This is really not good news. A bond is a loan, and when the T-Bill falls below o% in yield, you are actually paying Uncle Sam to hold on to your money for you. Normally, you get a yield and then the bulk of the money back -- in this case, they'll either automatically subtract the amount from the face of the bond or, and I'd appreciate the humor in this, they'll bill you for the charge. You would in effect be paying interest to loan your money to the government.
So, in case you're wondering, T-Bills are now a lousy buy. If you think the economy will improve, this is a great time to buy stock or mutual funds. My 401K is doing ok, one fund is lousy, and the other three are doing more than ok under the conditions. The oddity is the fund doing lousy is the index fund; the one doing the best was a far more risky investment than the others.
So, what would AXE recommend you invest in? Well, if you think that things are headed south, rapidly, I'd recommend guns, ammunition, survival foods, solar panels for the old house, windmills, and lots and lots of firewood. Precious metals will be more or less safe. If you think things are going to clunk along like they are now, precious metals and energy funds might make sense. However, they also might tank. That's the risk. T-Bills, not so much -- the demand is so high that the yield is so low that you'd think we were watching the mere image of a bubble. In effect, we are; the implosion of the modern economy.
What am I doing? Well, that's a secret...actually, I'm seeing this as a good time to invest. Mammon's last run isn't going down anytime soon, and things will come back, slowly. In 2-3 years, reasonably diversified investment now will pay big dividends. And, you'll be able to buy up those t-bills for nothin'...the people buying them now will desperate to get out from under.
Frankly, I don't see the T-Bill situation lasting for long. Of course, nobody in their right mind will invest in a known loss...unless, of course, they're trying to launder money. Maybe that's what this is -- the economic meltdown has been a mechanism for the drug cartels and various other criminal enterprises and the gray economy in general, to wash their ill gotten gains. Yeah...
Again, AXE's corallary to Occam's Law -- if chosing between conspiracy and incompetence, bet heavily on incompetence.
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Alena
http://www.smallbusinessavenues.com
Posted by: Alena | 09 December 2008 at 07:03 PM