I am working on a series of articles about the conspiracy for your money.
These articles will range from how relevant the financial conditions were, at the time the book “The Wonderful Wizard of OZ” was written, to economic conditions we are experiencing today (including how similar the characters in the story are to the real life politicians, bureaucrats, and elites in and around DC and NYC today) … to another book that is getting very popular titled “The Creature from Jekyll Island – A Second Look at the Federal Reserve” including a discussion about the recent TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) and bailout of Wall Street where the question was who would eat the losses of the derivative trades placed by the large financial institutions.
Would the losses be taken by the financial services community that earned millions in fees each year of the debacle or would the losses be transferred to the taxpayer and their offspring, young, and yet-to-be born, who would go through their entire adult life burdened by heavy debts?
In the course of researching material, I noticed a recent WSJ article that highlighted the “Coinage Act of 1792” that prescribed the death penalty for any official who fraudulently debased the people’s money. The article’s author essentially wondered if the officials at the Federal Reserve Bank were getting nervous or just feeling lucky that they might only lose their job.
I trust these two items point out the need for life long learning, especially in the area of financial education, so that we increase our financial literacy and with the resulting empowerment, we will open our eyes to alternative wealth creating opportunities (including non-dollar denominated investments) and how this education and these opportunities will be the key to resolving the GFC, i.e. the global financial crisis, to paraphrase a quote from Steve Forbes.
I invite you to monitor my blog and watch for the series of articles about the conspiracy for your money, as well as alternative wealth creating opportunities.
Farrell, a former engineer with General Dynamics and management consultant at Deloitte … is on a mission to empower individuals by increasing their financial literacy, improve their ability for personal sustainability, and contribute to the program that has a goal of creating 100 Millionaires by 2012.
Until next time, I invite you to:
Meet me at Facebook :
Follow me on my blog :
Watch me on my YouTube channel :
Join me in my venture at aspenIbiz as I pursue financial literacy and alternative business opportunities with multiple income streams.
When not traveling for business or pleasure, Farrell operates his own internet marketing company and consulting firm from his home in the mountains of Colorado.
In closing, if you are an entrepreneur, a business owner, employed in an 8-5 job, or recently retired, yet still wanting to be plugged-in to the next wave of economic prosperity, you can join him in pursuing the lifestyle you want to live by following this aspenIbiz link .
Showing posts with label alternative wealth creating strategies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label alternative wealth creating strategies. Show all posts
Monday, December 7, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Energy Is No Longer Cheap ... If We Are at Peak Oil, What Is Next for Energy? by Mike Farrell aspenIbiz
These are frustrating economic times. Stress and anxiety is high. We all want to know what is happening out there in our economy and the business landscape.
At times there is much conversation around about Peak Oil and high energy prices; and this has been discussed during a recent CNBC series Inside the Oil Trade.
In this blog post I am going to briefly introduce the Peak Oil concept as part of drilling down (no pun intended) on the Energy theme of the 5 Es evaluation framework. And, if we are at Peak Oil what happens next for Energy?
Straight from my previous article, "1 – Energy is no longer cheap. We have reached the point of peak oil … meaning easy stuff to find and drill has occurred. While more oil is being found, it will be very expensive to drill, pump, and distribute to customers so more and more of our budget will be used to pay for energy hence interest in alternative energy sources."
Peak Oil is the stuff easy to find, drill, pump, and transport to customers. With the easy stuff, we have seen oil prices in recent years range from mid teens to approx $150/barrel in 2008.
When we transition to the stuff harder to find, drill, pump, and transport to customers, just image where the prices will go … for sure much hirer than the $50-$60-$70 avg price per barrel over the past few years and the price of gas could increase from an average of $2.50 per gal to way past the $4.50 per gal we experienced in 2008.
If it is twice as hard to get the newer stuff and everything else stays equal, we could see prices at the pump of $7 - $8 - $9 per gallon.
And, many say it was last year’s $4.50 per gal ($150/barrel) that pushed the economy over the cliff and ignited the Great Recession we are now experiencing.
What happens to our economy and way of life when costs at the pump increase to the $7 - $8 - $9 per gal area? It could get ugly.
However, consistent with my theme of increasing our financial literacy to understand and pursue alternative investment strategies, in this article I will build upon the Energy theme of the 5 E-valuation framework I introduced in a previous article.
Work is underway at existing oil fields (in Saudi Arabia, Mexico, the North Sea, and Nigeria) to coax more oil out of these fields. Progress is good however every little bit of more effort to get oil out of these fields adds a little bit to the cost of the barrel of oil.
Here is a brief status as to the efforts underway to find more oil in 3 locations.
1) Brazil – recently announced oil find, the Tupi field, off the east coast of Brazil far out (up to 200 miles) in the Atlantic Ocean provides reserves (estimated to be about 10 billion barrels) about equal to Saudi Arabia. Will require wells in waters up to two mile deep and four – five miles of rock seabed floor. Estimates are that $175B will be needed to build and buy dozens of new drill ships and seagoing platforms, along with many dozens of support and servicing vessels. Will need to lay thousands of miles of pipelines on the seafloor, connecting massive complexes of subsea equipment that will sit atop hundreds of oil wells. Most likely a five year offshore development effort. The Chinese have arrived to finance much of this effort, in return, of course, for oil.
2) Tiber site in the gulf of Mexico was announced in early September and is a totally new find and different from the older, more mature fields of Pemex in Cantarell, Mexico. It is expected to produce over 1 B barrels of oil but it will take many years and a lot of dollars of investment (think alternative wealth creating strategies) … plus the wells are likely to be in water with wells at a world record depth of 35,000 feet. Next steps – approx two years to confirm and validate scope of potential; design and build an offshore platform at approx $1B; drill wells at $50M a pop; and approx $0.5B offshore floating production storage and offloading to tankers, facility. Sources of financing have not yet been announced.
3) Namibia – keep going east in the Atlantic from the find offshore of Brazil mentioned above and you will land on the shores of Namibia, a country on the Southwest Coast of Africa (just west of Botswana and just north of the country of South Africa) with a functioning democracy. This find is in its very early stages and the scope of the find, nor development investment, has been calculated. However scientist, geologists, and petroleum engineers working the area, are calling it a geologic analog to Brazils and expect investment and output to be at least equivalent. Obviously, much more work to be done here in Namibia.
In previous articles I wrote that example of alternative wealth creating strategies included energy assets that are inherently useful like oil rigs … things hard to build, difficult to replace, and costly to substitute … definitely not financial stocks, definitely not retail stocks, definitely not commercial property.
I trust this post and associated articles provide a little more insight as to why investments in energy players, producers, and engineering services represent alternative wealth creating strategies.
The entire article can be found here .
The entire article that describes the 5Es Framework can be found here .
I favor a recent quote from Steve Forbes. Forbes says “obtaining more financial education, and the resulting literacy and empowerment, will open our eyes to alternative wealth creating strategies, and these are the keys to recovery from this ongoing financial crisis.”
As a former engineer with General Dynamics and management consultant at Deloitte … I am on a mission to empower individuals by increasing their financial literacy, improve their ability for personal sustainability, and contribute to the program that has a goal of creating 100 Millionaires by 2012.
Until the next time, I invite you to learn more about me and my various activities by me checking me out at the links below.
Meet me at Facebook :
Follow me on my blog :
Watch me on YouTube : and
Join my venture at aspenIbiz as I pursue alternative wealth creating strategies and generate multiple income streams.
When not traveling for business or pleasure, Mike operates his own internet marketing company and consulting firm from his home in the mountains of Colorado.
Finally, if you are an entrepreneur, a business owner, employed in an 8-5 job, or recently retired, yet still wanting to be plugged-in to the next wave of economic prosperity, you can join me in pursuing the lifestyle you want to live (follow "join my venture" link above) in pursuing opportunities in the Internet Marketing industry.
You can watch my video update of this article here , and here2, and here3 . This update has a 3 part video series.
At times there is much conversation around about Peak Oil and high energy prices; and this has been discussed during a recent CNBC series Inside the Oil Trade.
In this blog post I am going to briefly introduce the Peak Oil concept as part of drilling down (no pun intended) on the Energy theme of the 5 Es evaluation framework. And, if we are at Peak Oil what happens next for Energy?
Straight from my previous article, "1 – Energy is no longer cheap. We have reached the point of peak oil … meaning easy stuff to find and drill has occurred. While more oil is being found, it will be very expensive to drill, pump, and distribute to customers so more and more of our budget will be used to pay for energy hence interest in alternative energy sources."
Peak Oil is the stuff easy to find, drill, pump, and transport to customers. With the easy stuff, we have seen oil prices in recent years range from mid teens to approx $150/barrel in 2008.
When we transition to the stuff harder to find, drill, pump, and transport to customers, just image where the prices will go … for sure much hirer than the $50-$60-$70 avg price per barrel over the past few years and the price of gas could increase from an average of $2.50 per gal to way past the $4.50 per gal we experienced in 2008.
If it is twice as hard to get the newer stuff and everything else stays equal, we could see prices at the pump of $7 - $8 - $9 per gallon.
And, many say it was last year’s $4.50 per gal ($150/barrel) that pushed the economy over the cliff and ignited the Great Recession we are now experiencing.
What happens to our economy and way of life when costs at the pump increase to the $7 - $8 - $9 per gal area? It could get ugly.
However, consistent with my theme of increasing our financial literacy to understand and pursue alternative investment strategies, in this article I will build upon the Energy theme of the 5 E-valuation framework I introduced in a previous article.
Work is underway at existing oil fields (in Saudi Arabia, Mexico, the North Sea, and Nigeria) to coax more oil out of these fields. Progress is good however every little bit of more effort to get oil out of these fields adds a little bit to the cost of the barrel of oil.
Here is a brief status as to the efforts underway to find more oil in 3 locations.
1) Brazil – recently announced oil find, the Tupi field, off the east coast of Brazil far out (up to 200 miles) in the Atlantic Ocean provides reserves (estimated to be about 10 billion barrels) about equal to Saudi Arabia. Will require wells in waters up to two mile deep and four – five miles of rock seabed floor. Estimates are that $175B will be needed to build and buy dozens of new drill ships and seagoing platforms, along with many dozens of support and servicing vessels. Will need to lay thousands of miles of pipelines on the seafloor, connecting massive complexes of subsea equipment that will sit atop hundreds of oil wells. Most likely a five year offshore development effort. The Chinese have arrived to finance much of this effort, in return, of course, for oil.
2) Tiber site in the gulf of Mexico was announced in early September and is a totally new find and different from the older, more mature fields of Pemex in Cantarell, Mexico. It is expected to produce over 1 B barrels of oil but it will take many years and a lot of dollars of investment (think alternative wealth creating strategies) … plus the wells are likely to be in water with wells at a world record depth of 35,000 feet. Next steps – approx two years to confirm and validate scope of potential; design and build an offshore platform at approx $1B; drill wells at $50M a pop; and approx $0.5B offshore floating production storage and offloading to tankers, facility. Sources of financing have not yet been announced.
3) Namibia – keep going east in the Atlantic from the find offshore of Brazil mentioned above and you will land on the shores of Namibia, a country on the Southwest Coast of Africa (just west of Botswana and just north of the country of South Africa) with a functioning democracy. This find is in its very early stages and the scope of the find, nor development investment, has been calculated. However scientist, geologists, and petroleum engineers working the area, are calling it a geologic analog to Brazils and expect investment and output to be at least equivalent. Obviously, much more work to be done here in Namibia.
In previous articles I wrote that example of alternative wealth creating strategies included energy assets that are inherently useful like oil rigs … things hard to build, difficult to replace, and costly to substitute … definitely not financial stocks, definitely not retail stocks, definitely not commercial property.
I trust this post and associated articles provide a little more insight as to why investments in energy players, producers, and engineering services represent alternative wealth creating strategies.
The entire article can be found here .
The entire article that describes the 5Es Framework can be found here .
I favor a recent quote from Steve Forbes. Forbes says “obtaining more financial education, and the resulting literacy and empowerment, will open our eyes to alternative wealth creating strategies, and these are the keys to recovery from this ongoing financial crisis.”
As a former engineer with General Dynamics and management consultant at Deloitte … I am on a mission to empower individuals by increasing their financial literacy, improve their ability for personal sustainability, and contribute to the program that has a goal of creating 100 Millionaires by 2012.
Until the next time, I invite you to learn more about me and my various activities by me checking me out at the links below.
Meet me at Facebook :
Follow me on my blog :
Watch me on YouTube : and
Join my venture at aspenIbiz as I pursue alternative wealth creating strategies and generate multiple income streams.
When not traveling for business or pleasure, Mike operates his own internet marketing company and consulting firm from his home in the mountains of Colorado.
Finally, if you are an entrepreneur, a business owner, employed in an 8-5 job, or recently retired, yet still wanting to be plugged-in to the next wave of economic prosperity, you can join me in pursuing the lifestyle you want to live (follow "join my venture" link above) in pursuing opportunities in the Internet Marketing industry.
You can watch my video update of this article here , and here2, and here3 . This update has a 3 part video series.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Control These Rare Earths and You Control the Energy Technology and Economy of the 21st Century
Rare Earths are several elements on the periodic table that find their way into the alternative energy industry, our aerospace and defense industry, and our modern high-tech lifestyle … without them, none of these industries or lifestyles will continue.
There is a demand-supply imbalance that is creating alternative wealth generating opportunities and this imbalance is being played out between Denver, Western Australia, and the Middle Kingdom.
There is one deposit that is a source of these rare earths in the USA but there are no processing facilities in the USA.
There is a recent find at Mt Weld in Western Australia and this is believed to be the largest rare earth deposit ever discovered on the planet.
The Middle Kingdom produces 95% of the world’s supply of rare earths, has 15,000 scientists and engineers dedicated to work in the world’s most modern rare earth facilities, and has a national goal to achieve “economic superiority” by leveraging these rare earths.
China also recently attempted to purchase both the deposit in the USA and the new deposit in Western Australia.
These practices and investments are putting the Middle Kingdom in the driver’s seat for the energy technology and economy of the 21st century.
The entire article can be found here .
I favor a recent quote from Steve Forbes. Forbes says “obtaining more financial education, and the resulting literacy and empowerment, will open our eyes to alternative wealth creating opportunities, and these are the keys to recovery from this ongoing financial crisis.”
As a former engineer with General Dynamics and management consultant at Deloitte … I am on a mission to empower individuals by increasing their financial literacy, improve their ability for personal sustainability, and contribute to the program that has a goal of creating 100 Millionaires by 2012.
Until the next time, I invite you to learn more about me and my various activities by me checking me out at the links below.
Meet me at Facebook :
Follow me on my blog :
Watch me on my YouTube channel : and
Join my venture at aspenIbiz as I pursue alternative wealth creating strategies and generate multiple income streams.
When not traveling for business or pleasure, Mike operates his own internet marketing company and consulting firm from his home in the mountains of Colorado.
Finally, if you are an entrepreneur, a business owner, employed in an 8-5 job, or recently retired, yet still wanting to be plugged-in to the next wave of economic prosperity, you can join me in pursuing the lifestyle you want to live (follow "join my venture" link above) in pursuing opportunities in the Internet Marketing industry.
You can watch my video update of this article here .
There is a demand-supply imbalance that is creating alternative wealth generating opportunities and this imbalance is being played out between Denver, Western Australia, and the Middle Kingdom.
There is one deposit that is a source of these rare earths in the USA but there are no processing facilities in the USA.
There is a recent find at Mt Weld in Western Australia and this is believed to be the largest rare earth deposit ever discovered on the planet.
The Middle Kingdom produces 95% of the world’s supply of rare earths, has 15,000 scientists and engineers dedicated to work in the world’s most modern rare earth facilities, and has a national goal to achieve “economic superiority” by leveraging these rare earths.
China also recently attempted to purchase both the deposit in the USA and the new deposit in Western Australia.
These practices and investments are putting the Middle Kingdom in the driver’s seat for the energy technology and economy of the 21st century.
The entire article can be found here .
I favor a recent quote from Steve Forbes. Forbes says “obtaining more financial education, and the resulting literacy and empowerment, will open our eyes to alternative wealth creating opportunities, and these are the keys to recovery from this ongoing financial crisis.”
As a former engineer with General Dynamics and management consultant at Deloitte … I am on a mission to empower individuals by increasing their financial literacy, improve their ability for personal sustainability, and contribute to the program that has a goal of creating 100 Millionaires by 2012.
Until the next time, I invite you to learn more about me and my various activities by me checking me out at the links below.
Meet me at Facebook :
Follow me on my blog :
Watch me on my YouTube channel : and
Join my venture at aspenIbiz as I pursue alternative wealth creating strategies and generate multiple income streams.
When not traveling for business or pleasure, Mike operates his own internet marketing company and consulting firm from his home in the mountains of Colorado.
Finally, if you are an entrepreneur, a business owner, employed in an 8-5 job, or recently retired, yet still wanting to be plugged-in to the next wave of economic prosperity, you can join me in pursuing the lifestyle you want to live (follow "join my venture" link above) in pursuing opportunities in the Internet Marketing industry.
You can watch my video update of this article here .
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Understand one of the 5Es - the transfer of wealth and power from west to East that is underway
In this update, I am going to describe in more detail one of the evaluation factors of the 5E-valuation Framework; it is “the transfer of wealth and power from west to East” in response to a recent CNBC series Trade the Globe.
I suggest that you understand the historic shifts now underway in the Asia Pacific region including China and how these shifts can create alternative wealth creating opportunities. The world is changing dramatically and the emerging markets will potentially provide some light at the end of the tunnel.
For example, from an auto market perspective, China and India caught and passed the US, the European Union, and Japan in 2008 as the world's largest auto market. And the gap has even widened during this recession ... while the heads of the US auto makers were in Washington pleading with the US Gov't for a bailout.
Cars don't run in a vacuum. They need roads, gasoline stations, oil, and gasoline ... this requires a lot of building materials and oil. Currently, each person in the US consumes about 25 barrels of oil per person per year. Oil consumption in China and India is tiny (about 1.5 per person annually in China and India's consumption barely registers on the scale) compared to the US consumption, so one can only imagine that as these economies grow and take up more of a share of the global economy, their oil consumption will rise exponentially.
Finally, China already has more than 160 cities (the US has 9 and the UK has 2) with populations of over 1 million. In China, they plan to build 97 new airports, 500 additional coal fired plants, and 30 nuclear plants over the next decade.
Imagine the commodities that are in demand (yet in short supply in China) to support this growth ... these include items such as soybeans, potash, copper, natural gas, uranium, bauxite (important in making aluminum), chromium (a steel additive), and manganese (important for making stainless steel).
I trust this post and associated articles provide a little more insight as to why emerging markets with a demand for things that are in short supply represent alternative wealth creating strategies.
The entire article can be found here .
The entire article that describes the 5Es Framework can be found here .
I favor a recent quote from Steve Forbes. Forbes says “financial education, and the resulting literacy and empowerment, will open our eyes to alternative wealth creating strategies, and these are the keys to recovery from this ongoing financial crisis.”
As a former engineer with General Dynamics and management consultant at Deloitte … I am on a mission to empower individuals by increasing their financial literacy, improve their ability for personal sustainability, and contribute to the program that has a goal of creating 100 Millionaires by 2012.
Until the next time, I invite you to learn more about me and my various activities by me checking me out at the links below.
Meet me at Facebook :
Follow me on my blog :
Watch me on YouTube : and
Join my venture at aspenIbiz as I pursue alternative wealth creating strategies and generate multiple income streams.
When not traveling for business or pleasure, Mike operates his own internet marketing company and consulting firm from his home in the mountains of Colorado.
Finally, if you are an entrepreneur, a business owner, employed in an 8-5 job, or recently retired, yet still wanting to be plugged-in to the next wave of economic prosperity, you can join me in pursuing the lifestyle you want to live (follow "join my venture" link above) in pursuing opportunities in the Internet Marketing industry.
You can watch my video update of this article here .
I suggest that you understand the historic shifts now underway in the Asia Pacific region including China and how these shifts can create alternative wealth creating opportunities. The world is changing dramatically and the emerging markets will potentially provide some light at the end of the tunnel.
For example, from an auto market perspective, China and India caught and passed the US, the European Union, and Japan in 2008 as the world's largest auto market. And the gap has even widened during this recession ... while the heads of the US auto makers were in Washington pleading with the US Gov't for a bailout.
Cars don't run in a vacuum. They need roads, gasoline stations, oil, and gasoline ... this requires a lot of building materials and oil. Currently, each person in the US consumes about 25 barrels of oil per person per year. Oil consumption in China and India is tiny (about 1.5 per person annually in China and India's consumption barely registers on the scale) compared to the US consumption, so one can only imagine that as these economies grow and take up more of a share of the global economy, their oil consumption will rise exponentially.
Finally, China already has more than 160 cities (the US has 9 and the UK has 2) with populations of over 1 million. In China, they plan to build 97 new airports, 500 additional coal fired plants, and 30 nuclear plants over the next decade.
Imagine the commodities that are in demand (yet in short supply in China) to support this growth ... these include items such as soybeans, potash, copper, natural gas, uranium, bauxite (important in making aluminum), chromium (a steel additive), and manganese (important for making stainless steel).
I trust this post and associated articles provide a little more insight as to why emerging markets with a demand for things that are in short supply represent alternative wealth creating strategies.
The entire article can be found here .
The entire article that describes the 5Es Framework can be found here .
I favor a recent quote from Steve Forbes. Forbes says “financial education, and the resulting literacy and empowerment, will open our eyes to alternative wealth creating strategies, and these are the keys to recovery from this ongoing financial crisis.”
As a former engineer with General Dynamics and management consultant at Deloitte … I am on a mission to empower individuals by increasing their financial literacy, improve their ability for personal sustainability, and contribute to the program that has a goal of creating 100 Millionaires by 2012.
Until the next time, I invite you to learn more about me and my various activities by me checking me out at the links below.
Meet me at Facebook :
Follow me on my blog :
Watch me on YouTube : and
Join my venture at aspenIbiz as I pursue alternative wealth creating strategies and generate multiple income streams.
When not traveling for business or pleasure, Mike operates his own internet marketing company and consulting firm from his home in the mountains of Colorado.
Finally, if you are an entrepreneur, a business owner, employed in an 8-5 job, or recently retired, yet still wanting to be plugged-in to the next wave of economic prosperity, you can join me in pursuing the lifestyle you want to live (follow "join my venture" link above) in pursuing opportunities in the Internet Marketing industry.
You can watch my video update of this article here .
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Historic shifts are underway on the New Silk Road where East meets West creating alternative investment opportunities.
When conventional wisdom is not working, we need to consider alternative wealth creating strategies.
In this post, I provide a pointer to an article that provides an overview of a part of the world along the old Silk Road ... where we think of a network of traders in caravans loaded with silk, spices, flowers, jewelry, and gold ... and trade routes with the romance of the Indian Ocean, from Perth, Australia to Mombassa, Kenya along the coast of East Africa, with passages up and down the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea.
This region is called MENA (the Middle East and North Africa) where East meets West.
Much has changed in the region over the years and its reach has expanded such that the New Silk Road weaves through Damascus, Dubai, and Hong Kong with many points in between. China has passed the USA to become the Arab world's largest trading partner as it is in pursuit of the region's oil.
Growth is happening in a part of the world where water is scarce and it is difficult to grow food.
This region is providing wealth creating alternatives, in areas such as water, food, infrastructure, energy, and engineering services, as a result of recent political thaws and expanded trade with Asia.
The entire article can be found here .
As a former engineer with General Dynamics and management consultant at Deloitte … I am on a mission to empower individuals by increasing their financial literacy, improve their ability for personal sustainability, and contribute to the program that has a goal of creating 100 Millionaires by 2012.
I favor a recent quote from Steve Forbes. Forbes says “financial education, and the resulting literacy and empowerment, are the keys to recovery from this ongoing financial crisis.”
Until the next time, I invite you to learn more about me and my various activities by me checking me out at the links below.
Meet me at Facebook :
Follow me on my blog :
Watch me on YouTube : and
Join my venture at aspenIbiz as I pursue alternative wealth creating strategies and generate multiple income streams.
When not traveling for business or pleasure, Mike operates his own internet marketing company and consulting firm from his home in the mountains of Colorado.
Finally, if you are an entrepreneur, a business owner, employed in an 8-5 job, or recently retired, yet still wanting to be plugged-in to the next wave of economic prosperity, you can join me in pursuing the lifestyle you want to live (follow "join my venture" link above) in pursuing opportunities in the Internet Marketing industry.
You can watch my video update of this article here .
In this post, I provide a pointer to an article that provides an overview of a part of the world along the old Silk Road ... where we think of a network of traders in caravans loaded with silk, spices, flowers, jewelry, and gold ... and trade routes with the romance of the Indian Ocean, from Perth, Australia to Mombassa, Kenya along the coast of East Africa, with passages up and down the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea.
This region is called MENA (the Middle East and North Africa) where East meets West.
Much has changed in the region over the years and its reach has expanded such that the New Silk Road weaves through Damascus, Dubai, and Hong Kong with many points in between. China has passed the USA to become the Arab world's largest trading partner as it is in pursuit of the region's oil.
Growth is happening in a part of the world where water is scarce and it is difficult to grow food.
This region is providing wealth creating alternatives, in areas such as water, food, infrastructure, energy, and engineering services, as a result of recent political thaws and expanded trade with Asia.
The entire article can be found here .
As a former engineer with General Dynamics and management consultant at Deloitte … I am on a mission to empower individuals by increasing their financial literacy, improve their ability for personal sustainability, and contribute to the program that has a goal of creating 100 Millionaires by 2012.
I favor a recent quote from Steve Forbes. Forbes says “financial education, and the resulting literacy and empowerment, are the keys to recovery from this ongoing financial crisis.”
Until the next time, I invite you to learn more about me and my various activities by me checking me out at the links below.
Meet me at Facebook :
Follow me on my blog :
Watch me on YouTube : and
Join my venture at aspenIbiz as I pursue alternative wealth creating strategies and generate multiple income streams.
When not traveling for business or pleasure, Mike operates his own internet marketing company and consulting firm from his home in the mountains of Colorado.
Finally, if you are an entrepreneur, a business owner, employed in an 8-5 job, or recently retired, yet still wanting to be plugged-in to the next wave of economic prosperity, you can join me in pursuing the lifestyle you want to live (follow "join my venture" link above) in pursuing opportunities in the Internet Marketing industry.
You can watch my video update of this article here .
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Forex trading as a hedge to the potential demise of King Dollar
I just published an article about using the Forex market as a hedge to the demise of the US Dollar. This post provides an overview of the article and several "low cost to no cost" yet effective ways to determine if this wealth creating strategy is for you.
The Forex currency market is a $4T market and the largest market on the planet. Due to the liquidity of the Forex market and the fact that this market is open 24 hours a day, the currency market should be considered by anyone pursuing alternative wealth creating strategies.
Also, the Forex currency market can offer a hedge as you can trade in currency pairs, such as the EUR USD (which is the value of the Euro currency compared to the value of the US Dollar currency) where as the USD weakens, the Euro currency strengthens.
There are also currency pairs, such as the GBP JPY (which is the value of the Great British Pound currency compared to the value of the Japanese Yen currency) providing investment alternatives in totally non dollar-denominated assets … a great way to hedge against the potential demise of the USD.
If you like this alternative but not sure where to begin … let me provide in this blog post a few pointers for consideration. The entire article can be found here .
Be aware that there is a lot of “junk” and misleading information on the web related to training and trading the Forex market. Be sure to do your homework before you go too far with any one training provider, trading platform, or broker.
A company that I found and use provides 35 free training lessons on their website and the lessons are of the highest quality. They also discourage you from signing up for their trading service until after you have reviewed the 35 lessons and paper traded their big lights and trend trading approach. This way you get a lot of free material and a low cost way to learn about the Forex market to determine if their approach will work for you.
Also, consider attending a training session.
I recently attended a very inexpensive seminar where the material was in an instructor lead format (which is rare these days) with significant face-to-face interaction however all of the materials were delivered during the seminar online from their website and associated blog. There was a significant amount of supporting materials such as detailed lessons and trading tips to read and study, pictures of trading screen setups highlighted on Flickr, and Youtube videos of previous training sessions that can be accessed in the future, as a refresher.
As a student, I was able to bookmark the material for access and review a future time.
The seminar was organized around 5 key topics:
- chart reading
- support and resistance
- parallel and inverse pair analysis
- writing trading plans; and
- entry management and verification
In addition, there were several topics on mindset, building confidence, and determining when there are good times to trade … and, when are times to avoid trading.
I trust this material has provided you insight and an overview … as you consider the Forex currency market as a hedge to the potential demise of the US Dollar.
One more suggestion would be to read an excellent “state-of-the union” message on the hubpage of the instructor that taught the seminar I recently attended. The "state-of-the-union" message can be found here .
You can find out more about the Forex marketplace and the Forex Early Warning seminar by reading updates posted periodically here on my blog.
As a former engineer with General Dynamics and management consultant at Deloitte … I am on a mission to empower individuals by increasing their financial literacy, improve their ability for personal sustainability, and contribute to the program that has a goal of creating 100 Millionaires by 2012.
I favor a recent quote from Steve Forbes. Forbes says “financial education and empowerment is the key to recovery from this ongoing financial crisis."
Until the next time, I invite you to learn more about me and my various activities by me checking me out at the links below.
Meet me at Facebook : www.facebook.com/mifarrell
Follow me on my blog: http://aspenIbiz.blogspot.com
Watch me at my YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/user/MikeAIB
Join my venture at: www.aspenIbiz.com
When not traveling for business or pleasure, Mike operates his own internet marketing company and consulting firm from his home in the mountains of Colorado.
Finally, if you are an entrepreneur, a business owner, employed in an 8-5 job, or recently retired, yet still wanting to be plugged-in to the next wave of economic prosperity, you can join me in pursuing the lifestyle you want to live (follow "join my venture" link above) in pursuing multiple streams of income and opportunities in the Internet Marketing industry.
Watch my video update of the article and this blog post here.
The Forex currency market is a $4T market and the largest market on the planet. Due to the liquidity of the Forex market and the fact that this market is open 24 hours a day, the currency market should be considered by anyone pursuing alternative wealth creating strategies.
Also, the Forex currency market can offer a hedge as you can trade in currency pairs, such as the EUR USD (which is the value of the Euro currency compared to the value of the US Dollar currency) where as the USD weakens, the Euro currency strengthens.
There are also currency pairs, such as the GBP JPY (which is the value of the Great British Pound currency compared to the value of the Japanese Yen currency) providing investment alternatives in totally non dollar-denominated assets … a great way to hedge against the potential demise of the USD.
If you like this alternative but not sure where to begin … let me provide in this blog post a few pointers for consideration. The entire article can be found here .
Be aware that there is a lot of “junk” and misleading information on the web related to training and trading the Forex market. Be sure to do your homework before you go too far with any one training provider, trading platform, or broker.
A company that I found and use provides 35 free training lessons on their website and the lessons are of the highest quality. They also discourage you from signing up for their trading service until after you have reviewed the 35 lessons and paper traded their big lights and trend trading approach. This way you get a lot of free material and a low cost way to learn about the Forex market to determine if their approach will work for you.
Also, consider attending a training session.
I recently attended a very inexpensive seminar where the material was in an instructor lead format (which is rare these days) with significant face-to-face interaction however all of the materials were delivered during the seminar online from their website and associated blog. There was a significant amount of supporting materials such as detailed lessons and trading tips to read and study, pictures of trading screen setups highlighted on Flickr, and Youtube videos of previous training sessions that can be accessed in the future, as a refresher.
As a student, I was able to bookmark the material for access and review a future time.
The seminar was organized around 5 key topics:
- chart reading
- support and resistance
- parallel and inverse pair analysis
- writing trading plans; and
- entry management and verification
In addition, there were several topics on mindset, building confidence, and determining when there are good times to trade … and, when are times to avoid trading.
I trust this material has provided you insight and an overview … as you consider the Forex currency market as a hedge to the potential demise of the US Dollar.
One more suggestion would be to read an excellent “state-of-the union” message on the hubpage of the instructor that taught the seminar I recently attended. The "state-of-the-union" message can be found here .
You can find out more about the Forex marketplace and the Forex Early Warning seminar by reading updates posted periodically here on my blog.
As a former engineer with General Dynamics and management consultant at Deloitte … I am on a mission to empower individuals by increasing their financial literacy, improve their ability for personal sustainability, and contribute to the program that has a goal of creating 100 Millionaires by 2012.
I favor a recent quote from Steve Forbes. Forbes says “financial education and empowerment is the key to recovery from this ongoing financial crisis."
Until the next time, I invite you to learn more about me and my various activities by me checking me out at the links below.
Meet me at Facebook : www.facebook.com/mifarrell
Follow me on my blog: http://aspenIbiz.blogspot.com
Watch me at my YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/user/MikeAIB
Join my venture at: www.aspenIbiz.com
When not traveling for business or pleasure, Mike operates his own internet marketing company and consulting firm from his home in the mountains of Colorado.
Finally, if you are an entrepreneur, a business owner, employed in an 8-5 job, or recently retired, yet still wanting to be plugged-in to the next wave of economic prosperity, you can join me in pursuing the lifestyle you want to live (follow "join my venture" link above) in pursuing multiple streams of income and opportunities in the Internet Marketing industry.
Watch my video update of the article and this blog post here.
Monday, September 21, 2009
$200B of supply to be auctioned by US Gov't next week
I saw this headline yesterday … $200B of supply to be auctioned by US Gov’t next week … and I thought of 3 things.
1) This is an interesting way for the US Gov’t to say they want to borrow $200B next week from anyone that will lend them that amount of money … overall, it is somewhat vague and potentially misleading. What the headline is saying is that the US Gov’t has $200B of debt instruments like Bills, Notes, and Bonds that they will supply, or provide, as collateral to anyone that will lend the US Gov’t $200B next week.
2) Next, I thought, “what do most people think when they see that type of headline?” … “do they really understand what is going on?”. I wrote an article several weeks ago titled “Decades of Debt and Dollar Doubts. It provides a brief overview to help you understand what all this debt issuance means in terms of annual run rate at $5T, 40% of budget is being used to pay interest on the debt, how inflation might happen, and the potential risk of the US Dollar not being the world’s reserve currency.
3) Finally, I thought, “where is this $200B going to come from?” “Who is going to buy all the debt instruments?” Many domestic buyers are underwater here in the USA and trying to pay off their personal and business debt, so most of the buyers of US Gov’t debt will be from overseas. In a report released this week, the TIC (Treasury International Capital) Long-Term Purchases amount for last month was significantly below both the forecast amount and the previous month’s amount … this means that at this time, overseas buyers are less interested in our debt.
With that much supply of debt instruments (meaning money to be borrowed) and what most likely will be lower demand for this debt, the offering prices for this debt will likely be low (just following basic laws of supply and demand). One of two situations is likely to occur next week when this debt is auctioned off. Either the yield amount will be increased to entice buyers or the Federal Reserve Bank will buy the debt.
If the yield amount is increased over several auctions, this would be an indication that higher interest rates are on the horizon. With higher interest rates, many think any type of economic recovery will be jeopardized.
If the Federal Reserve buys the debt, it will just add to the many facets of Dollar Doubts described in the article.
In the meantime, many are asking what they should do to protect themselves from what yet maybe another upcoming crisis. Many are seeking to obtain more financial education and literacy in order to be aware of, and understand, alternative wealth creating strategies that are outside of dollar-denominated assets or in things hard to build, difficult to replace, and costly to substitute … perhaps oil rigs, precious metals, or potash mines.
When you get a chance to read the article, I trust you will find it insightful. You can read the entire article here: http://www.amazines.com/article_detail.cfm/1053164?articleid=1053164 .
Until the next time, I invite you to learn more about me and my various activities by me checking me out at the links below.
Meet me at: www.facebook.com/mifarrell ;
Follow me here on my blog: http://aspenibiz.blogspot.com/ ;
Watch me at: www.youtube.com/user/MikeAIB ;
Join my venture at: http://www.aspenibiz.com/ ;
When not traveling for business or pleasure, Mike operates his own internet marketing company and consulting firm from his home in the mountains of Colorado.
Finally, if you are an entrepreneur, a business owner, employed in an 8-5 job, or recently retired, yet still wanting to be plugged-in to the next wave of economic prosperity, you can join me in pursuing the lifestyle you want to live (follow join my venture link above) in pursuing opportunities in the Internet Marketing industry.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fz7ycxabaYM .
1) This is an interesting way for the US Gov’t to say they want to borrow $200B next week from anyone that will lend them that amount of money … overall, it is somewhat vague and potentially misleading. What the headline is saying is that the US Gov’t has $200B of debt instruments like Bills, Notes, and Bonds that they will supply, or provide, as collateral to anyone that will lend the US Gov’t $200B next week.
2) Next, I thought, “what do most people think when they see that type of headline?” … “do they really understand what is going on?”. I wrote an article several weeks ago titled “Decades of Debt and Dollar Doubts. It provides a brief overview to help you understand what all this debt issuance means in terms of annual run rate at $5T, 40% of budget is being used to pay interest on the debt, how inflation might happen, and the potential risk of the US Dollar not being the world’s reserve currency.
3) Finally, I thought, “where is this $200B going to come from?” “Who is going to buy all the debt instruments?” Many domestic buyers are underwater here in the USA and trying to pay off their personal and business debt, so most of the buyers of US Gov’t debt will be from overseas. In a report released this week, the TIC (Treasury International Capital) Long-Term Purchases amount for last month was significantly below both the forecast amount and the previous month’s amount … this means that at this time, overseas buyers are less interested in our debt.
With that much supply of debt instruments (meaning money to be borrowed) and what most likely will be lower demand for this debt, the offering prices for this debt will likely be low (just following basic laws of supply and demand). One of two situations is likely to occur next week when this debt is auctioned off. Either the yield amount will be increased to entice buyers or the Federal Reserve Bank will buy the debt.
If the yield amount is increased over several auctions, this would be an indication that higher interest rates are on the horizon. With higher interest rates, many think any type of economic recovery will be jeopardized.
If the Federal Reserve buys the debt, it will just add to the many facets of Dollar Doubts described in the article.
In the meantime, many are asking what they should do to protect themselves from what yet maybe another upcoming crisis. Many are seeking to obtain more financial education and literacy in order to be aware of, and understand, alternative wealth creating strategies that are outside of dollar-denominated assets or in things hard to build, difficult to replace, and costly to substitute … perhaps oil rigs, precious metals, or potash mines.
When you get a chance to read the article, I trust you will find it insightful. You can read the entire article here: http://www.amazines.com/article_detail.cfm/1053164?articleid=1053164 .
Until the next time, I invite you to learn more about me and my various activities by me checking me out at the links below.
Meet me at: www.facebook.com/mifarrell ;
Follow me here on my blog: http://aspenibiz.blogspot.com/ ;
Watch me at: www.youtube.com/user/MikeAIB ;
Join my venture at: http://www.aspenibiz.com/ ;
When not traveling for business or pleasure, Mike operates his own internet marketing company and consulting firm from his home in the mountains of Colorado.
Finally, if you are an entrepreneur, a business owner, employed in an 8-5 job, or recently retired, yet still wanting to be plugged-in to the next wave of economic prosperity, you can join me in pursuing the lifestyle you want to live (follow join my venture link above) in pursuing opportunities in the Internet Marketing industry.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fz7ycxabaYM .
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