Showing posts with label investing philosophy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label investing philosophy. Show all posts

Sunday, November 18, 2012

The twisted tale of Hostess

As I am sure all have heard this week, the Twinkie is about to die. Well not literally it will probably be bought by some other snack company and sold off with the same name, but the company that makes it Hostess, is going out of business. And it seems that Hostess was extremely in tune to our last election: a company that went into bankruptcy twice, was taken over by wall Street restructuring firms, racked up a lot of debt, asked employees to take a pay cut and possibly had management take a pay raise. Sounds like Romney vs Obama all over again huh.

Now me personally, if a company is asking for employees to take a pay cut I think that MANAGEMENT should face the first axe. The CEO and board should take a year of pay cuts (anywhere from 10-30%) and if the company is still in trouble as they hopefully re-invest this money into the company then come to your employees. This way you show them that "yes I have skin in the game, I was willing to bleed for our company first, but now we need more blood." I think if CEO's took this approach it would probably be easier for them to get concessions from the workers. The approach that probably isn't going to work is to take a pay raise right before you file for bankruptcy as a Forbes article I read claims. In the comments somebody documents what they think is the current pay structure and pay increases but I didn't get a chance to look them up yet. I might but hey this isn't a "business blog" just a "Hmm why fancy wanders across my mind" style thing. I don't know about you but I think somebody making upwards of $1,500,000 dollars can afford to lose $150,000-450,000 a lot easier than somebody making $40,000(on average most of the salaries I could find Glassdoor were between $29,000 to just under $49,000) can give up between $3,200-12,800. I could be wrong but I am pretty sure that while it might take a little belt tightening a guy/gal making a million dollars or more a year has some investments that will help him buy that new car he wanted. somebody making sub $50,000 is now trying to figure out which bill they can afford not to pay this month.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Why I'm still against the "home ownership as wealth creation" philosophy

I've said it before and I will say it again:you want to show off how much money you want people to think you have "buy a house", you want to build up assets and wealth buy liquid items. What are liquid items:stocks, bonds, treasury: notes, bonds, bills;options, SOME commodities and raw material precious gems and metals.

Yes those things have fluctuating values but they are a lost faster and easier to sell than a house. Those who have read some of my past blogs talking about my portfolio will see what I mean. I talked last year about selling ford, now with a bank account attached to my brokerage account its at most a 5 day turn around between me selling the stock(if I do it at market value not a stop order which of course would require the stock to first hit my target sale price up or down) and the money being in my bank account ready to spend.
Also with stocks and other "smaller" liquid assets you don't need as much down and credit isn't that big an issue. If you have enough money to start the account they let you. While its better to buy in "round lots"(usually a stock order of 100 shares or multiples of 100) you could buy 1, 5, 10, 50 etc(and anywhere in between or above one of those numbers) as long as you have the money for the shares plus brokerage fees. Usually the brokerage fee is added per every X shares purchased PER order, so if you go over that share amount even by a share tack on another brokerage fee, if you make another stock order whether it be the same or a different stock tack on another brokerage fee.

Is it perfect no, I mean yeah gold, gems etc if you had a vault you could see and visit those but for most folks you log in to see your stock certificates. So yes if you wish to parade around your wealth you have to have a house or a car. What's wrong with saving up for those things? I mean what good is putting all of your money into something you don't actually own yet? Most trade able vehicles as long as it doesn't crater, expire, or self destruct whether it goes up or down you still own it. Miss a few car payments they take the car back and you don't get a dime. At least if a stock, right or warrant(different names for trade able vehicles) implodes if nothing else you get the tax write off.

I mean yes if you wanted to you could just hoard the cash in various bank accounts. Cash is always good and always king, so yes if you aren't worried about playing the casino game of investing its hard to argue with just keeping the cash on hand. Hell even IF you invest part of your portfolio should always be cash, money market account whatever always have cash on hand.

Yes you could also show off the piles of cash all Scrooge McDuck style if ya wanted to but flaunting isn't always safe. I mean hey I've never been one for flaunting so some of this is my own personal philosophy on life and the way this should go. I still say you want to accumulate something then accumulate it. Just you know lay off the debt for a little while, I could look up numbers and charts but I'm pretty damn sure anybody in america(and even a few of my international readers) knows someone who has lost a house or car. So some abstract number or series of numbers is unnecessary all you have to do is look around. Repo men and foreclosed signs are all around. Bigger isn't always better if you can't hold on to it

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