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The souring economy and rising unemployment need not intimidate people forward-thinking enough to actually protect themselves from it. Those brave enough to face the recession head on, and go above and beyond to advance their careers creatively will thrive.
A recession survivor and personal friend of mine recently said to me, “If a bear is chasing me, I’m going to stop and put on my running shoes. I don’t need to run faster than the bear, I just need to run faster than the rest of the people.”
For your career or business, this translates into implementing unusual tactics, unimaginable to 99% of the population, to advance your brand. Yes, your personal brand.
Most people never think of themselves as a brand, but you have one whether or not you realize it. Your reputation is part of your brand, and your resume and business card are marketing tools. LinkedIn, with it’s testimonial sharing and reference recommendations is popular tool in personal brand enhancement.
But the most impressive enhancement to your personal brand, and most often overlooked, occurs from writing a book.
A book is the ultimate business card. It establishes credibility, wins clients from competitors, and lands jobs. Writing a book sends a strong message that no brochure, reference, or resume can compete with, silently claiming, “I am the expert in this field. Period.” It shows your existing employer you are a valuable asset in your field. It instills confidence in an existing or future client or customer.
But book writing is not for sissies. It requires work. It takes time spent writing, editing, cover designing, and interior layout, just to name a few. But the up-front work pays handsome dividends in the long run. Years from now, it’s something your career will thank you for.
With new print-on-demand technology, there are very little up-front costs in producing a book, since books are printed one at a time as they are purchased. With print-on-demand industry leader, CreateSpace (owned by Amazon.com), for about $40, you can upload your book via PDF file, and print one copy of your 100-page book for $2.15, glossy cover and all. You can buy them when you need them, one at a time or hundreds at a time.
If you choose to sell your books to the public, rather than just handing them out like business cards, you can do that too. CreateSpace will automatically post your book on Amazon.com, making your book available for sale to the public world-wide, and you earn 60% of the list price, which is set by you. This is an excellent source of incremental income, particularly if you market the book to your target market.
Simply stated, we have seen the barriers to entry in the book world completely eliminated. Anyone with drive, a message, and willingness to work can produce a book for almost no up-front costs. Fortunately for you, your competition will likely take the easy route, and avoid going the extra mile that book writing requires. But you don’t need to hang back with the pack of 99%. Stop, put on your running shoes, and you’ll outrun that bear.
Is The Recession Almost Over?
Bluntly stated, no. Markets do not move in a straight line. If they did, it would sure make investing much easier. Like the ocean, market waves come is sets of three. There is actually a pretty good psychological foundation for this and if you would like to learn more, I would recommend googling “Elliot Wave psychology”. The first wave down bottomed in March at the ominous 666 on the SP500 and the cabalist 6666 on the Dow Jones. It has since rallied up to 8500. When markets retrace, they retrace between 38% and 62% of the move. So, based on this, you can expect the market to rally to between 9500 and 11500. At that point it will start the second wave down, which is usually the most brutal.
Now, the stock market is not the economy itself, but it tends to be a decent reflection of the expectations in the economy. The real reason for the market rally? There is an expectation that the trillions of dollars of paper being printed will find their way into the corporate coffers, thus improving corporate earnings and thus improving company stock prices. In the short term, there will be a positive effect, but the effect will not be long lasting and creates far bigger structural problems for us long term. Once the reality sets in that the economic promise of the printing press is actually the road to inflation, markets will react accordingly and begin to plummet to new depths.
This crisis we are in is the result of 30 years of extreme excess. This will not be over in 6 months. There are hundreds of trillions in derivatives and bad debt that have to be unwound, which we will be writing about as its own subject shortly.
Here are our opinions on what to expect from the following markets in the next year:
Housing – subprime is only a fraction of mortgages, option ARMS are far bigger and far more explosive and are just starting to roll over this year. Higher unemployment combined with collapsing housing prices will further facilitate more defaults. The US is following in the footsteps of Japan. Property values in Tokyo peaked in 1989 and are still 80% below the peak 30 years later.
Commercial Real Estate – the CDO market built upon commercial real estate is over $3 trillion, which makes the subprime market value of $800 billion look like pocket change. Commercial real estate is also far more leveraged and more volatile in pricing. The crater from this collapse will take decades to recover from.
Unemployment – you will see a massive restructuring in the US economy away from the service sector that doesn’t create anything tangible, towards jobs that create tangible products – farming, mining, manufacturing, etc. Unfortunately, this transition will be very painful and unemployment will likely increase into the mid teens and not bottom for 5 years or more.
As an aggregate, the US economy will decline for many years. We are only experiencing the financial crisis right now. The real structural problems of Peak Oil and the massive boomer retirement have yet to set in. When you combine all 3, we are in a perfect storm that will take many years to navigate. However, within our economy there will be many areas that will thrive as other areas are dying. This will also be seen on a global scale. As the US continues to struggle for the next decade, you will likely see young emerging economies like China and India uncouple from the US and become vibrant engines of economic growth for the global economy.
Some areas that should thrive: green energy technologies, bio tech, nano technology, resource mining and development, farming and food production. If you are going back to school, consider engineering (particularly chemical, agricultural, environmental and mining)
Areas that will see a massive contraction: architecture, interior design, building, banking, financial services, real estate, luxury retail, insurance, finance, services that people can take “in house”, like lawn care, personal services, etc.
This article was written in collaboration, by Dan Keto and Jill Keto
 
The sticker shock of gold over $900 an ounce has many assuming, “it’s too late to buy gold, it’s overvalued”. But remember, there was sticker shock when gold was $700 an ounce. I firmly believe it is NOT too late to buy gold, and my family is still loading up on gold and silver periodically when they dip.
First, I would not look at gold as an investment. It can be, but the reality is that an ounce of gold today is no different than an ounce of gold 5000 years ago. The value of gold does not change, however the value of things in relation to gold do change. Gold is a store of value. Its price does fluctuate daily and if you want to speculate, you can try to profit off those fluctuations. However, I choose to look at gold is a great way to protect oneself from economic factors beyond our control. Right now we have a government that has decided to print money and spend with reckless abandon to revive the economy. I wish they would just realize it was that behavior that got us into this mess, but that is asking for intelligence from our political class which has proven to be historically lacking.
The world leaders have decided to try and inflate (print more money) their way out of this mess. Unfortunately this will unlikely stimulate the economy and instead have the unintended consequence of devaluing our currency relative to real things like gold, silver, copper, corn, wheat, sugar, etc.
Commodity bull cycles generally last for 15 to 20 years. Gold bottomed in 2001 below $300 and has since risen to $900 over the last 8 years. We still have another 8-12 years left in this cycle and the last half is where you can see things get really crazy. In the 1970’s gold went from $35 and ounce to $850. I think it is almost a given that gold will go over $1500 in the year and if our government does not reign in its lunacy, it could go to over $5000 an ounce. Now, along the way gold will go up and down and it is very possible gold may go down to $700 before it goes to $1500 so you have to take that into account when you are determining your allocation.
If I have convinced you that gold is a good way to protect your assets, then the next obvious question is: “Where do you buy it?”. This is the tricky one. I think it prudent that everyone have some gold bullion in the form of coins locked away somewhere. The problem is, everyone worldwide has caught onto this idea and it can take up to 3 months (or longer) to buy it. I highly recommend you contact your local coin dealer and see what the price and wait is. Coins usually cost 5%-10% over the spot price. So if today the price of gold is $900 per ounce, you will pay $950-$990 per ounce to the coin dealer. If you live near Canada, drive across the border and you can buy Maple Leafs from the Royal Bank of Canada for spot.
Other places you can buy gold are Goldmoney.com, the Perth Mint and gold ETF’s (GLD). Goldmoney is run by Jim Turk, a very ethical and reputable gold industry insider who has been a gold champion for 30 years. You can buy gold and silver grams from him that are stored for you in a vault in London and Switzerland. It is a very user friendly way to purchase and store gold. The Perth Mint is run by the government of Australia. As a US Citizen, your only way to purchase gold from them (which is stored there on your behalf) is through authorized brokers in the US. The last I checked there were only two, Peter Schiff of EuroPacific Capital and Asset Strategies International. Each charge, I believe, a 5% brokerage fee.
The easiest way to buy gold is through an Exchange Traded Fund (ETF). The most popular is GLD run by SPDR. You can buy it through any stock platform or broker like a stock. They currently have over 1000 tons in storage. My only concern here is the possible counter party risk of the firm. With all the chicanery going on the last year, we are very careful with whom we place our funds. We invest in GLD shares, but we do not have all of our golden eggs in this basket.
This article was written by Jill Keto and Dan Keto
Mid century treasures like these Milo Baughman lounge chairs and Mazzega chandelier make me drool. I scour Craigslist for these kind of household items and purchase them for 90% off.
In my quest to spruce up my newly rented, epic 101 year-old house, I stumbled across Joey, a twenty something entrepreneur that is thriving with his own small business selling old furniture on Craigslist. Joey and I met when I responded to one of his Craigslist ads, featuring a 1960’s kidney bean shaped marble coffee table. With a quirky item like that, how could I refuse?
As I pulled up in my car, I spotted Joey and one of his friends unloading a U-Haul truck busting at the seams with old furniture that Joey obtained either free or remarkably cheap. While Joey showed me the table, his friend continued unloading and meticulously stacking his garage (and neighbor’s garage) with these funky furnishings like a giant 3 dimensional puzzle. “This is just from this morning. I’ll go pick up more later today,” Joey explained.
Most of the furniture is either from estates, or from people just trying to get rid of it. Joey fixes loose chair legs, tightens screws, sometimes throws a coat of stain on, photographs the items and posts them for sale on Craigslist. He runs the entire operation out of his house (and rented truck). “I’m busier than ever. This economy has been terrific for my business.”
Let’s analyze Joey’s business model, shall we?
Overhead: No employees, bartered garage space from neighbor, uses his own garage. Biggest expense is gas and truck rental.
Cost of goods sold: Most is free, the rest he’s running an 80% margin on.
Cost of getting customers (marketing/ads): Free, he’s running ads on Craigslist.
Quality of life: Hard physical labor (moving furniture around, loading and unloading), but chooses his own hours and is his own boss.
Taxes: Let’s just say that his customers pay cash.
Joey’s not just making lemonade from life’s lemons, he set up his own lemonade stand.
This confirms it! My last blog post was correct. Even Dilbert is getting increased attention from females since the recession.
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Welcome! I am Jill Keto.
I have been preparing my family for the recession since 2006. I predicted the economic crisis and wrote a book about it. I have expensive taste, but I am a tightwad by nature. My goal is to help women earn, spend, and invest wisely, and share ways to live a gorgeously chic, fun life without going into debt.
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“This book is so appropriate for the times. Jill’s humor comes through to lighten today’s fears. Although at
my age, being a Great Depression product, I fear
nothing...Jill’s views and intellect are an asset in
these unsettling times. Our country needs this book.”
-Rita Van Amber, author of Stories and Recipes of the Great Depression
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