INVESTMENT STRATEGIES

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[update & extension of my previous post – a link to a website article, precisely the way I think about this issue of FINANCIAL ADVICE: http://recessionista.com/work/3-typical-pieces-of-financial-expert-advice-debunked/?utm_source=taboola ]

“Stay away from Financial Advisers, do your own research, use your own experience, learn from your own experiences, and be careful with where you put your heard-earned money”. Two ways of loosing money in a Bank: (1) The Bank gets broke and has not enough capital to pay out all of its customers (remember world-wide banking crisis, or entire governments fail), once the big run for it starts. (2) You buy an investment and receive a little bit of interest. And it adds to your overall income and bumps you up into a higher tax rate, and erodes due to inflation. Meaning, money just sits there and does nothing for yourself.

Here in Canada we have another type of instrument – that is the Tax Free Savings Account TFSA. Depending on your Bank, the interest rates paid to you are typically low. If many are taking advantage of this TFSA, then the Government has some money to work with. In fact, it helps the Government more than it helps you because the interest paid is negligible. Other investments are usually more subject to losses, such as Mutual Funds, Trust Funds. Or, be careful, buying any IPO’s – Initial Public Offerings. Wait a little until their value drops.

I did my homework. Had some money in one of those Mutual Funds, a big fund, which in fact is a ‘Fund of Funds’. Dangerous stuff, because one cannot easily find out what type of companies, sectors or financial institutions this fund invests in. I spent one day to get to the bottom of it and found: Several obscure banks – of unknown origin and country – that did not even exist. Now I knew why I lost so much in this FUND OF FUNDS (which by the way had been solicited). Got rid of all my mutual funds. Mutual Funds (like Condominium ownership) work on the principle: We are all in the same boat, the boat goes down, everybody in it does. And my advice to investment advisers: Try not to sell mutual funds to clients who are into their 70s, because those funds are for the long haul.

MAY 8, 1945 VE DAY – WWII ENDED

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Big celebrations – the day the war ended officially. And do I remember May 1945 when the armies marched in, I was 7 years old. The defeated Fascist factions in all European countries who stood beside each other helping to exterminate hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, and the soldiers who killed millions of unarmed civilians. Big cause for celebrations, ring the bells, march, march, march and celebrate. And celebrate all the big heroes of war, including those who were guilty, changed their shirts and threw away their uniforms. They ran, like the rats leaving the sinking ship. You meet them again here in North America, in Central America and especially in South America. Still spreading their fascist propaganda, and instructing their children and their grand children in the heroic things their SS Officer fathers did over in Austria, or Germany, or Hungary, or elsewhere. Having lived abroad and in North America for the past 40 years, I do know these people are still everywhere. In fact they celebrate big time all sort of war remembrances in their Royal Legions. Ain’t that the truth !

Now, how is that for the other – still alive victims – you think they celebrate, for having lost their homelands ? Not so. I have no homeland, it got destroyed totally, and is now home to thousands of immigrants from all over the world. Carved up so to speak, by all sorts of incoming peoples. Including war criminals, who camouflage now as war veterans. Who on earth would like to live there ? Well, not me. On the other hand, the country I am now a citizen of, is neither my homeland. However, the moment North America will actively finally search and ‘destroy’ all those war criminals hiding out there, maybe then my new country can become my homeland.

DEGRADING ADVERTISING ^ STEREOTYPING WOMEN

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From my life long observation of the ‘human species’ I must say that there are more men than women who have big bellies. [Pregnant females excepted herein]. Causes = from growing fat, life style, or beer drinking, or lack of exercise, or from bad posture or – what is more likely – from lack of caring, because as the saying goes, a men does not have to care about his appearance as much as a woman. This particular attitude is a typically male excuse. Usually, we refer to this condition as “ when will he be due for his baby ?. http://www.arimifoods.com/reasons-why-men-are-becoming-pregnant-and-how-to-avoid-it/ . Talking about – “as a man I don’t need to care” – go to any plastic surgeon and get a face life and ask yourself (or the doctor, if you know him well enough) – why don’t you ever get yourself a facelift ? Answer, most likely is: “I don’t need one, I am a man”. This may explain why most television commercials single out women as having big bellies and – Oh, those poor creatures – needing all sorts of dangerous para-medications from which they can develop anything and everything under the sun, even death. There are thousands of those stereotype commercials intended to single out women and to humiliate women. He, look at the commercials for exercise machines. Good looking male bodies. Look at the embarrassing ones (ailments from which both women and men suffer), you will only see women exposed and needing this or that obscure and questionable witchcraft medication. [And of course these are all ‘clinically proven’ whatever that means.]

ALTERNATIVE WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION

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Besides weapons used in today’s terrorist attacks, or during wars, weapons of mass destruction are designed, manufactured (or, when already proven) utilized to eliminate large numbers of populations. What are other alternative ‘weapons of mass destruction’ ?

VEHICLES – traffic accidents – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate .

BAD FOOD – UNHEALTHY LIFESTYLE – resulting in obesity and dangerous sometimes life- threatening diseases – http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_obe-health-obesity .

CIGARETTES – smoking – causes millions in deaths each year – http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fast_facts/ .

AIR POLLUTION caused by vehicles traffic or other sources of industrial pollutants – Air Pollution Linked to 1.2 Million Premature Deaths in China [from New York Times, China alone][ USA alone – http://greenliving.lovetoknow.com/Air_Pollution_Statistics ]

BUILDING MATERIALS – “killers inside your homes” – one of the worst is ASBESTOS – http://www.doh.wa.gov/CommunityandEnvironment/Contaminants/Asbestos.aspx

This material had been used officially up to 1980 (unofficially not yet known how long). Of which Canada was one of the major producers and exporters of asbestos.

This stuff is in most everybody’s home.

Besides ASBESTOS, there is also the PCB and formaldehyde used in home construction materials. All potentially deadly products.

PESTICIDES – mostly today illegal, but how many are still used where ?

DRUGS – PRESCRIPTION DRUGS – (1) http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/10/26/prescription-drugs-number-one-cause-preventable-death-in-us.aspx – (2) http://commonground.ca/2012/01/prescription-drug-deaths/

(3) http://www.naturalnews.com/009278_prescription_drugs_counterthink.html

What do most of these have in common ? They are the by-products of the “great”– INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION, and they all kill.

Wake up and smell the roses, as we say.

How do all of these hazards compare with the terrorists’ weapons of mass destruction ? How many have been killed in mass shootings by terrorists or bombings by terrorists ? The comparison in numbers is almost ridiculous.

The first thing that should be in everybody’s mind is, CLEAN UP THE ENVIRONMENT – an environment that is home-made, people-made and causes many more deaths each year. In fact, this is growing in everybody’s own home yard. [ s.a. My post on GUN VIOLENCE https://renataveritasopinion.wordpress.com/2012/12/22/origins-of-the-gun-culture/ ]

[NOTE. This post condemns the act of terrorist attacks on any civilians. It is merely intended to discuss ALTERNATIVE WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION.]

IMPORTED TERRORISM

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The recent bomb attacks at the Boston Marathon have demonstrated again how dangerous the policy is of allowing immigrants from certain countries that have a completely different culture into the US – more often than not under the false pretext of being refugees.

Immigration policy should certainly be more careful about whom to admit easily, when and consider special background checks on from where immigrants are allowed. There should be much more strict background checks into “what makes a person tick”. Than there are now.

A second aspect of terrorism being perpetrated in America:As violence breeds violence, a culture of relentless exposure by the mass media to violence cannot be expected to remain unnoticed by those who are new to this culture. In many cases, though, they may not be new to that culture with media coverage stretching out worldwide. Let’s face it. Young people anywhere no matter which remote region or country or remote or different religion have the instruments to view movies made in America. Looking back several decades I have noticed how much has changed in the quality of those movies – independent of which medium is used. Through all my travels I also know that most young people in (recently considered) chaste religious societies have easy access to anything coming from North America. And what do they see ? Gun violence, murder, killings, warmongering movies (where killers are depicted and hailed as heroes), cheating, lies and corruption. And more. According to “when in Rome, do as the Romans do”, what else can one expect than that newcomers into America feel it is quite OK to do likewise. These are two aspects of looking at TERRORISM.

Recent bombings, look at http://www.examiner.com/article/chechen-terrorist-website-calls-for-attacks-on-america.

Will they ever learn ? Or will they make an effort to clean up their own house first ? http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/straighttalk/archives/2013/04/20130417-080742.html.

Fact is, there are two types of imported terrorists: (1) they deliberately get their foot into the country to do their dirty deeds; (2) they learn from what they see in their new country. And there are homegrown terrorists, who have learned from the culture they are surrounded with. [s.a. my previous post on OBSESSION WITH GUNS https://renataveritasopinion.wordpress.com/2012/12/22/origins-of-the-gun-culture/ ]

HOMELESSNESS

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The concept of homelessness. Meaning, a person lives in the street, out in the open and does not have a specific address or dwelling. (definition = without a dwelling, as per Wikipedia). I stand corrected. Being that most dwellings have become more or less unaffordable for regular (working, having a job and a family to support) citizens, no wonder that those who decided to live in the street – rather than look for a job or even irregular work – are without a dwelling. Standing corrected again: In Victoria BC alone there are now around seven major shelters with around 100 beds (and more in the planning) for those who decided it is easier to live in the street and beg for money than to put the effort in to find some work opportunities. Work is abundant. The “homeless” shelters provide food and bedding. Health care is free. Canada – as all know is a cold country in general, not always. Summer heat can go up to 30C or over in areas. On the Pacific Side where I live now for over 10 years, the weather is milder throughout the year, but more rain and wind. That’s why we get more people here from across Canada, who lie around in the streets.

This homeless concept strikes me as controversial. What is a home ? A home is where your family is and where you grew up. Where your country is of which you are a citizen. One thing I noted is, that after years of observing the “street people” I never met one other than a Canadian, and a Caucasian. Mostly they are also men. On the West Coast, people who arrive here from other parts of Canada and declare themselves homeless mostly have a home elsewhere, where their families are.

[In contrast: in the German language we have two concepts: (1) Obdachlos = (without a roof) – homeless; (2) Heimatlos = (without a home) – without a country, without a family, without anything.] I myself am of the second kind. My country got totally destroyed during WWII, my family got killed. I have nobody. I was also homeless several times, having had to live in an old car for months, on a different continent North America, no family, just my little boy with me. And no government gave us shelter or a pennies’ worth of anything. But I found a job and work and worked my way up again. And the good part ? I never begged anybody for money.

Images showing today’s homeless, and myself with son traversing USA in our HOBOMOBILE. scan0005scan0112Marrakech 024CentrPark

WWW – injustice/justice

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The best thing that has ever come along, has been the development of a more or less full-functioning and well functioning World Wide Web, which allows to not only access information world wide, but to also share information on a large platform and with a large audience.The WWW whose early conceptual origins date back as far as 1946, also now known simply as Web, is a way of accessing information over the medium of the Internet. It is an information-sharing model that is built on top of the Internet. The Web uses the HTTP protocol, only one of the languages spoken over the Internet, to transmit data. Major development happened between 1979 and 1991. Notably in 1980 the concept originated with Tim Berners-Lee of CERN, Switzerland [now: Sir Timothy John “Tim” Berners-Lee, OM, KBE, FRS, FREng, FRSA ], who was instrumental in the development of the Web and its common language.

By 1990, (Sir Timothy) Berners-Lee had built all the tools necessary for a working Web: the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) 0.9, the HyperText Markup Language (HTML), the first Web browser (named WorldWideWeb, which was also a Web editor), the first HTTP server software (later known as CERN httpd), the first web server (http://info.cern.ch). While the Internet is a massive network of networks, a networking infrastructure, connecting millions of computers together globally, forming a network in which any computer can communicate with any other computer as long as they are both connected to the Internet. The Internet in simplified terms is needed to network (pull) all components together.

Purpose of this article is not to get into too much technical detail, but to relate the (more sinister) usefulness of the Web. What is ‘sinister’ refers to the endless possibilities of “getting even” with those who have done injustice to others. Racism, discrimination, human and animal rights’ violations in any and of any form will now be made public. Anybody can share in it. That in itself is the most wonderful event that ever happened to help those who have been unjustly treated by other fellow humans – more than not, by large corporations – . The not so sinister side of this is the fact that anybody who had been treated unjustly can now feel better, by talking about it. Gottes Mühlen mahlen langsam, aber gerecht [literal translation=God’s mills work slow, but just]. Or, justice will be done, even if it takes a lifetime.

Finally, much gratitude is owed to all those who have freely contributed their time, knowledge and expertise in the development of software, than can be shared with all users of the WWW.

HIDING BEHIND ANONYMITY. EXCUSES FOR HUMAN FAILURE.

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 It is both amazing and predictable how quickly human failure can hide behind anonymity.It is likewise amazing how quickly human behaviour can change and the anonymous becomes the ‘John Doe’ when a reward is in view. From the desk of the media:

(1) “ … a car slammed into a group of people and several were killed…” A car did what ? Although in the (maybe) not so distant future cars become robots, there is as of today a real life person behind the wheel, who controls the automobile or whatever they are driving. That person becomes responsible for killing the bystanders.

(2) “… stock markets are going up or down …” – markets are inanimate concepts and they can at best respond to investors buying or selling stocks. Better, yet, investigate the reason for any excessive buying or selling and report on that.

(3) “…a fighter plane dropped bombs on unarmed civilians…”. What ? The robot plane again ? Who pulled the trigger ? A robot ? A later investigation showed that the pilot responded in kind, such as for example: “… sorry, when I dropped me bombs on that house, the civilians inside did not hide deep enough under the ground.” Or, when bombing an entire country and the civilians (WWII):”… not sorry, the 3-year old children were carrying rifles and shooting at our bomber planes…”.

(4) “… the Banks are responsible for the worldwide financial crisis …”

Well, show them, march them out, those who were responsible for taking bad investment decisions with our moneys. Hell, they are people ! People can make mistakes, and will make deliberate mistakes in their own favor and for their own gain. But, must be held responsible.

It is unacceptable for governments to reward those responsible, to bail them out or assign them knighthoods (Sir here and Sir there) for what they did to the public.

TERRORISM

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WHAT DEFINES TERRORISM

Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, often violent, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no legally binding, criminal law definition.[1][2] Common definitions of terrorism refer only to those violent acts which are intended to create fear (terror); are perpetrated for a religious, political or, ideological goal; and deliberately target or disregard the safety of non-combatants (civilians).[from: WIKIPEDIA]

There are several kinds of terrorism, according to this definition, as we know it. The one kind is the systematic terrorizing and killing of unarmed civilians for the purpose of achieving the goal of either ending a war (see: firebombing of civilians, women and children in Germany during WWII by the Allies), or pressurizing civilian populations into submission (see: Cold War Berlin 1961).

The second kind is terrorism in the name of financial and economic advantage by large organized crime empires. Such as in the United States during the active wars incited by the MAFIA and COSA NOSTRA crime families. The third kind is the terrorizing of civilian populations for the goal of creating large territorial empires. Such as the British empire, controlling , enslaving or eliminating peoples in India, South Africa, North America and anywhere else on this planet. The fourth kind are dictatorships which terrorize within their own countries and nations. This terrorism is directed against civilian populations in countries of which the leader or head of state is a dictator with absolute power.

The last kind is terrorism built on fundamentalist religious beliefs, also known now as suicide terrorism. This could be thought of as the worst kind: “IN THE NAME OF THE LORD – or GOD”. The question remains: Could this last kind be considered as retaliation – against the medieval crusades, or as reaction to infringement of religious rights and freedoms ? Or, simply as fanaticism ? This kind of terrorism affects now the entire world, and cannot be easily stopped or controlled, unless fanatic religious beliefs would be completely eradicated. That is not possible!

Yet, the only kind of terrorism that is understandable, is the retaliation against occupation of a nation’s homeland and against the oppression of its citizens. Independence and freedom is what is needed and the removal of occupation forces for any nation to lay down their arms and start working on rebuilding their homeland.

Then again, terrorism is not easy to define. What one man’s terrorist, is another man’s freedom fighter.

[using Firefox v.19]

 

ON BANKING

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Your Return on Investment. == FOOD FOR THOUGHT ==

Basically there are two ways of loosing money in a Bank: (1) The Bank gets broke and has not enough capital to pay out all of its customers (remember world-wide banking crisis), once the big run for it starts. (2) You buy an investment and receive a little bit of interest. And it adds to your overall income and bumps you up into a higher tax rate.

Usually at the time when you buy – be it bonds, or GIC’s or any other instruments – the promised interest rate is typically higher than the actual rate, once you have deposited your cheque into your Bank.Then of course, the Bank cannot promise any rate of interest to you, because of changing bank rates.

Here in Canada we have another type of instrument – that is the Tax Free Savings Account TFSA. Depending on your Bank, the interest rates paid to you are typically low. If many are taking advantage of this TFSA, then the Government has some money to work with. In fact, it helps the Government more than it helps you because the interest paid is negligible. Other investments are usually more subject to losses, such as Mutual Funds, Trust Funds. Or, be careful, buying any IPO’s – Initial Public Offerings. Wait a little until their value drops.

I did my homework. Had some money in one of those Mutual Funds, a big fund, which in fact is a ‘Fund of Funds’. Dangerous stuff, because one cannot easily find out what type of companies, corporations, financial institutions this fund invests in. I spent one day to get to the bottom of it and found: Several obscure banks – of unknown origin and country – that did not even exist. Now I knew why I lost so much in this FUND OF FUNDS (which by the way had been solicited). One year I decided to sell out a big chunk of my money (in my retirement fund) that was invested in mutual funds.After that I could sleep much better.

Per contrast: How safe would it be to stuff your money – in cash – under your mattress, providing you live in a save neighbourhood, and your housing does not burn down. What are the chances of that ?

And my advice to investment advisors: Try not to sell mutual funds to clients who are into their 70s, because those funds are for the long haul.

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