ComingCrisis.com

I read an interesting article by Robert Kiyosaki, If you do know who Robert is he is the super star author that others want to be like, it’s been on the New York times best seller list for over 5 years, selling millions and millions of copies.

When Robert speaks people listen, that’s why i found this article interesting. Robert is prediciting that the market is slowly crashing.

On Feb. 27 of this year, a 9 percent market sell-off in China sent ripples of fear through stocks markets across the world. In the United States, the Dow’s one-day plunge of 416 points was the steepest decline since the market opened after Sept. 11, 2001.

So the question is: Should stock investors be worried? As you might expect, some say yes and some say no.

Robert thinks this is a sign of things to come, while i don’t disagree i don’t necessarily see this as the final end all and be all. The market has had a big run up from late 2006 to early 2007 and there was a lot of money made, thus equaling smart investors were profit taking, and even smarter ones were shorting the market.

Robert also says

To get a truer picture of comparative values, compare the Dow to the price of gold. When the purchasing power of gold is compared to the purchasing power of the Dow, the Dow appears to be crashing.

That means the average investor will need at least a 15 percent annual return on their stocks or mutual funds just to stay ahead of the U.S. dollar’s purchasing power erosion — that is, just to break even.

In my earlier Yahoo! Finance columns, I used history to forecast the future by comparing the dollar to gold and oil over a 10-year period. Here’s the data:

1996

2006

Percent Increase

Table updated 3/21/07.

Table updated 3/21/07.

It is important to note that Robert does have significant positions in both Oil and Gold, but he has disclosed this in previous articles as well.

Overall this article raises a lot of issues, and investors should be concerned for the long term, but for the next 1-3 years the market is still heading up.

Enjoy the ride.

This is in follow up to the last post i wrote about the US falling apart financially, check it out here

There is a good article i saw over at CTV on a way to ease the strain on health care systems around the world, and thus potentially avoiding a huge problem.

The report goes into why we need to work together in teams to diagnose and manage diseases.

The report titled, “Why Health Care Renewal Matters: Lessons from Diabetes,” used type 2 diabetes as a case study to look at whether the country’s health system is effectively helping Canadians manage chronic conditions.

It suggests that what is needed is a shift from a focus on finding disease and fixing it, to preventing chronic conditions, then ensuring that those diagnosed with the diseases know how to manage them.

The report says such a shift in focus would have a “profound, positive impact on the lives of Canadians,” while also helping ensure the sustainability of our health care.

While i feel this report is a good first step, there is a long way to go for where we need to end up. Eventually i think all governments will realize that it is cheaper to prevent diseases like diabetes and heart disease by using preventive measures i.e. offering incentives like paying for gym memberships or subsidizing them to a certain point, and maybe a similar program for vitamins and sports or naturopaths.

Something like this is needed, but it has to be done by a major G8 nation to show that it works, but like many things in life as with this one as well, it’s going to take a leap of faith. Even if the government took a step like this tomorrow there wouldn’t be any conclusive results for years if not decades, what politician is going to run on that ticket?

The hope is though with a nation facing a massive slow down due to a crippled health care system i think the government will start having to look into alternatives.

So i was watching 60 minutes this evening and one of the stories caught my eye, it is what we have been preaching for a year now and the reason this blog was started. Read (What Were All About Post)

David Walker is the US Comptroller General and he is doing an Al Gore across America. This may have been the best report i have seen on this subject. It is an essential video to watch.

The one thing that was not addressed in the video was that the US is not the only one facing this issue, other countries facing this issue is the UK,Germany, Australia, France and the one with the biggest exposure is Canada. With 85% of exports going to the States and it’s own Canadian Pension Plan Underfunding as well as a medical plan that is underfunded, Canada faces the biggest risk out of all industrialized nations.

Last Time i checked these were the G8 nations.

United States

Japan

Germany

United Kingdom

France

Italy

Canada

Russia

Out of these countries at least 5 of them are exposed to the baby boomer crisis, and the underfunding of medical and social programs. Last time i checked when the top 5 countries in the world start going into an economic decline i think they call that a depression.

Everything is not doom and gloom though, look out for our up coming posts on how to benefits from a depression and strategies to make money when the economy collapses.

Watch the Video Here

Today Estonia made history becoming the first country in the world to implement e-voting in a parliamentary election. this is history because even the most technologically advanced nations in the world haven’t accomplished this.(P.S. if you’re thinking the US is the most advanced think again, see “The information age is about to explode post”

Anyways back to Estonia if you’re not familiar with the country they are located in eastern Europe former USSR, right beside Latvia and Russia and right across the Baltic sea from Finland. They have come along way in the last decade and half since the Berlin wall came crashing down. This is what Wikipedia had to say about Estonia

“Human settlement in Estonia became possible 11,000–13,000 years ago, when the ice from the last glacial era melted away. The oldest known settlement in Estonia is the Pulli settlement, which was located on the banks of the river Pärnu, near the town of Sindi, in southern Estonia. According to radiocarbon dating, it was settled around 11,000 years ago, at the beginning of the 9th millennium BC.”

Amazing 11,000 years ago, well what makes this so unique is that even older people who are not seen as technologically advanced are voting as well.

The system uses a card reader to validate the person voting, this is major progress, the reason why it hasn’t occurred in the west yet in my opinion is because people are so worried about people “hacking” these kind of technologies and somehow managing to “fix” the results.

The real issue is though not people messing with results but with people not wanting to make progress, that is the major issue that needs to be addressed in the coming decades in the west, and this is a topic i will be addressing more in upcoming posts.

Today we celebrate Estonia’s progress and wish them the best of luck in the future.