The Billion Dollar Book

Part 1

Many investors think that they have done everything with safe guarding their investments, such as putting their money in safe stocks, or having their extra cash in an off-shore bank, but are completely ignorant of the country that their investment is in—including their own country.

They also think that having their investment is some secure stock, they are doing well. But that is only part of the story. For example, what good is it having stock in Google, if your money is within the jurisdictional reach of the US government (assuming you don’t like the policies of the government)?

Not very good. It’s just like having your money in some African country governed by a dictator—your money can vanish over night.

Some of the things you must look out
for as to where you invest your money

Is the country that you have your money in politically stable?
Is it socially stable?
Is it economically stable?

If the answer is no or questionable in any of these areas, look else where. What good is having your money in either a safe stock or even one that gives you high returns if the government, for example is unstable and by the passage of some law tax (read: confiscate) a high percentage of your profits vanish?

If the country in question is socially unstable, with communist revolutionaries ready to confiscate what you have—not to mention killing you—what is the purpose of having your money there?

If the country is highly in debt—such as the United States—there’s a good chance that they might inflate their way out of it. Not a good thing for a dollar-based investment.

I get a laugh when I look at investing gurus

Most of them talk about the investment itself and nothing else. They might say invest in South African gold mine company XYZ. They go into the history of the company, the history of the stock prices, and say that it’s poised for a 100% increase in price. But they never mention the political/social/economic/racial conditions of the country.

What good is all this information when the black controlled government is doing all they can to get the white people out of business, off the farms and off the land (with over 200 white farmers murdered in the past few years)!

This is a real-life example. So any investment in South Africa is like investing your money on the roll of dice at some crap table.

The investment advice might be good, but without considering the political, social and monetary parts, that advice would be worthless.

If your investment newsletter doesn’t cover the political and social news of the country, you better—even if you have to buy another newsletter that does just this.

More can be said on this, but I’ll leave this for another time. Check back to The Billion Dollar Book blog for more information.