The James Dicks Blog

It was on the 11th hour, of the 11th day, during the 11th month of 1918 when peace was finally declared in “the war to end all wars.”  It was pronounced as Armistice Day.  In 1938, Armistice Day was enacted as an official American holiday but eventually, after World War II, citizens felt that the veterans of all wars should be recognized, not just those of World War I.  So, in 1954 Congress changed the name from Armistice Day to Veterans Day and today the anniversary celebrates all U.S. military veterans with parades and ceremonies from coast-to-coast.

While we honor the nation’s military heroes who died during wartime on Memorial Day, Veterans Day is set aside to honor those gallant men and women who fought for our nation and survived the horrors of war only to return home with a variety of scars, both physically and mentally.  Today, Veterans Day is also poignant because our nation is at war in foreign lands that threaten our sons and daughters.  These young men and women are actively fighting for the national freedom of not only our nation but of nations who are depending on us for their very survival.

Today and every day, think of these extraordinary people who are deployed in “harm’s way” on the battlefields of Iraq or Afghanistan, or stationed at military installations around the world, far away from the one’s they love.  Think of our military men and women on Thanksgiving or during the holidays; each one of them must face the day away from the warmth and love of their own family and depend on their military brothers and sisters for support.  They do so because they feel a deep obligation to all of us to maintain the freedoms that their parents and grandparents defended during their own military tours of duty.  Whether they experienced battle at Verdun during World War I, Iwo Jima or the Battle of the Bulge at Ardennes in World War II, Pork Chop Hill in Korea, Khe Sanh in Vietnam, the Battle of Fallujah in Iraq or The Battle for Mazar-i Sharif in Afghanistan; veterans have laid their precious time and their very lives on the line in defense of freedom around the world.  They are to be honored, not just today but every day.

While not so much a custom today as it was in the past, you just might see people selling poppies in front of grocery stores and retails centers on Veterans Day.  It has always been traditional to sell poppies because these simple flowers grew over the grave sites on the Western Front in Europe after World War I and they soon became a symbol associated with Veterans. 

During the 1920’s, people began selling paper poppies made to look llike the rell poppy which financially helped ex-servicemen and their families.  Today, these donations help build housing for seniors and support groups such as Meals-on-Wheels.  People also buy them to show their support for our military members and their families.  So, if you see someone selling them on Veterans Day, help out if you can and wear your poppy proudly. 

If you are a military veteran, I thank you for your service.  If you should meet one of our military heroes on the street, take an extra moment to shake their hand and tell them they are appreciated for their sacrifices and the sacrifices of their families in the defense of freedom.  Observe Veterans Day with the proper perspective this year; proud of our military vets and proud of our unique nation; a nation that our military has kept free since its founding so many years ago.

Thank you to all our Veterans!

I practice what I preach and I preach diversification.  The answer to keeping your financial head above water in this unpredictable market is all about diversification.  That doesn’t mean to spread your investment opportunities simply over a number of stocks or within a few commercial sectors.  It means to broaden your investment opportunities over a wide variety of investment vehicles.  What you ultimately invest in is entirely up to you but you must always be sure that you are involved in a number of investment mediums.

For instance, while a certain amount of your portfolio will, no doubt, be invested in the equity market, you should also be involved in other areas of opportunity like commodities, options, bonds, real estate, and you should also consider the Forex (foreign exchange) market.  The Forex offers you another method of diversifying your investment strategy to protect your financial future.  I advise you to consider the potential benefits of the Forex and invite you to learn all you can about this unique method of investing.  One way to learn is to get a copy of my best selling book, Forex Made Easy…6 Ways to Trade the Dollar.  I wrote the book to be very investor-friendly and it will help you understand the Forex market and how to trade it.  It’s actually very simple and that’s why I like it so much.  The way I trade the currency markets only involves the U.S. dollar against six other major world currencies. That’s it!  Not 40,000 or more stocks or mutual funds…just six currencies!  I like that kind of simplicity.

Plus, if you are considering investing in the stock markets, you might want to consider issues that offer dividends with yields that exceed the 2.5% mark.  That’s probably much better than yield you can get at your local bank.  Check out companies that are showing brisk growth in such industries like the financial, energy or consumer sectors. Just do your homework and you’ll find something that will fit the mold and desired direction of your portfolio.

Determine what types of investments make you most comfortable and which investments make you uneasy.  If you have trouble sleeping at night because you’re worried about your investments then you shouldn’t be there.  Educate yourself daily through various media sources available to you; books, magazines, the Internet, television and radio.  Go to workshops and perhaps consider taking a class at the local college.  Always practice trading on paper before you invest any of your hard earned dollars in anything you are not familiar with. 

Listen, these are some extremely volatile days.  It seems like the financial markets have tried to maintain some kind of balance but recently this hasn’t been all that successful on a global basis.  Political rhetoric, deep concerns about the world’s economy, the growing federal budget deficit, and the daily fears of terrorism around the world has taken its toll on all of us over the past couple of years but now is the time to rebuild.  You should always keep in mind that no matter what the Dow is doing, no matter how the NASDAQ is trading, there are always investment opportunities that are increasing in value.  Just remember to always practice the one method of cutting the odds of losing your valuable investment dollars.  Assure that your portfolio is as diversified as possible. 

Enough is enough.  Credit is killing us…literally.  Now credit has been around forever and we should remember that the number one reason for credit is to make the lender rich.  I know I have written about some of this before but I can’t say it enough.  Credit is probably as much an addiction as anything.  People get so addicted to it they can’t control themselves.

I am not a doctor but I would imagine that the simple reason some people get so over extended is that they run their credit cards up and then the interest literally chokes them.  What happens is that people get depressed.  When that happens, some people will go out to the mall or wherever and buy something, anything that doesn’t matter.  That immediately makes these individuals feel better, at least until they get buyer’s remorse.  Shopping for clothes, electronics, cars or whatever, is normally associated with a good feeling, so the next time you feel down you end up going shopping to buy something to make yourself feel better.  There are two problems with this; I doubt that many of you pull out cash to purchase these items, and you no doubt use a credit card.  If you don’t pay it off at the end of the month, you start to get hit with interest which is usually so high that it is hard to ever get ahead.

Second, the purchases get bigger; you will ultimately have to spend more and more to feel better.  This is a losing proposition all the way around.  What we need to do is eliminate credit all together.  We need to start paying for our purchases outright.  Yes, credit cards are okay, but you must use them wisely and pay them off at the end of each month.  So what else do you need credit for?  Maybe for a car or a home.  You can always a buy a used car and save money.  You can develop a strategy concerning your home loan by paying off extra principal every month. My point is, if you use credit, you have to have a plan to pay it off and get it paid off as soon as possible.

Credit only exists for one reason and that is to make you a slave to it and make the lender rich.  Everyone in America should start taking conscious control of their outstanding debt and begin to eliminate it.  Let’s make the lending institutions suffer a little, let’s make them squirm when they wake up one morning and realize that we have all decide to take back control of our finances.  Remember that if you are saving money you are making money.

Start calling all your creditors and ask them for an interest rate reduction, don’t take no for an answer.  You may have to talk to several people but you will find one that can help you lower your interest rate.  Not everyone at the bank will even know that they can lower your interest rate but they can and they will, if you are persistent enough.

If you are skeptical just know this, in one of our worst financial times I can remember the banks are doing everything they can to make more money at our expenses, so much in fact that the president has to get Congress to put restrictions on what they can and can’t charge for.  The banks are adding new expenses and fees to our accounts, they are raising interest rates faster then we can pay our bills.  Why? Because they are greedy and want to make sure we don’t get off their credit “drug,” so to speak. our society has become credit junkies.  It’s time to quit and start living debt free.  As a nation, we are spenders…not savers.  This paradigm has shifted over the last 40 years.  And we are bigger spenders than our brothers in the East. Asia, for instance, saves much more than we do and that has a global affect on our economies.  With financial times as tough as they are now, people are realizing that saving is something we all have to get back to. 

Let’s do it debt free.

I guess it depends on how you look at it and who you are.  There is no doubt that many of the world’s working class feel like they have hit rock bottom – no job opportunities, continued likelihood of foreclosures, rising oil prices at the pump and a mailbox full of bills.  Then there are others, the influencers, who observe and control the global economy and hope that a bottom will soon be reached so that growth can begin and our situations just might get back to some kind of normal.

We have recently seen a number of economic reports that portray a slowing of the misery the economy has been passing along to all of us and that is a very good thing – if it’s true.  We now know that the past eight years of dramatic growth in our economy was caused by a credit bubble.  Easy credit, mainly from home equity, fueled a consumption boom which, in turn, also created a stock market boom.  The last eight years of growth, like the dot com bubble bust, was entirely make-believe.   Not until we return to 2001 values for both the housing and stock markets, will the global economy hit bottom and be able to begin a solid and believable recovery.  I personally think we’re almost there. 

Home prices in many areas of the country have lost very large percentages of their value leaving owners, in many cases, without a dime in equity but still consumers are starting to show some early signs of assurance, if even just a little.  For instance, the most recent University of Michigan consumer sentiment report showed that confidence increased to 69 from 68.7 in May.  The report said the slight growth in the confidence level was due to slowing job losses, new reports that showed housing and manufacturing stabilizing, and belief that the Obama administration’s fiscal stimulus just might help encourage consumer demand.

A “psychological” bottom will be seen when positive news begins to replace the negative news we grown accustomed to hearing every day.  We all need to hope and pray that this bottoming trend continues, barring anything in the news from changing the direction of the recent improvements in the global economic situation.  Remember what happened after the attacks of 9/11?  There’s plenty of “bad” stuff going on around the world today and let’s pray that mankind is smarter than that – but you and I know the distinct and disturbing answer to that question. 

Since economic numbers (whether from the government or corporate America) compare themselves to the same period in the year ago period, good news probably won’t start hitting the street until the end of this year; more than a year after the stock market collapse of September 2008.  And if the unemployment and weak home prices persist, that will more than likely keep us all apprehensive and it will become less probable that we will decide to get back out there and spend, at least for the rest of the year. 

Americans must start to center on the country’s economic growth rather than their personal situations or what we hear from the national media.  Once that happens we will all be more likely to pull out our wallets which will create some needed economic growth, well-being and, ultimately, global recovery. All we can do is hope the best and look for the bottom.  Remember, we’re all in this together.