Warren Buffet Quote

I came across a great Warren Buffet quote this week and wanted to share:

I will tell you how to become rich. Close the doors. Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful.

-- Lecturing to a group of students at Columbia U. He was 21 years old.

economic whirlwind

The recession in America is now being branded as a whirlwind? Is that what they're calling it now? Did Madison Avenue do another spin job?

A recession (or whirlwind) in Tokyo? Here is a definition: There is a recession in Tokyo when the line up to pay for your designer clothes is shorter than usual.

In Japan, well, Tokyo, people make money people spend money. It flows. the yen has jumped quite a bit as a result of the banking meltdown in the US, so foreign products are cheaper and i get a great rate when i send $ home. People are flying to Seoul to shop 'cause their currency has dropping making the difference even more extreme.

That being said, people -are- being affected here. Though nothing like in North America.
Areas outside of Tokyo and Osaka have been hard hit for a long time.

I'd say that I am affected by some corporate training contracts that are "pending", so it is not losing work, rather, not getting proposed work.

Here in Japan and especially in the US there was what I call a false economy for years: People spending money they don't have on things they don't need. Too much credit. People kept buying. Companies scaled up production and operations based on this. Now that it's crumbling, 'false profits' are going and 'false jobs' are now gone.

Everything goes in cycles. Economies go in cycles. When times are good people think they'll never end. When times are bad, likewise.

It is possible, not only to survive but thrive, during a recession. Where there is crisis, there is opportunity. You have to think differently. With the wipe out of the banking system, when it gets restored, it will not be the same as before. When the economy recovers it will not be the same as before. Things will be quite different in the future. Expect change. Don’t expect that a 'recovery' will look like things did before.

I predict that as I write now in January 2009, things will get worse before they get better. We have not seen the worst of it yet.

I’ll be ok. I am used to it. Here's why:

For the past 10 years, all my work has been on contract. I generally work 2-4 different places. Sometimes I am really, really busy. Sometimes I am not. When I am not working, I have no income. It happens. I've learned to expect it and manage it. Eventually it comes back.
Compare me to a Japanese "salary man" who has worked 10 years at the same company. If / when he loses his job tomorrow with wife, family and no savings (they've spent it all on Disneyland, Louis Vuitton bags and a host of other useless things). And, never having been in that situation, it's major stress. he's likely to jump in front of a commuter train (which happens far, far too often here).

As for me? I'll be fine. Just inconvenienced by the train delay. Most Japanese, like Americans -- with way too much unwarranted credit -- have lived in a happy-happy world too long. Time to wake up, read a newspaper and learn what's really going on in the world.

Get rich.

Get rich. Build wealth in good times or bad economic times. Wealth-building comes from how you think about money and your life. If you want to build wealth you must change the way you think.

In the posting that begin 2009, I will provide tips, insight and ideas upon which you can begin to change the way you think about money: earning and spending; a dozen ways to begin to save money now and how to used your own talents to make more money and use your time more effectively.

Building wealth is a journey and not a destination.

The journey to wealth-building begins now.

A good time to buy for long term holds

Going into 2009, after all the tax sell offs and write offs have ended for 2008, you may begin looking at equities to invest for the long term. Likely we will see an upward blip early in 2009. However, beware. The longer term fundamentals remain somewhat bleak. The stock market is an advanced indicator of economic activity - usually signalling what is to come 6+ months ahead.

There are -always- bargains out there: undervalued and mis-priced assets in the market. Though, given the fundamental shake up of the equities and capital markets, I predict that going forward we can no longer think as we did in the past. Do not expect things to return to the state they were in in the past.

Cash is king. However it is important to pick your currency: Japanese Yen, US Dollar, or Euro.