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Being 4 days away from the 2008 U.S. Elections, I thought it would be good to share with you my thoughts about it.

I’ve been following very closely the news, polls and some of the speeches of Barak Obama and John McCain. From my perspective, I think that there is no doubt that Senator McCain has far more experience than Senator Obama, and is better prepared to rule the destiny of the United States. Usually, when normal people like us apply for a job, usually experience is the factor that weights the most, so if being President of the United States was a job like any other out there, I’m pretty sure that John McCain would have won this race without a problem.

But as you probably have seen in the recent polls, Obama has kept a constant and clear advantage over his opponent . Why is that? This lead me to think that the job of President of the most powerful country on earth is a job of leadership, and as such, his job is to inspire his constituents to bring the best of them. Sometimes we think of a president as the guy that can fix all of our problems, and that from that position, all they need to do is push some buttons and start giving out orders to make things happen. But nothing could be far from the truth. It’s almost impossible that there is a man on earth that can dominate the endless amount of topics that affect a nation.

But there is one thing that a president can do, and that is inspire his people, so they can do their best. A president can certainly spark the change of attitude in people’s minds. In reality, it’s the people and not the government that makes a nation big, but the people need a leader that inspire change on them.

So, from my personal point of view, Senator Obama represents and inspires change in a lot of different ways. He might not be the best to the job, but he brings hope that things can be different. If that itself is capable of improving’s people’s attitude then that is worth the change.

Good luck on the next elections to all americans, I hope you guys realize that what is at stake here is not only the destiny of the United States, but how big portion of the world can be impacted as a result of the election.

Technorati Tags: Barak Obama, Economy, elections, John McCain, U.S. Elections, United States

Last week, I wrote about how Warren Buffett is investing in companies at bargain prices at times when others are selling and losing their shirts. Warren Buffett’s explanation to this is that these companies are sound and solid and that eventually “Most major companies will be setting new profit records 5, 10 and 20 years from now.”

While in a long term scenario this makes sense, I guess we also need to consider not only the potential growth of a company but also the state of the nation’s economy. Last week, I found a video that opened my eyes to something that almost nobody has talked about during the current financial crisis. The video is an interview to the former Head of the Government Accountability Office, David Walker. He has become recently famous because of his participation in the film “I.O.U.S.A” where he explains the dangers of the huge national debt.

On the interview below, David Walker claims the following:

1. The U.S. face a “Tsunami” of spending due to the retirement of “Baby Boomers”
2. Currently, the first “Baby Boomers” became eligible for early retirement under Social Security
3. Over the next 20 years, another 78 million people will join them
4. By 2040, based on historical federal tax revenue, the U.S. Government may just have enough money to pay for social security and medicare
5. Every year Government doesn’t act, the number goes up 2 or 3 Trillion Dollars.

Although the U.S. National Debt clock has just passed the $10 Trillion Mark, if we add up the money owed by the Social Security, Medicare and other similar obligations, the debt goes up to over $59 Trillion dollars. This a huge burden on the citizen’s shoulders.

Possible Outcomes from Current Financial Situation

As I see it, this is a very serious problem not only for the U.S. but for the stability of the world economy. I guess that in the coming years, the U.S. Government would have to do one of the following measures, if the current spending rate continues:

1. 1. Collect more taxes
   2. Print more money
   3. Continue to borrow money

Governments unlike private corporations, have the ability to collect taxes and to print all the money they want, but this has the problem that creates “Hyperinflation“, a problem that we have seen in the past in countries like Argentina, Mexico and Germany before the WWII. As inflation raises, so does the interest rates as the Government needs to pay more Interests to debtors, which in turn make even worse of the National Debt due to compound interest.

“The most powerful force in the Universe is compound interest”, Albert Einstein

A problem like nobody has seen before in history

One of the worst aspects of the future crash is that it’s not only the U.S. the only country with enormous problems with the future pension payments, countries like Mexico also have similar issues although at a lower scale. Mexico’s Social Security Institute is technically broken and currently the majority of its spending goes to pay current pensions and salaries when they should be going to build and maintain Hospitals and provide healthcare to the population. I don’t know about other countries besides Mexico and the U.S. but I’m sure these are not the exceptions.

I hope world leaders and heads of big corporations can work together and come up with some plan to solve what seems a huge threat to social stability.

Technorati Tags: bailout, David Walker, Financial Crisis, I.O.U.S.A, US Debt

Such an economic crisis as the world saw in October 2008, inevitably brings financial crises to every walk of life. Not only is it a financial crisis, but it is also a currency crisis, (exchange rate crisis) a business crisis and, potentially, a family crisis.

The Asian crisis being more painful than expected, has brought even more sobering to the west and increasingly, people who were employed in the financial sector, will be looking for work elsewhere.

Perhaps the most popular turns people will take is to seek out ways and means of creating a business on the Internet. In the same way, to cut costs, more and more companies will look to the Internet as a real outlet for their own products.

The result of this move will be even greater growth of the Internet Marketing industry, which has already seen exponential growth since the dot com crash of 2001.

Coaches, consultants, and providers of Internet Marketing training should prepare for a boom time now, as corporate lay-offs seek them out to help with the set-up and marketing of a zillion new online ideas.

There are three prominent reasons for why the global financial crisis will give rise to a new dotcom boom:

1. The Internet is the quickest communicator for business owners. No other businesses in history have grown net capital as fast as the Internet successes we have seen in the past decade.

2. The Internet offers low cost barriers to entry. At a time when borrowing from banks will be virtually impossible, the Internet provides a way to set up shop and begin trading for next to nothing.

3. Global access to the Internet is exploding. The Internet already has 20% penetration to the world’s population. Its not going to get any smaller.

Individuals and companies working in the Internet Marketing industry stand to gain a lot from the movement we will see in the coming months. Lets hope they’re prepared.

This blog post was written by James Crisis, who is a leading critic, author and trainer of executives in business. For his Internet Marketing knowledge he works under the mentorship of Tim Brocklehurst. A leading figure in online business building.

Technorati Tags: Economy, Financial Crisis

“A simple rule dictates my buying: Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful,” said Buffett. “And most certainly, fear is now widespread, gripping even seasoned investors.”

This is the basic rule that Warrent Buffett explained on a video interview and that an article from CNN explains a little bit further.

Basically, before the crisis exploded, Warren Buffett had invested his money almost entirely in Treasury Bonds, which is almost like having all his money in cash with a protection for inflation. But now that many stock’s have lost more than 30% of their value, Warren is switching his entire porfolio to U.S. stocks . He is now using his huge savings to buy cheap stocks.

He is investing on these companies not because he is just a good guy that wants to help them. He is investing because he knows that these companies have strong potential for future growth and now that their prices are very low it is the moment to buy.

This is like buying a house from somenone that is in financial trouble and is desperate to sell, causing that these guys sell their houses for a fraction of what they are really worth.

This reminds me of the old fable from Aesop “The Ant and the Grasshopper” and it couldn’t be more true. Obviously, while the rest of people where enjoying the boom of the stock and house markets, he was getting stronger in his cash position via saving in Treasury bonds, and then when the “winter” came in, he is now ready to use his cash to buy the leftovers of the “grasshoppers” at bargain prices.

While it sounds like a simple rule to follow, in reality it is hard to tell whether we are at the top or the bottom of a market. It’s difficult as economic cycles are never the same and some might last longer. In the case of Mexico’s economy, the last time we had a financial crisis was in late 1994 and now we are again at the brink of another one in late 2008, that is 14 years distance, and we went through smaller economic cycles in between.

This is my first financial crisis in my adult life and as a head of family, while I still have memories from the last crisis, it’s not the same now, as now I have duties that I didn’t have before. But I’m sure we all will learn valualble and painful lessons from this crisis that now has a global reach.

Technorati Tags: Aesop, Economy, Financial Crisis, Warren Buffett

Last week, I brought back my personal blog from death, as I had stopped blogging for around 6 months. The good thing is that I had already saved a backup of the blog so it was easy to restore all the posts I had written.

As I was restoring my old posts, I was very impressed, as I could see what was going on in my mind several months ago. It was like playing an old video-cassette movie in the VCR, but for my state of mind at that moment in time.

I saw posts from around Christmas 2007, the goals I set for 2008, what I felt the day I lost my job, the blog post I wrote whe my daughter Diana did her first steps, etc. Currently, I’m living an entirely different situation and I’m sure things will be a lot more different than they are today, an so my thoughts and ideas.

So, that’s why I find very useful to have a personal blog, it helps me put things in perspective and see for myself whether I’m making real progress with my life or not.

I highly recommend you guys setup your own personal blogs, it is really easy, specially if you use an open-source platform like Wordpress.org

Technorati Tags: blog, Blogging, ideas, Thoughts, WordPress