The falling dollar

[back alley]

just an fyi...i moved this thread into the off topic section...it seems to have shifted away from either gear or images.

joe

 

[Berliner]

Price € 80 = $114--- pair o Dockers made in China = .50 cents. --Now that's priceless!

 

[Olsen]

That's the truth! I've been self employed most of my career and weathered the bad times and saved during the good. No paid vacations or free benifits of any kind. As a self employed person you get out what you're willing to put in. On the other hand being self employed offers a degree of security that few people have if you're a smart and hard working business person. Also you'll rarely find anyone working for a company outside of the CEO or CFO and corporate heads that are making decent money. The self employed have more potential and fewer obstacles between them and wealth.

Lessons for the self employed center around living within ones lowest average income with no debt of any kind. Save money and build no debt of any kind. Pay your house off as soon as possible and save to buy cars with cash. Use credit cars only for business and only to a degree that the card can be paid off each month. Save save save money!

My wife and I have absolutely no debt including our house and businesses. We pay cash for cars and desire nothing that we can't pay cash for. There's nothing that we want enough to go into debt for if we can't pay cash. We both sleep great at night and love every month when the bills don't come in.

Self employed life isn't all roses. There are ups and downs and taxes and insurance kill us. Other than taxes the greatest outlay of money each month is insurance with over $10,000 per year going to health insurance alone. Add business, home, equipment, auto and life insurance and it's really smacks one hard. I figure my total insurance premiums run around $20,000 per year. Nuts isn't it!

What do you mean with 'self employed'? Are you a doctor or e lawyer? Or do you run your own company?

 

[varjag]

Olsen, he is a photographer. Self-employed in the USA means the same as in Norway (selvstendig næringsdrivende?).

 

[Olsen]

Oil is retreating from the recent high, the DOW hasn't gone down below 13,000, and seems to have stabilized after last Friday's drop. Now I have seen that in some states applications for unemployment are up, but yet the total number of people working in the US is near record levels.

Now we do have some serious issues with the subprime loan issue, which may drag the US into a recession, but so far the sources I read aren't calling the US as in a recession. The economy isn't growing as fast as it was, and I'm not sure where it is headed. But I don't see only the reports of "gloom and doom" that you seem to be reading. I even saw a moderately upbeat economic piece in the New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/b...em&ex=1193284800&en=84048106f8fd176e&ei=5087

Although mostly the Times is in the "The Sky is Falling" camp, which is why you should read both the Times AND the Wall Street Journal. If you read only one side of the issue, you might not get the entire picture.

Anyway, we should take this offline or keep it short as Stephen and the mods have done such a good job lately of getting RFF back to photography that I don't want to start another protracted off topic post.

If you have any links to the bad news you mentioned I'd like to see them. I don't have many European news sources bookmarked, as the few US ones plus RFF and some railroad forums take up a lot of my time when I'm on the road.

Al,

The Dow is now bellow 12.000 - and falling. The dollar, however, has strenghtened somewhat the last week something that stopped the rize of the oil price. In dollars. But in the longer run, the dollar is expected to fall further, compared to most European currencies and the Yen. This is due to that 'real' inflation is 'close to 10%' in USA and the Fed's prime rate is 2,5%. So, if you have money in the bank, it is loosing it's value. - Same over here. At best you can get 6,7% (deduct 28% tax from that) and 'real' inflation is more like 7%.

As I expected and mentioned in my post, Caterpillar is having success....

They raked home a profit of 'one billion dollars' in 2.quarter this year. Not bad, he?

- I was working for the Caterpillar dealership back in the 70' and 80' and reccognize the guy on the top; Jim Owens. He visited us at one of the first Oil Exporation Exhibitions in Stavanger back the early 70' together with the legendary CEO William Blackie - they came by business jet, mind you, an unheard of extravagant thing back then. Later Jim Owens was stationed at Caterpillar Corp SA, Geneve and he visited us a lot.

We arranged a 'Caterpillar Cocktail Party' for customers, a hilarous thing since - it is only three generations ago since Norwegians learned how to sit on chairs, 'how to behave on a cocktail party' was as distant as the invention of the wheel was in the stone age.

Jim Owens is a little older than me and I take my hat off for him taking on such a job at his age. - I am aiming for joining the pensionairs ranks, Jim. The sooner the better! Then I am going to dig myself down into Photoshop with 'layers' and all that stuff, and learn scanning with my Nikon 8000ED - that monster; 'how to operate a glas negative holder without really trying', full time.

I wonder if another Caterpillar collegue is Jim Chesko, who reads the Wall Street Radio News, I don't reccognize his voice, though.

To Jim Owens and all Caterpillar employees; well done and good luck! With a low dollar and all, now your time has come!