Street Speculator

This post takes a step away from presidential politics and the nation’s economy.

If you are stressed about your financial future, living paycheck to paycheck, or tired of getting useless sales advice about ways to improve your financial situation, then do one thing, START A BUSINESS or a CAUSE.

Where do I start: Whatever you love to do, what you would do for free, that’s a start. What are your hobbies? What occupies at least 75% of your time daily? This area of your life should be where you focus your time in creating a small enterprise. Change your hobby into either a (1) product or (2) service. Also, and most important, focus on getting your product or service in front of the eyes of the world, not just your family, neighborhood, region, or even the U.S. consumer. If you want to survive, you need to develop a global mentality, a global purpose.

Market: Learn how to sell. As Jeffrey Gitomer states, “People Hate to be Sold, but they love to Buy.” Good salesmen never go broke. Think about products you immediately associate with people: iPod, iMac, iPhone (Steve Jobs), Windows, Office Products, xBox (Bill Gates), Dallas Cowboys (Jerry Jones), Dell Computer (Michael Dell), partisan politics (Rush Limbaugh), Harry Potter (J.K. Rowling), Facebook (Mark Zuckerberg). These people are all good sellers + they provide a product or service many enjoy.

MONEY, START-UP CAPITAL, etc.. (The Most Important Aspect), now there is money out there ready to be invested in new innovations. First, seek out family members. Next, the bank whom you have had an account with or relationship for a long period of time. If that does not work, look for Angel Investors or Venture Capital firms.

If you are not familiar with these organizations then Google both terms and you will more than likely get results that forward you to the trade organizations that will provide the thousands of names of these groups, including government entities. Angel Investors and Venture Capitalists (commonly termed VC’s) put up the start-up capital in exchange for a % of the company. The % of ownership will be negotiated before the 1st check is cut. Don’t feel uncomfortable in giving up equity. The companies who funded Microsoft (Symbol:MSFT), APPLE (Symbol: AAPL), Amazon.com( Symbol: AMZN), DELL (Symbol: DELL), ORACLE (Symbol:ORCL) & Google (Symbol: GOOG) in their start-up stages all made a fortune.

However, the key to receiving money from these organizations all begins with your presentation. Remember, what would somebody have to say to convince you to lend them $80,000 + to start a company with “NO” initial revenue and a speculative revenue model. The video below is an excellent tool, providing great strategies in preparing you to pitch your business idea to potential investors.

Last, hire good professional services: Lawyers and Accountants. No need of developing the “Next Great Thing” if while during the middle of development you find that another entity already had the same idea patented. LAWSUITS WILL THEN FOLLOW!!!!

JP Morgan Chase (Symbol: JPM) is on a roll. After Bear Sterns, the latest news is that they have purchased the deposit assets of Washington Mutual (Symbol: WM) for a little over $1.9 billion.

Washington Mutual “was” the largest savings & loan company and I believe the largest U.S. bank failure in history. It was taken over by the FDIC then  JP Morgan subsequently moved in.

JP Morgan either they has an inside track with the government or they are extremely lucky.

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan is my new hero!

Goodbye Gordon Gekko!

Stay tuned for more information.

The speech President Bush gave tonight was useless. It served no purpose. Maybe to add some points to his presidential legacy, which as of today probably stands at “0″.

President Bush recited over & over a lot of Wall Street terms and terminology that Main Street Americans probably do not recognize nor understand. Many feel as though this bailout is only for the wealthy bankers in the U.S. There was hardly any mention to help those struggling financially because of unemployment, the rise of health care costs, etc…

This only solidifies Senator Obama’s campaign that much more.

Take a Listen to the speech.

Presidential candidate John McCain has temporarily suspended his presidential campaign according to Bloomberg news. The reason given was so McCain could return to Capitol Hill as Senator of Arizona and participate in the $700 billion bailout negotiations with other members of Congress.

Whomever McCain has for campaign advisers needs to be fired immediately and never be rehired in politics, including assisting local PTA candidates. McCain then called on Senator Obama to postpone the upcoming presidential debate as well.

McCain is running scared. There would have been absolutely nothing positive he could have relayed to the American public with any credibility regarding how he would attempt to fix the economy.

Having been in Congress for over 20 + years, McCain would have no new chorus lines or ideas. Nothing unique. The usual “Washington needs a change” would have sufficed for him. Think about it. Nothing major would or could have possibly occurred over the weekend to justify his presence on Capitol Hill. Remember, was in Capitol Hill when Arthur Andersen, ENRON, Worldcom, Global Crossing, the Savings & Loans (late 80’s), and the Internet high fliers all went belly up.

McCain is a DINOSAUR plain and simple. The nation’s financial atmosphere is not so dire that a presidential campaign needed to be put on hold or temporarily suspended. This is both a GUTLESS & CLASSLESS move. If McCain would put a presidential campaign on hold, he would put the American public on hold as well.

SPECULATORS, think before voting on November 4, 2008. Even if that means voting for Ralph Nader. Remember, we all here are INDEPENDENTS. Whomever you think will implement policies that will benefit you and your family on the day after the election, VOTE FOR THEM!!!

Till Next Time

However, it never came to fruition.

During President Bush’s 2nd term, he put together a panel to look at privatizing social security. His premise was to allow the American public to manage their own money for retirement instead of the government.

The negative side of this would be that we would now turn ordinary people (Not to sound elitist) into investors. But, from my understanding, the Social Security Trust Fund, similar to the FDIC, is surviving on credit. Meaning, there is no cash in the system and there will probably be none when many of us retire.

For people like me, there is a high likelihood I would not receive any social security benefits. With the present bailout proposition and the costs of financing the War on Terror, I don’t feel very optimistic. Those born after 1960 should not feel optimistic either.

I would not mind investing for my retirement. The U.S. government does not seem to be good at this art. Also, most government sponsored investment plans will not let you pull your money out until either retirement or termination. This means if I had my 401K or 403B dollars going into a fund whose top holdings included Lehman Brothers, Fannie/Freddie, and maybe AIG, it would be down substantially right now. The only option I would have is to switch funds or attempt to ride out the wave. Both of which are very time consuming and would not protect me from losses.

Hopefully one of the presidential candidates will revisit this proposition. I trust my personal money decisions more than I do D.C. politicos.