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I sold some gold coins a few months ago that I have had for 15 years. I could not have picked a worse time to sell them.
Is it better to have bullion or gold coins?

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I’m wondering why they have ignored so many important factors.

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In the Review Journal:
Todd Hahn, division vice president for Pulte Homes, said he’s heard reports of layoffs at other home builders, but that hasn’t happened at Pulte.

“With the size of the operation we have, we always have people coming and going,” he said. “But there’s no department where we said, ‘We could do without that.’ Look at the number of homes we delivered last year.”

Translation – We currently have a lot of people leaving our employment and none entering. But don’t focus on the bad news down road, please focus on the happy numbers from the past.

Hann also said, “Rather than hire more people on a temporary basis and spend three months training them, which amounts to a substantial investment in human resources, Pulte will stretch its current staff of about 600 employees and find more efficiencies to cover the short-term blip.”

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Sdduuuude has an interesting idea. Creating a new currency backed by gold would be a huge undertaking. I suppose you could start small. There would be a lot barriers to making it work. You would need a lot of gold and a secure place to keep it. It would be expensive and difficult to start. People would have to be convinced to use it.
Would whoever started it have to issue money worth slightly more than than the actual gold backing in order to pay for the whole enterprise?

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The herd mentality caused the bubble, it can also blow it to pieces. The more people are informed, the fewer the buyers. Who knows how many people have been swayed into the “wait and see before buying” category because of reading these posts?
When we sold because we thought the peak was near, we were very alone as we did not know a single person who shared our view. There is comfort in numbers.
This phenomenon in China is an outright attempt to sway people. I wonder how well it will work? I think it will work best in a conforming, orderly society.

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Lostkitty, I’ll read the book you suggest. I have no desire to hide my head in the sand. Perhaps it was a mistake to invade Iraq. Perhaps it was not a mistake. I’m undecided there. Just because we did not find WMD doesn’t mean it wasn’t there or that it wasn’t shipped off to Syria. My family once found a rotten egg hidden in the organ months after Easter was over.

As for us and our children experiencing problems related to this issue for years to come, that was going to happen whether we invaded Iraq or not. The fact is that there is a group of highly motivated fanatics who hate the US and are determined to hurt us. The pain started almost 15 years ago when they bombed the World Trade Center for the 1st time.

I get a little hot under the collar when people, including otherwise smart Americans, begin spouting the nonsense that we planned and/or WANTED 9/11 to happen. Then they follow it up by the laying the groundwork for the idea that any future attacks on our soil will the handiwork of our own government.

If a stolen suitcase nuke from the former USSR is detonated in DC, I’m pointing the figure elsewhere.

We seem to have gone off on a tangent and hijacked the thread. If anyone wants to continue the discussion, perhaps we should open a new one.

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I did say that I did not think that everything we are doing or have done was right. I will also admit that I don’t spend my time pouring over books on the subject.
However, I’ll never believe that there is some group of super powerful dry skinned old men closeted away in a dark room chain smoking while they manipulate world.
I am quite sure that there are a number of books out there that produce lots of half-truths and massaged facts in order to propagate the idea that the US is responsible for Sep 11. There are lots of anti-Americans who desperately want to believe this nonsense (just as there were a bunch jurors who desperately wanted to believe OJ was innocent).

If I believed that none of the fanatic anti-American Muslims had enough brains or money to plan the whole thing themselves, then maybe there would be some basis to such a claim. However, I am perfectly convinced that their brainpower is equal to that of Americans. Just as I believe that their fanaticism was and is more than strong enough to give them the impetus for such actions.

There are also books out there denying the holocaust. I’m not going to pick one of those up at the bookstore, either.

As for being weaklings, if you start a course and then back away, you look weak in the eyes of anyone watching.

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To even think that the US government had anything to do with the terrorist attacks is ludicrous. I can’t believe that any person of sense and education would ever even consider for a moment such a thing.

I don’t think that everything we are doing or have ever done is right but neither am I going to believe the ridiculous propaganda that has been disseminated by our enemies. Bin Laden must be laughing in his rat cave as he hears that people believe such stupidity.

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Excellent longer short answer.

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4plexowner is bothered by the fact that some people vote on religious lines. They also vote on ethnic lines, party lines, etc. I trust you are just as bothered by this phenomenon.
I happen to dislike the religious right. My dislike is equal opportunity. There are other voting blocks that I dislike as well.

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Regardless of what GW believes with respect to religion and/or God, he is doing what needs to be done to make the terrorists think twice before hitting us again. Clinton’s religion was his polls. He did nothing substantive after the first world trade center bombing. His inaction was an invitation for more.

The US has made some mistakes, a number of the them big. For instance, we should have taken Iraq’s oil to pay for the war. But the bleeding hearts (aka weaklings) in this country would have risen up in arms over such a thing.
It seems like a lot of people have forgotten what it felt like to be watching TV on September 11 as the towers fell. I was 20 miles south of DC that morning, worrying about my children because they were reporting that a highjacked plane was right over our heads. My neighbor’s office was destroyed at the Pentagon but he was lucky enough to be away that morning. I won’t forget what the Pentagon looked like when I drove by it a few days later.

It will happen again if we show weakness. Unfortunately, the American public is wavering and our enemies know it.

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So the short answer is, “Get help but be cautious and pay attention.”
I used to work for a big brokerage firm. I saw plenty of very bad financial advisors mixed in the with the good ones. Don’t follow anyone blindly.
I remember one smooth talking creep with too much hair gel whining about the fact that his regulatory problems were causing his book to “bleed.” His book died shortly thereafter when his license was taken away, thank goodness!
FYI – a “book” means a list of clients.

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I went to an agent owned open house today. She purchased the home about 8 months ago for a little over 800k and then spent six months upgrading. It is on the market for 1.04M.
She was a font of information: 1) I could get a two year ARM or IO so that my payments wouldn’t be too large. After all, I could just sell it in two years if I ran into trouble 2)There are lot of people in San Diego who are upside down and there are some GREAT deals out there right now. It has never been a better time to buy 3) However, those deals are not in Coronado and never will be in Coronado because prices will NEVER go down here.
Sign me up! After talking to her, I’m just dying to buy a 1,500 sq ft house for over a million dollars!

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All of these signs should read, "Fool seeks greater fool for Ponzi scheme."

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G.R.A.B  –  Great Real estate Appreciation and Bust

S.H. .T. —  So Hot It Tanked

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