[quote=flu] . . . I had a very interesting conversation with a friend of mine last night. I’ll call him Confucius.. Not that he’s really a philosopher. He’s one of the head honcho’s at a big telco firm and runs the operations in China… but because he’s a quite wise individual, down to earth, has a most interesting perspective on the economy of the U.S.
In the course of dinner, we talked about the health the the U.S. economy and the health of China’s economy/opportunities, and a few things that said that struck me as interesting…
1) It doesn’t matter what country you are in, are governments will do everything to protect the elite 10% of the population while indirectly screwing the remaining 90% of the population
2) The U.S. will continue to print dollars to hearts content…
3) In about 25 years the U.S. will declare bankruptcy. However, don’t worry about it. Either the U.S. will start a war with everyone else, or the the rest of the world will be forced to write it off. And hence, since no one else really wants to go to war with a country with 400x stockpile of warheads,missiles, etc, the world will write off the U.S. debt, and the U.S. will start over with a clean slate. Just like how loan mods are being done over and over again right now.
4) Don’t hold on to cash and “save”….Because every government will slaughter people who save in cash. For example, when I was your age, I use to send my mom $100 USD each month (when the RMB was 10:1 with the USD)…My mom saved each $100 I sent to her, with the intention that she would leave it to my sons so that if we ever moved back to China, they could live a nice life. She saved a total of 400k worth of RMB. Today that 400k of RMB couldn’t buy a 5ft x 5ft hole in the wall in Beijing, because during that time, the government had inflated the RMB so much that they majority of the population that held on to cash immediately got screwed and became poor, while as landowners and “rich” people completely benefited from the screw-over job…
That was a complete eye-opener for me…Hence, my advice to you… Break the “chinese habit” of being a “saver”… Don’t save things in cash…Because what happened in China is exactly what the U.S. is doing/going to do over the next 25 years…. If you’re in cash and save, you’re going to get screwed. So break out of the chinese mold and forget about holding on to cash…Go buy hard assets..
Forget about worrying about whether RE prices are good or not good. You might lose some money by buying RE, but you’re going to get slaughtered if you stay in cash.
I don’t know, but I can’t help feel Confucius has a point….Seeing how cash holders are “earning” 1.5-3%, while the dollar continues to weaken, it’s just interesting….[/quote]
flu, I tend to agree with your friend, “Confucious.” I’ve had good ole Americans who are in a position to be “in the know” tell me similar things in the past year.
Even though I wanted to take out a small 15-year mortgage for my “retirement home” in a few years, I’m now considering paying cash for it and also trying to score a “Mills Act” registrant or strong “Mills Act” candidate home, either here or in a distant CA county. I have found many potentially eligible properties in my coveted areas that are nearing the age criteria – it’s just a money issue with the Cities’ portion of teeter funds. For instance, SD’s current MA candidates are “on hold” because SD had to take such a hit on their portion of property tax reductions in recent years.
It wouldn’t matter if I had less in liquid assets at retirement. My modest income would allow me to live out my life paying for occasional repairs/upgrades, utilities and MA-adjusted property tax. If the property was very well-located, I might not even mind forgoing driving altogether (and all its incipient expenses) and availing myself of a senior bus/trolley pass for $50 or so a month. They’re even cheaper in San Francisco.
I’m just like a lot of other boomers who previously thought they would retire on much more and now are finding themselves thinking “outside the box” in order to come up with a viable way to do it, cash-flow wise.
