Retirement Planning

[Penn]

If you had purchased $1000.00 of Nortel stock one year ago, it would now be worth $49.00.
With Enron, you would have had $16.50 left of the original $1000.00.
With WorldCom, you would have had less than $5.00 left.
If you had purchased $1000 of Delta Air Lines stock you would have $49.00 left.

But, if you purchased $1,000.00 worth of wine one year ago, drank all the
wine, then turned in the bottles for the recycling REFUND, you would have had $214.00.
Based on the above, the best current investment advice is to Drink heavily and recycle.

[greenberetTFS]

Kind of what Penn was saying in the above

History is filled with bold predictions that completely missed the mark:

* At the turn of the 20th century, car makers produced only four million automobiles because the experts believed the world would eventually run out of chauffeurs.
* Lord Kelvin, president of the Royal Society, made the bold pronouncement that radio had no future in 1894.
* Mark Twain refused to invest in Alexander Graham Bell's telephone because he didn't see a use for it.
* Thomas Watson, the President of IBM, once said the future world would need "maybe only five computers."
* And in 1899, the director of the United States patent office told President McKinley that "everything that can be invented has already been invented.

Big Teddy

[echoes]

Originally Posted by greenberetTFS

History is filled with bold predictions that completely missed the mark:

* At the turn of the 20th century, car makers produced only four million automobiles because the experts believed the world would eventually run out of chauffeurs.
* Lord Kelvin, president of the Royal Society, made the bold pronouncement that radio had no future in 1894.
* Mark Twain refused to invest in Alexander Graham Bell's telephone because he didn't see a use for it.
* Thomas Watson, the President of IBM, once said the future world would need "maybe only five computers."
* And in 1899, the director of the United States patent office told President McKinley that "everything that can be invented has already been invented.

Big Teddy

Great Post, Big Teddy!

And Chef, I like the advice your post gives:

"Based on the above, the best current investment advice is to Drink heavily and recycle."

Holly

[Sierra Bravo]

Originally Posted by Penn

If you had purchased $1000.00 of Nortel stock one year ago, it would now be worth $49.00.
With Enron, you would have had $16.50 left of the original $1000.00.
With WorldCom, you would have had less than $5.00 left.
If you had purchased $1000 of Delta Air Lines stock you would have $49.00 left.

But, if you purchased $1,000.00 worth of wine one year ago, drank all the
wine, then turned in the bottles for the recycling REFUND, you would have had $214.00.
Based on the above, the best current investment advice is to Drink heavily and recycle.

In that case i'm doubling & Liquidating ALL my investments

[akv]

greenberetTFS's post reminded me of the enclosed intro to Friedman's The Next 100 Years, which I suppose could be interpreted as dark comedy, or rationale for asking a crazy person what is coming next...

The Next 100 Years
By George Friedman
OVERTURE 
An Introduction to the American Age

Imagine that you were alive in the summer of 1900, living in London, then the capital of the world. Europe ruled the Eastern Hemisphere. There was hardly a place that, if not ruled directly, was not indirectly controlled from a European capital. Europe was at peace and enjoying unprecedented prosperity. Indeed, European interdependence due to trade and investment was so great that serious people were claiming that war had become impossible—and if not impossible, would end within weeks of beginning—because global financial markets couldn't withstand the strain. The future seemed fixed: a peaceful, prosperous Europe would rule the world.

Imagine yourself now in the summer of 1920. Europe had been torn apart by an agonizing war. The continent was in tatters. The Austro-Hungarian, Russian, German, and Ottoman empires were gone and millions had died in a war that lasted for years. The war ended when an American army of a million men intervened—an army that came and then just as quickly left. Communism dominated Russia, but it was not clear that it could survive. Countries that had been on the periphery of European power, like the United States and Japan, suddenly emerged as great powers. But one thing was certain—the peace treaty that had been imposed on Germany guaranteed that it would not soon reemerge.

Imagine the summer of 1940. Germany had not only reemerged but conquered France and dominated Europe. Communism had survived and the Soviet Union now was allied with Nazi Germany. Great Britain alone stood against Germany, and from the point of view of most reasonable people, the war was over. If there was not to be a thousand-year Reich, then certainly Europe's fate had been decided for a century. Germany would dominate Europe and inherit its empire.

Imagine now the summer of 1960. Germany had been crushed in the war, defeated less than five years later. Europe was occupied, split down the middle by the United States and the Soviet Union. The European empires were collapsing, and the United States and Soviet Union were competing over who would be their heir. The United States had the Soviet Union surrounded and, with an overwhelming arsenal of nuclear weapons, could annihilate it in hours. The United States had emerged as the global superpower. It dominated all of the world's oceans, and with its nuclear force could dictate terms to anyone in the world. Stalemate was the best the Soviets could hope for—unless the Soviets invaded Germany and conquered Europe. That was the war everyone was preparing for. And in the back of everyone's mind, the Maoist Chinese, seen as fanatical, were the other danger.

Now imagine the summer of 1980. The United States had been defeated in a seven-year war—not by the Soviet Union, but by communist North Vietnam. The nation was seen, and saw itself, as being in retreat. Expelled from Vietnam, it was then expelled from Iran as well, where the oil fields, which it no longer controlled, seemed about to fall into the hands of the Soviet Union. To contain the Soviet Union, the United States had formed an alliance with Maoist China—the American president and the Chinese chairman holding an amiable meeting in Beijing. Only this alliance seemed able to contain the powerful Soviet Union, which appeared to be surging.

Imagine now the summer of 2000. The Soviet Union had completely collapsed. China was still communist in name but had become capitalist in practice. NATO had advanced into Eastern Europe and even into the former Soviet Union. The world was prosperous and peaceful. Everyone knew that geopolitical considerations had become secondary to economic considerations, and the only problems were regional ones in basket cases like Haiti or Kosovo.

Then came September 11, 2001, and the world turned on its head again. At a certain level, when it comes to the future, the only thing one can be sure of is that common sense will be wrong. There is no magic twenty-year cycle; there is no simplistic force governing this pattern. It is simply that the things that appear to be so permanent and dominant at any given moment in history can change with stunning rapidity. Eras come and go. In international relations, the way the world looks right now is not at all how it will look in twenty years . . . or even less. The fall of the Soviet Union was hard to imagine, and that is exactly the point. Conventional political analysis suffers from a profound failure of imagination. It imagines passing clouds to be permanent and is blind to powerful, long- term shifts taking place in full view of the world.

[ZonieDiver]

I retire in 361 days. Here's my plan (it wouldn't survive briefback):

1) Move to Baja.
2) Live in a palapa on the beach near Sta Rosalia.
3) Have frijoles, tortillas (corn), and cerveza (Pacifico or Modelo) brought daily.
4) Spearfish for lobster or other fish every morning.
5) Fire up my generator and blender every night.
6) Repeat.

You are all welcome to visit. Bring your hammock, and $$ for cerveza!

[theis223]

To ZonieDiver:

I like the way you think sir!
Don"t forget about the Don Julio 1942 either for those special nights.

[Stingray]

Originally Posted by ZonieDiver

I retire in 361 days. Here's my plan (it wouldn't survive briefback):

1) Move to Baja.
2) Live in a palapa on the beach near Sta Rosalia.
3) Have frijoles, tortillas (corn), and cerveza (Pacifico or Modelo) brought daily.
4) Spearfish for lobster or other fish every morning.
5) Fire up my generator and blender every night.
6) Repeat.

You are all welcome to visit. Bring your hammock, and $$ for cerveza!

Looks solid to me.