Tony Brewer

Several years ago I was taking a business class in college and was surprised when the professor announced that less than 5% of the American people are “wealthy” enough to own any stock! ANY stock! The reason that I was so surprised is that I keep hearing and reading that the primary responsibility of any corporation is to make money for their stockholders. Well, that just adds to my perception that wealth goes to wealth. And as much as it bothers me that wealth goes to wealth, and that there should be serious changes in the way the corporate world does business, I also believe that the best way to change things is from within the system, not from without.

So I urge the general populace to take advantage of any opportunity you may find to get involved in stock trading. There are many ways you can accomplish this. Online trading through an online broker is a good option. Also trying to find companies that let you direct buy and direct reinvest might be a good option. But if you can afford to buy even one share of stock, it is an important beginning.

In tough economic times, many people return to buying gold as an investment.  People tend to feel that gold is the safest investment possible.  I can remember my father had several Krugerrands in his safe deposit box in the bank; he took me there a few times as a kid and showed them to me.   I’ve always like to look at gold coins, I think that they are fascinating to look at.  I didn’t know until recently that there were a lot of different gold coins “out there” that people could buy, either as a collectible or as an investment.

I think it would awesome to have a small collection of gold and silvercoins from different countries.  I’d like them both as an investment, but also simply because I like them.  The artwork on some of them is quite amazing!  I don’t know how I would feel about having them hiding in a safe deposit box, but I’d be afraid they’d get stolen if I didn’t put them in a safe deposit box!  Hmmm…. maybe buy some and take photos of them, put the real ones in the safe deposit box and frame the photos of them to display on my wall.  I’d have to have an awesome camera to make the photos look terrific though!

With the economy as bad as it is right now, there is a lot of concern about how the real estate market is going to improve.  So many people are losing their homes because they’ve lost their jobs, or had other bad things happen in their lives which has made it impossible for them to continue to paying their mortgage. So there is a real glut of houses on the market right now.

Teri bought a book for me yesterday called Profit from Real Esate Right Now by Dean Graziosi. The book is written by a guy who has made a lot of money in real estate, and has his own television show.  He contends that this is a really good time to profit from the real estate market, even in this bad economy. I’ve seen him on television a few times, and have thought that we he says make sense, so I will be reading the book with much interest.

I was reading an article on the Yahoo News that the CEO of General Electric has asked the board of directors to NOT give him his 2008 bonus.  The article goes on to talk about how the year was a really tough year for GE, the stock was down, dividends were down, and how the CEO had missed all six of his performance goals.  Then it goes on to say that the year, although “tough” was the 3rd best year in the company’s history and that the board still wanted to give the CEO his bonus!  HUH?  Did I miss something here?