. Look at millennial girls, they have it good in life and they don’t give a shit

        1. Indeed. Luxury was peaked early. Wealthy societies decided that people deserved positive rights in the form of free healthcare (which makes no sense, if healthcare is a right why doesnt the government ensure people always get free food). Once that genie was let out of the bottle the coddling began.
          I watched some British TV where they seriously wet themselves over whether they have the right to offend Islam. This is the country that prides itself on its prominent atheists

        2. Fair weather atheists, perhaps. It’s easy to criticise Christianity and pretend to be brave by doing so, but they’re not so brave with Muslims eh.

    3. Gas prices are down. The lights are still on. The NFL is televised every weekend. It’s not so bad.
      But in all seriousness, you are correct. This shitshow is imploding. It’s just so fucking big that it seems like it’s happening in slow motion.
      Ever since Obama’s re-election, there hasn’t been a shred of real good news to be had. This motherfucker we call the good ‘ole US of A is in it’s death throes. It’s like watching an elephant die.
      It’s very appropriate that we have a guy like Obama at the helm while this thing collapses before our eyes. An untested community organizer pretending to run the largest economy in human history, one built on the back of hard working people, being flushed down the crapper in the name of civil rights, social justice, etc. It’s like watching a comedy, of the Shakespearian, tragic variety of course. Very fitting for the end of America. America deserves this. It really does.

    4. Where will you go if the economies of China and the US fall?
      Good luck with that wherever it is. They will be worse. I strongly discourage Thailand or Africa for starters.
      True, investments in stocks are largely becoming a fools errand. But if you are wise, and a little lucky, you can take advantage of those who are too stupid to invest there, and “help them” make a new direction.
      People will always need housing, even if the market sucks. Had I been in the states during the 2008 crisis, and saved wisely while living here, I could have bought up tons of properties, and taken construction/housing-repair classes if I had not already. Thus waiting for the housing market to reappear, which it has, and made bank.
      Markets are always going to fluctuate.
      If you think there is a guarantee, may I suggest you take your “wisdom” over to jezebel and salon. I hear feminists love guarantees as long as some sucker pays for it.
      Because only socialists expect guarantees.
      Everyone else expects someone to have the reputation to back up their claim of quality service. So that when crap happens, they know that they were most likely not taken advantage of.
      Our society with FDIC, the Fed, and lawsuit happy culture that it is, has pledged a lie of security that it can never back up. You are right on that.
      But you are wrong if you fail to see that crisis is merely opportunity under a different name.

      1. Unlike me you will have nowhere to defect to. – Soviet defector Yuri Bezmenov interviewed by G. Edward Griffin (1984)

  3. Fiat currency, markets, funds, anything tied to a bank are all rigged and not a wise investment unless you control the markets. If you control the markets, sure you can reap all kinds of benefits from your investment, however the markets (or anything else for that matter) still require suckers to invest to keep it propped up (and a place for your return to be sourced).
    The ones you complain about (corporations, banks, govt, etc.) are the market controllers, why invest in that ponzi game at all unless you are prepared to join the parasites you mention in the plunder and pillage game?
    Invest in yourself and your family if you have one. Rewards are much higher than what can be obtained in imaginationland.

    1. Absolutely. Invest in a family as having children to look after you in the golden years will be the only pension available in the near future.

      1. LOL!
        My estranged (baby boomer) father offered to help put a down payment on a new apartment for this very reason. I had too much sell respect to accept his money.
        But that’s how it should work, not nursing homes.

    2. A lot of yuppies think they understand the stock market.
      I honestly don’t either. But I can say one thing, when the government is INCENTIVIZING 401Ks and IRAs, I assume it’s to prop up the ponzi scheme. Not to help you.
      I don’t know anyone who made their wealth off of stocks, but I know a couple dozen who did so with real estate and their own businesses.

      1. The thing with stocks is that the wealthy do invest in them and are less likely to invest into real estate. As you witnessed in the bailouts and stimulus packages, their investments will get protected. I’m not justifying the Monetary or Fiscal policies of the country, but you can most definitely make money off of it. And it isn’t like the money made working your ass off in your job is any greener than the money made investing during bailouts and a stimulus.

        1. The wealthy are LESS likely to invest in real estate?
          Damn near every wealthy or well-to-do person I’ve ever met or come across was heavily invested in real estate. Not sure what their stock portfolios were like.

        2. That’s because they own everything. Lower classes “invest” in real estate that they live in. The wealthy often diversify and purchase their own real estate but stocks are the primary reason the wealth disparity is getting worse. Stock values are increasing at a far greater rate than real estate. Ergo, the wealthy on average invest a far greater amount of their wealth into stocks than real estate. And all data supports that.
          “Fully 93 percent of the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans own stocks. That’s nearly twice the level for the middle 50 percent and far more than the 26 percent stock-ownership rate for the bottom 40 percent.”
          Source: Federal Reserve Consumer Finance Survey, 2014

      2. Dude.
        The S&P was at 325 in 1990. It’s currently over 2,000.
        Unless you’re an investing moron, you probably can outperform the S&P. If you’re ever wondering how so many idiot baby boomers made so much money, consider this. If you had $100,000 to invest in 1990 (15-30 years after they graduated HS), you’d be a millionaire with slight outperformance of the index.
        It wasn’t uncommon for people to double their money in a year, especially during the dot-com boom. Stocks used to be the move.

        1. I think since 2010 the S and P has doubled. Is that a sign of economic growth?
          I don’t disagree that the stock market was (and still can be) a good hedge against inflation and dividend yield … but the days of speculatively buying and holding are over.

        2. Yes the author is probably unaware of the superlative record of Martin Armstrong / Princeton Economics. His discoveries and economic models predixtions are on the record for anyone to review.
          I used to harbour grave doubt about market long term manipulations interference. Now one ca n recognize these ” brilliant ” banksters blow ups …the real corruption is getting others to to pay for their mistakes. ( sure there is plentiful short term rigging )
          Anyhow there is still openings to ride the Dow / S&P rise, the US dollar spike , the financials collapse, the Bond bubble burst and precious metals run.
          One one can utilize leveraged ETFs like SPXL and FAZ or for supercharged return and risk use options on those ETFs. Just otta know the timing.

        3. Oh no doubt the current S&P means shit for the middle and working class. I know you’re around my age so we graduated with no $$ to invest in this so called stock-market boom post 2008. Not to mention the effect that NAFTA had on the market. But idk how you don’t know anyone who didn’t make insane money off the market. The market has made absurd growth over the last 30. IMO this country will return to 1990’s three digit S&P and we’ll have to endure a depression, rebuild the economy all over again.

        4. Thanks for that. I like FAZ…trading at 2% of it’s highs when IMO we are on the verge of another depression. Even when things are doom-and-gloom, there’s still opportunity. Guys like John Paulson made a killing when the mortgage market tanked.

        5. Most people I find are speculating in stocks, they are not looking at them as being owners of the underlying businesses. They speculate that the price will increase, and as such management only looks at quarterly results
          Invest in dividend paying stocks. They have a higher rate of return than non-dividend paying stocks and are far more stable. Forget about the stock price and only sell if they cut the dividend. Successful dividend paying companies (i.e. ones that have been paying out for 25+ years without cutting) have to have a long term focus to be able to sustain the dividend.
          Those who did invest in dividend paying stocks during the great depression actually came out way ahead!
          http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jmfXVSCfAks/VDSMoTxFLwI/AAAAAAAAFuY/ecHyAJCBc1I/s1600/Dividends.png
          Now you won’t get rich quickly this way. You won’t be buying the latest tech stock, rather its the boring businesses people don’t think much about (like Coca-Cola, General Mills, Altria, Johnson & Johnson, Unilever etc) that faithfully pump out cash each and every quarter.
          You do have to be willing to see your investment drop in half overnight though because of bad news, but these companies rarely have significant underlying issues (though KO has some wacky compensation going on right now) and tend to rise over time in a much more stable fashion.
          This is how many more people used to invest, but far less common now.

        6. What does the value of the stock market have to do with the well being of the average American? No where near as much as it used to. Remember, the American stock market was traditionally a place of investment for the average Joe (through pensions, company stock, annuities after WW2).
          What has changed is that a large portion of the stock market and U.S. assets, along with debts, and “American” corporations are foreign owned. So while the growth of the stock market used to correlate to economic health of the country, this is no longer the case.
          The way people say “the stock market is up!” No longer correlates to anything it used to other than an individual porfolio.
          Anyway, my original point was focused on 401ks and IRAs, which appear to me as subsidized by the government (standard plan for middle class professionals). Look at the P E ratio and inflation of American nearly identical stocks relative to Asia and Europe. It’s like the dollar.

        7. I agree, but this is the “slow wealth formula” which depends on relative economic stability. You still need steady employment to use as investment capital if you want to retire reasonably young.

        8. A lot of those Boomers made paper profits in the dot com bull run and lost actual money when they sold after the crash and during the ensuing bear market.
          A lot of people don’t beat the indexes because they invest very unintelligently. They buy only when everyone else is happy and buying stocks which leads to buying at high prices, and they sell when everyone is doom and gloom which means they are selling when everything is priced low.
          They are falling victims to mass psychology which is what drives the market.
          Actual returns of investment portfolios very often greatly under perform compared to the stated returns of the underlying securities because of terrible timing.
          Once they lose a ton of money by selling in a bear market, many people will swear off stocks until once again, all they hear is good news about the stock market. They feel confident in buying at that point, but prices are high and the cycle starts over.
          Case in point, in 2008 many people cashed out stocks in their 401k when the DJIA was around 8k. They swore off stocks because they had lost money, and all they heard was bad news.
          They did not start buying stocks again until the DJIA was at 15k because at that point everyone was talking about how great stocks are.
          When the next crash comes, all these idiots will again take all the stocks they bought at DJIA 17k and sell them at DJIA 8k, at which point they will swear off stocks again again.
          Most people suck at investing in the stock market due to a terrible investing mindset and an unwillingness to hold firm in bad times.
          The best book anyone investing in the stock market can read is The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham. It will be the single best thing you do for yourself as an investor.
          Be Fearful When Others Are Greedy and Greedy When Others Are Fearful
          – Warren Buffett

        9. You are right. The stock market is no longer an accurate indicator of overall nationwide economic health.
          However, it’s recent meteoric and unchecked rise may be a strong indication of a massive bubble forming. If and when this bubble bursts, it will take the entire economy down with it, or at least huge segments of the economy.
          .
          Paradoxically, the surging stock market is now a strong indicator of massive economic turmoil and trouble.
          May you live in interesting times…

        10. Yep. But the time for Faz is not yet on the near term horizon.
          Money is fleeing Europe , Russia , Emerging markets and GOVERNMENT THEFT. So first its the US dollar and markets ramp.
          I urge people to read his blog. Even a little money can potentially become a lot.

        11. Most people I find are speculating in stocks, they are not looking at them as being owners of the underlying businesses.
          This is why they all panic during downturns. They don’t actually know what the stocks they are holding are worth and they just view them as blips on a screen.
          Anyone investing in the stock market, needs to learn how to read financial statements (income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow report) and annual reports.

        12. Yes. The stock market is instead an indicator of investment capital flows not trade flows.
          It wont be a crashing stock market that causes a depression but an imploding bond market. Much larger.

        13. Doom and gloom is when the big opportunities come.
          Warren Buffett made a good chunk of his fortune in the 1970’s bear market. When every article in every newspaper and magazine said stocks were dead, he was buying rock solid cash cows at P/E ratios of 2 because no one else had the nuts to buy them.
          People feel good in bull markets. People get rich in bear markets.

        14. I’m not an economist, but that would be my own opinion as well. I’m not talking about careful investors who do their own homework.
          College tuition is similar to stock prices; the perception of value and easy money flood to assets which are worth far less than purchase price. It’s a ponzi scheme … a sales job. Does the average middle class person with over 250k in the stock market have any clue how their portfolio is allocated?
          If the stock market was performing so well (and the managers were so expert), why are pensions based on a projected 6 to 7 percent return funded by as little as 25 percent on the state level?

        15. That’s true. People are stupid. They invest with emotions. now that I’m just starting to make money, I’m avoiding equities/real estate for the time being. Why would I invest at an all time high?

        16. Whose blog? And I would NEVER invest short term. Only the smartest .001% of people can time the markets for the short term, if that.

        17. Martin Armstrongs blog.
          Its so obvious the markets too high. Everyone believes this.
          An the majority are always wrong.
          No emotions. Watch capital flows.
          Would you kick yourself if the Dow went to 26000 or 40000?

        18. I don’t understand shit about stocks. I couldn’t even tell you how a stock price is calculated. So I stay away.
          #1 rule of investing: Do not invest in things you do not understand.

        19. And the great thing about dividend investing in the US is that if your income is within the 10-15% tax bracket, your qualified dividends are tax free!
          I find investing in individual companies preferable to investing in indexes because I can allocate money to stocks in specific companies which have been hit in price temporarily. In general, I try to keep my purchases to companies with a P/E of less than 20 and if I were to buy indexes I’d be indirectly buying some companies that I felt were overvalued.
          Let’s just hope that they continue to keep the favorable treatment of dividend taxation well into the future.

    3. The general rule is that all wealth that is visible, is confiscatable. And hence will be confiscated. Squanderig every penny ever made, plus as much borrowed money as possible, by withdrawing it and burning it (on, for example, small purchases of easily hidden gold…), will render you wealth less, hence of little interest to the looting classes….
      Bitcoin is starting to look good as well. The longer it withstands attempts at breaking the protocol, the less likely it is that it will be compromised. And there are promising projects in process to increase anonymity. What is desirable; and remember that, since the looters will inevitably insist that is a reason to harass holders of crypto currencies; is a currency with sufficient anonymity guarantees that anyone, anywhere can put a contract on the head of anyone anywhere, and honor it upon completion. All in public, with only identities anonymized, without even the NSA with all their trillions being able to do a darned thing about it. Yes, that means someone can put a contract on your head, but the scummiest people on earth already can. Hence, enabling those less scummy to return the favor and do ditto to the scumbags, is nothing but a great big positive hip hip hooray…..

      1. Health is more important than money. Children’s health and upbringing are more important than money. Life’s good hard lessons learned from experience are more valuable than money. Time is the one commodity you can never replace. Personal skills such as being able to feed and heal and protect oneself and family are priceless. Investing personal time in areas such as hunting and food prep and cooking (all types of cooking), weapons handling and use, basic/advanced first aid, decent personal combatives skills, quality weight training..etc pay off for any man, in any situation. Being a capable man, makes a man always valuable, first to himself, second to his family third to his community. So investing personal time and money in these areas as opposed to investing in the prospect of future riches pays dividends far greater. What joy can hoarded gold provide us later in life if we do not have our health to enjoy spending it? All future prep should be secondary to cultivating ourselves as capable men. Life is uncertain, plan accordingly. Live life now, love life always, for tomorrow belongs to no man.

  4. If you live in the West, get your money out of the country, before your country gets your money out of you.
    À bientôt,
    Mistral

    1. And where do you put it? BRAZIL?
      Remember this whole ex – patting thing, as well as off shore accounts is based on the current paradigm (dollar denominated assets), which is collapsing. You can’t up and leave or send money abroad without assurance of passive income or steady employment.
      Peter Schiff (europacific’s lack of success) is a perfect example of how Asian markets are just as susceptible to risk and failure as are American markets.

      1. Exactly. China’s building/housing market has just taekn a 20% hit, and their beafing up fo their cheap labor market for easy manufacturing is threatened by new demands for worker’s rights, and the West’s revitalizing manufacturing base.
        You use to be able to save much, much more get your crap manufacture over there. That is changing.

        1. China is more concerned about NOT becoming the next Japan, although Western liberals, always desperate to hemorrhage American power and to lick the boots of new overlords, don’t see it that way.

      2. Why only one? The trick is to be *mobile*. That’s going to work on different levels for different people: those with assets and those without.
        À bientôt,
        Mistral

    2. Where do you put it then?
      I get tired of hearing people tell me to “invest in gold,” or some other valuable asset. Then leave the situation I know to go to some God forsaken country that they know little, most likely nothing, about.
      If the world economy crashes, living in your home, fortified with guns, rain water collectors, and a garden full of veggies is going to look really attractive to the bigger man who leads his new found army of fools into your camp and buries you said garden. After shooting you with said rifles. He and his crew will now be well fed, and armed to ensure that your family, if they survived, will now starve in despair and anger over your corpse.
      He, his new harem, and his army of thugs will gladly reap the rewards of your labor. If they don’t burn you and your house down while raping your female companion(s). And don’t you fret your wittle head about your freeze dried corn seed going to waste. When he finds your instruction manuals, he and his new staff will find a way to plant it while you are gone and the crisis is over.
      While looking on from the grave, you may be dismayed to find that the gold you stored, is not being spent by him in the way you thought it should. But you are dead, and your plans laid waste, and now what will you do besides rot in the ground?
      Whoooowheee, there is a silver ling sho nuff. And I suspect you will find that this scenario is going to happen all over the globe. Not just the good ol’USofA.
      If life is soooo bad, and you have it all figured out, why don’t you do something? Make a business. Start training others. Put all your experience to the test, and make a difference in your local area.
      All these people pining for the end of the world think they will be one of the “lucky ones” who survive.
      Even considering that it “might happen,” you most likely wont survive, becasuse the people above are going to remember you, and pay you and your stash a visit.
      And if it doesn’t happen, you are going to regret only planning for doomsday, and not what will happen if doomsday is averted. Last second, or decades in advance.

      1. Bunker down sounds awesome, on paper. But the grid is not going down … that’s apocalyptic fantasy. It,won’t benefit the major players pulling the strings… somehow I don’t see it all playing out that way. More likely we will wake up one day to massive poverty, satiated just enough to prevent civil unrest.
        The only guys who are safe are high level bureaucracy and Skull and Bones members (lol). And also those in a critical industry.

        1. Admittedly, I had for a second hankered for the apocalypse, fantasizing about the potential large-scale benefits the end result of such an event might bring.
          For one, it would quickly do away with low-IQ/lazy/fat genetics that have been reproducing at too high a rate, which is part of the plague the US is dealing with. Lower population, more resources per individual, overall higher standard of living. Obviously it’s way more complicated than that, with lower population comes significantly lower production, and you would need to get into ownership rights of resources and whatnot but if we’re talking about an apocalypse where there is no government…Wait. No. I should stop here before I get out of hand.
          I concur with Dr. Orange. The most accurate method of determining the future on a large-scale will involve analyzing who truly has national/global power, the interests of those organizations, and what actions they will likely take in order to maintain the system that benefits them the most. An apocalyptic scenario certainly would not benefit the elite; hence, they will prevent it from happening.

    3. Ironically, it won’t be long until no-one can afford to leave with their money:
      Last August, the fee for the form to renounce US citizenship has more than quadrupled, for a grand total of $2350. Apparently, “the State Department notice gives and estimate of a consular officer’s time at $135 and hour working for 20 hours.” Note: up until a few years ago, the form used to be $0.
      So it takes consular officers 20 hours, at $135/hr, to complete the paperwork to renounce a single citizenship? Who hired these jackasses?…Oh yeah. The government.
      Honestly, the US government doesn’t even try to pretend anymore. The masses are stupid enough to the point where they can charge over $2000 for the renouncement form, and no one will worry what that might indicate.
      I will close by paraphasing the words of a Peter Schiff:
      “If they can charge $450 for that form, they can charge $5,000 for that form. They could charge $10,000 or $20,000 for that form.”
      Let’s pray to god he isn’t proven right.
      Unfortunately he has a pretty good track record.
      Source:
      http://rt.com/usa/183972-fee-renounce-us-citizenship/

  5. Australia is not in a worse situation as Scandinavian countries but generally known as multicultural countries, I think it suffers from similar problems like lack of employments and incompetent government. I’m thinking of getting out of this country when I finish my uni degree.

      1. sunny weather, english speaking, easy going…. but very feminist and socialist…. and full of small minded peasants…. they used to call it the only english speaking 3rd world country, although it’s a lot richer in the big cities now…..

      2. Australia probably is paradise compared to Britain. There is still some
        work to be had, much more sunshine than drizzly old Britain, they speak
        English and as the Australians are just as much pissheads as the British
        themselves, there’s no problem with pissing off the locals with your uncouth drunkenness.
        I’m sure they would consider Greece or Spain paradise, if they had any
        work, if they spoke English and tolerated their drunken nuisances as
        well as the Aussies.
        Basically they can live out their Mediterranean fantasy while having speaking English, drinking ale and eating fish and chips with other pasty/sun-burned fat drunks.
        (I come from New Zealand. We’re little better than Britain or Australia, but we’re happy to troll both of them as if we were.)

        1. I speak of my experience around Perth in Western Australia. Can’t speak for the rest of the country concerning the “Mediterranean fantasy” and certainly not concerning the availability of work, where mining still props up the local economy to some degree (though less so than before).

  6. After that ridiculous “trade litecoin/bitcoin” article this is a good one! Investing in a profitable business is a hedge against inflation. The products that business sells will become more expensive if hyperinflation occurs and you can benefit from that. Cryptocurrencies and gold are interesting but NOT smart investments since they don’t pay their owners for holding it. Many stocks pay dividends to investors just for holding the stock, which alone can generate 4%/yr not including capital appreciation.
    However, cryptocurrencies may be good in a situation where the gov’t starts confiscating savings provided they can’t get to your bitcoin. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that any time soon!

    1. I agree to own stocks which pay a dividend so you are paid to wait. In fact, a good rule of thumb is to never buy an investment that doesn’t pay you an income to own it…dividend paying stocks, bonds or rental income. Owning a rental property is a good hedge against inflation and recession…people will continue to pay rent in a downturn.

  7. When the private sector collapses, the public sector will collapse as well.
    Don’t believe in any reports from the government and mainstream media.
    Government Definitions:
    Job recovery= low minimum wage part time jobs now replacing high income jobs.
    Employed= people who are underemployed, or who have stopped claiming welfare and given up looking for work.

  8. Nice article. You’re actually one of the lucky ones with enough brains to do whatever you can to take responsibility and protect yourself. I’ve given up a long time ago to try and convince my friends from college that the economy NEVER did recover. I mean, most of my friends still live at home with their parents with a degree that isn’t worth the paper it’s written on and they justify it all by saying it’s because they are pursuing their dreams in acting or music. Great, if you want to be an artist or a musician, but by all means, at least admit it shouldn’t be this hard to support yourself or start a family. “For goodness sakes man, (I tell my friends), you’re living in a sh*tty efficiency apartment or your mom’s basement and your dad still pays your car insurance!” “When in the hell are you going to start your own life and financial independence?” (I scream). Rich Dad Poor Dad was a book that helped me start again my own business.

    1. Mind if I ask what kind of business? It’s sort of a pet-peeve of mine when people say they own a business but don’t say what it is. It’s like if you ask someone what do they and they reply “I have a job”. It’s just so vague

      1. Sure, I run a trucking business. I started off as a driver and now run multiple trucks from home. I take nothing for granted because tomorrow I can lose everything but at least I have the courage to try again or try something else.

        1. I lived out of my truck for several years and saved every dime and then went on to lease 1 truck after another, soon my relatives started to invest hear-n-there as well.

        2. It can be lots of fun and it’s ironic that truck drivers were paid more in the 1970s then they do now, which is why I looked for a way to start a business out of it.

        3. Nice. I’m assuming you stayed away from long term relationships with women during that time as well.

        4. That is awesome. I’ve always wanted to be a truck driver. Never went through with it for some reason.

        5. Just curious but what kind of money do drivers make that don’t own their own truck/business? If you were to hire a driver to drive for you, how much would they make per year on average?

        6. 10 times? Try 10,000 times. Haha! Women come and go. They are a dime a dozen.
          99.99% of the time, having a woman in your life is the antithesis of financial freedom.

        7. Give it a shot, you may or may not fit into the lifestyle, because you’re away from home a lot, but, then you may get into other areas of the business, like Logistics and management, which can be pretty cool, as well.

        8. I don’t know how to enter the industry. Checked out trucking school. They wanted $5000 with no guaranteed job prospects upon graduation.

        9. That’s not bad. Some of the younger guys should consider doing that. I have a job at the moment that pays a bit more, but if I was younger and looking for an opportunity, that might be it.

        10. Try Googling and see how they take the cost of driver’s school and training from your first year’s paycheck at a company that will already sponsor you.

        11. Driving a truck is for Goyim, Albert. (Unless you are running them over, but then that is not good for mileage, oy vey!)

    2. Thanks. Rich Dad Poor Dad was a big inspiration for me too. It kind of showed the same things what I had already learnt in some shitty university course in a very practical and interesting manner. A big eye opener. Music industry or acting etc. are very rough paths no matter how you put it and one has to build your career for years possibly without any real income whatsoever. That’s part of the reason why I chose to get “a real job” also because that gives me a certain kind of freedom to do whatever music I want. Especially when the real interest lies in song writing because I’ve had my share of being on the road with bands here (in Finland if you’re not super famous the money comes mostly from cover gigs) and that’s just not for me.

      1. Thanks for the reply. You’re right about how hard it is to break into the music and entertainment business. I used to shoot music videos and weddings professionally, however, there wasn’t enough income consistently and that’s why I started truck driving. What I learned in Rich Dad Poor Dad is that it’s better to have passive income than generate income by doing a job or a gig for a client. There’s pros-and-cons to both, but, passive income gives you more freedom. I still shoot videos and play music as a hobby and use those skills I learned in college to help promote different projects I plan to release to the public. These products I plan to release will add more passive income some time in the near future.

  9. Great article. Great advice. As a quisling of the public sector I am currently saving to get out, invest, and stop betraying my principles

  10. On the bright sode for Finland as a nation, there is an acknowledgment than immigration ia a problem.
    This is important because being able to acknowledge that means the culture may be willing o acknowledge all of the otjer marxist lies.
    So, better than Sweden.

  11. If you are interested in investing read anything about warren buffett, excellent insights into what makes a business great.

    1. Agreed heartily.
      The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham
      Graham was Buffet’s mentor. This is the best book you can buy for yourself if you invest or are thinking of investing in the stock market.
      Snowball :Warren Buffett by Alice Schroeder
      His only authorized biography, and a great story of his early investing years and the building of Berkshire Hathaway.
      If you really like reading about this stuff, read his annual letters to the Berkshire Hathaway shareholders. They go back to 1977 and it’s incredibly interesting reading his letters to see how he values his company and makes decisions, and to see how many times he predicted upcoming problems. It’s not for everyone and it’s a lot of reading, but if you like this stuff, it’s worth it’s weight in gold.
      http://berkshirehathaway.com/letters/letters.html

      1. How to invest like Warren Buffet. Have your best investments come from buying undervalued property from corrupt/incompetent govt agents. Invest in moving oil by train that people wont do because pipelines are more efficient/safer then bribe blockage of pipeline.
        How to invest like Biden. Have your son take over the Ukraine’s natural gas, and steal 20 tons of Ukraine’s gold to US.

      2. The annual letters are great(and free!), I don’t think much of Graham though, much of his advice has been vastly improved on, and much of it was of limited value . Not surprisingly his long term return was only around 15%. I think Buffett just talks him up alot because he gave him a few key ideas (financial moat, and that the market is manic depressive).

        1. Graham’s research advice was more for the old days where information wasn’t as easily available. He would spend days looking through the S&P manuals looking for companies whose market value was less than the cash they were carrying. That kind of stuff can’t happen anymore. Information is everywhere in an instant. But the basic ideas are still sound, I think.
          Most of what I think Graham is useful for now, and what I think Buffett learned most from Graham was the mindset. Courage and conviction if you’ve done your research properly, don’t be afraid of market swings but embrace them, remember that you’re buying a piece of a company that has actual value not just a piece of paper with a price that changes constantly, margin of safety on all purchases, etc.
          The Intelligent Investor is more about the mindset than actually valuing stocks, bonds, etc, which is why I always recommend that. His Security Analysis is good, too, but that’s a lot more in depth about reading financial statements, etc. That’s very dry stuff whereas the Intelligent Investor is easier reading and can be applied by everyone, even total newbies to the stock market.
          If nothing else from the Intelligent Investor they learn market swings are your friend, and drops in price are nothing to panic over, which can be an invaluable lesson on it’s own.

    1. Kiitos, oma artikkelisi oli myös oikein hyvä! Thanks, your article was very good also!

  12. Very interesting. Finland is one of those places I have absolutely no knowledge of, but always thought would be interesting. Thank you for this article. Would you say that the standard in Finland would be “settling.” The way I mean this is that, while no one winds up homeless on the street living a life of brutish despair and poverty, no one excels either? If so, do you think the long term consequence of removing the possibility of either disastrous failure or unmitigated success has a direct impact on the attitudes of the general public? If so, what? Does it remove this dialectic of rebellion and counter rebellion generation to generation (hippies to yuppies to grunge to fitness etc.)? Sorry for so many questions, this is an interesting topic to me.

    1. Socialism can work in a homogenous society. And that is why we promote multiculturalism! Diversity is vibrant!!

      1. Not really, no, it can’t. All bankrupt. No exceptions. Printing funny money and fiddling books can cover up its failure forever.

    1. That’s exactly why I chose that name. Character that is honorable, intelligent, tough and also a reminder of the cold realities of the world.

      1. Well said.
        He should never have gotten involved with that woman though. That caused him to lose his head!

    2. Killed the czar and his ministers
      Anastasia screamed in vain.
      Please to meet you, hope you guess my name!

  13. As soon as I read “gov’t debt is through the roof”, I stopped reading. What people, what MEN need to understand is that we can compare cultures and forms of government and debate what works better, but as long as A COUNTRY’S MONEY IS BORROWED AT INTEREST FROM A PRIVATE BANK, DEBT WILL INCREASE. It doesn’t matter how hard you work, it doesn’t matter how much you are taxed, or what the emperors views are on gay marriage.
    Every dollar in your account was NOT “minted” literally or figuratively, by the US Gov’t. It was “borrowed” into existence, at interest, from the US Federal Reserve, a PRIVATE, FOR PROFIT institution.
    Until ten yeas ago, the only countries NOT using currency from this banking network were Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, North Korea, Syria, and Cuba…recognize any of those? Germany under Hitler issued gov’t-minted currency and suddenly had 50+ countries declaring war against it.
    You didn’t really need to write a whole article to make the point: when your gov’t is stealing from you, the best you can do is try to steal some of it back.

      1. If you have to ask this you still believe the “evil german nazi” did try to conquer the world and good ol uncle sam came to protect the poor souls. In short a hollywood fairy tale.
        There are no “good” guys in a war. Only winners and loosers. Most of the time the people (in all countries) loose and the rulers of the winning country win.
        Or even easier:
        If you granfather fought in WW2 be it german or US side, he was loosing. He was loosing life time, youth and maybe got injured or lost a friend/family member.
        If he was member of one of the NY banking clans, like the bush family, then we can savely assume he was a winner.

        1. Actually I believe that Stalin was trying to conquer the world and left Hitler no choice but to invade the USSR. I was just trying to get some clarification of Dick’s argument that the war was about Hitler issuing gov’t minted currency.

      2. 50+ countries declared war on Germany during WWII. In school we all hear about “genocide” and expansionism. But Germany made every effort to export German jews and initially only retook areas lost during WWI. The 2 biggest dogs in the fight, the US and USSR, occupied real estate hundreds of times the size of Germany and the USSR especially had ALREADY murdered millions.
        Without the genocide or expansionist argument to hold against Germany, that only leaves the money angle. Keeping in mind the 1933 boycott of German goods and services initiated by the American Jewish Council, you have to overlook a lot of blatant evidence to call WWII a fight for “freedom”.

      3. During WWII, 50+ countries declared war on Germany citing song and dance about “genocide” and “expansionism”. Of course this was while the US had Japanese-Americans in “internment camps” and while the USSR had already starved millions in the Holdomor. Germany meanwhile had formally and publicly made every effort to deport jews they found undesirable; whether anyone likes that or not, its still not genocide.
        As for expansionism, Germany reclaimed areas lost during WWI, and given the fluidity of borders in Europe for the last 1500 years, that should not have even raised an eyebrow, especially given the amount of real estate controlled by the US and USSR at the time.
        That only leaves the money angle. Hitler nationalized the currency, erased the debt, and had the country up and running within 3 years. But international bankers don’t like being cut out, ((just ask Andrew Jackson, Abe Lincoln, James Garfield, or JFK; all opposed the US Federal Reserve, all had attempts on their lives, and 3 were assassinated in office)). So in 1933, the American Jewish Council called for a worldwide boycott against Germany and Germany is STILL paying reparations and Holocau$t “survivors”….so you be the judge.

  14. At this point, I think everyone who is eligible for government assistance should sign up for it.
    Who cares anymore? If you pay the taxes for others to mooch, might as well get some benefits of your own.

    1. Tomorrow King Obama is going to make over 5 million illegals eligible for some benefits now too!

    2. Typical. Not only should we emulate the feral breeding habits of urban citizens, now we should just go ahead and become moochers like them too. Great. Fantastic.
      I have another plan: how about investing and working in a way that the government cannot track (off the books) and keep some fucking dignity in your life?

  15. “King in the north an engineer and a musician who is trying to find some truth in the world.”
    This is for you King in the north. If you read these words and decide to honor them it will make your life a lot easier.
    Investing, money, freedom – the most important 3 rules.
    1) Live in a country you like and invest in another. Never ever invest all your money in the country you are living in.
    Reason: Goverment exposure is too big. Never underestimate the potential threat of goverment.
    2) If you have ONE regular income you depend on it is wise to generate alternative smaller income streams as backup in case this main income goes byebye.
    This is 2x true if your main source of income is from the same country you are living in. 99% of all people you know fall into this trap and have less-than-optimal lives because of it.
    You will never become really free and independent, as long as you live in country A, earn your income in country A and invest in country A.
    Reason: Again goverment is your biggest threat. And strike they will. It is only a matter of when. They wont kill you or something but they will take your money, one way or the other.
    3) When investing dont go for the highest return. Go for the “next to impossible to loose money” option.
    Example: There are countries in the world where your bank account will earn you 15% annual while it is insured by a goverment with less than 10% debt to GDP ratio.
    Then there is real estate in countries where 60% of the population are 25 or under. You cant go wrong with that (if you have more to invest then you want/can park on a simple bank account with 15% interest, tax free too).
    On the other hand countries with a population 40-50% age 55 or older are on the brink of death. As you wrote: The islamic immigrants wont save the day. These countries may be well off now – but look at the city of detroit if you want to see what happens in a few decades. Remember. Investment gains are made from the future – not from who is good now.
    For the reference: My humble self did semi-retire age 41 with a family and kids. We have been happily living in south america for the past 4 years.
    It really DOES work.
    If you do what many do, you will end up where they are. If you dont like that; you will have to do things different. Including getting your ass out of a country that stinks – even if you love it and were born there. Does not help. You cant change the people and their marxist believes – but you can change yourself and your life.

    1. Good points. Leaving the country has been on my mind for a long time and I think it’ll happen sometime in the future. Thanks for pointing out other important factors also. I will definitely look in to them.

      1. In countries where bank deposits earn 15%/yr it is likely inflation is high and you have currency risk to worry about, no?

  16. The headline promised much but the post delivered nothing except fluff, like most articles on this site.

    1. Feel free to write an article filled with non-fluff and offer it up to be published on this site.
      Complaining means nothing, if you see a problem, be part of the fix.

  17. Got a couple of hours to spare? Here’s the template:
    Argentina’s Financial Collapse — Documentary

  18. The stock market is a good way to make money when you are fully trained but unfurtunatly its going to crash again, I swear on it, as long as we have the fucking babyboomers on our legs we are fucked.

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