LIVING OFF DIVIDENDS & PASSIVE INCOME

According to to the WSJ, Dr. Panarin, a Russian former KGB analyst, predicts that the US will disintegrate by summer of 2010. He actually made his prediction back in 1997 when this scenario really sounded ludicrous. Now its simply improbable!

Before you dismiss him as another crazy, check out his credentials. “Prof. Panarin, 50 years old, is not a fringe figure. A former KGB analyst, he is dean of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s academy for future diplomats. He is invited to Kremlin receptions, lectures students, publishes books, and appears in the media as an expert on U.S.-Russia relations.”

Here’s the gist of his argument:

Mr. Panarin posits, in brief, that mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation will trigger a civil war next fall and the collapse of the dollar.

Given the poor performance of the stock market in 2008, its time to go back to the investment basics and make sure you don’t forget the important stuff.

1. Only invest in companies that pay a decent dividend (at least 3%) and that have a long history of increasing their dividend.

You should consider share buybacks when measuring the dividend yield. This criteria achieves several goals. Its narrows your possible choices substantially, providing you an investment “universe” that’s more manageable.

It also automatically prevents you from buying stocks that are speculative or overpriced. If the company is cooking the books, it cannot maintain its dividend. Companies like AOL or MCI Worldcomm were reporting record profits during the Tech bubble (and so was Enron during a later period) when in fact, they were booking large losses. Since they weren’t paying out any dividends they were able to get away with the fraud for a lot longer than otherwise possible.

As I mentioned in a previous post, the real estate market hasn’t hit bottom yet.

According to an Article in Fortune Magazine, 8 of the top 10 worst real estate markets in 2009 are in California. The range of the predicted price decline is between 20 to 25%.

1. Los Angeles

2008 median house price: $375,340

2009 projected change: -24.9%

2010 projected change: -5.1%

The median home price in the L.A.-Long Beach-Glendale metro area is projected to fall nearly 25% in 2009 - the biggest drop in the country.

Courtesy: Stockton CVE

2. Stockton, Calif.

2008 median house price: $248,050

2009 projected change: -24.7%

2010 projected change: -4.0%

3. Riverside, Calif.

2008 median house price: $256,540

2009 projected change: -23.3%

2010 projected change: -4.8%

AP Photo

4. Miami-Miami Beach

2008 median house price: $293,590

The media has been going on and on about deflation. Long-term bond prices have also been trending up and long term yields have been dropping, which means that the market thinks there will be long-term deflation. Even the Consumer Price Index numbers that came out claim that inflation is under 2% annually!

(Of course, if you’re one of the unlucky 533,000 people who lost their jobs last month, you really couldn’t care less about deflation).

Let’s first look at the Government reported numbers.

Check out this 12 minute video from 60 Minutes. There’s another wave of mortgage defaults on the way, this time from Alt-A & Option-Arm (also called Negative-Amortization or Neg-Am) loans. As opposed to the subprime loans which were worth almost $1 Trillion, these two groups make up nearly $1.5 Trillion.  According to Amhurst Capital, they expect a 70% default rate on the Option-Arms based on the current default rate which is occurring at 3% interest rates!

Right now there’s a 3-5 year overhead supply of housing inventory on the market. Along with these coming defaults and the fact that 10% of Americans are behind on their mortgage, you should expect house prices to be depressed for a very long time. I’ll think we’ll have more clarity when home prices actually hit bottom, which might be another 12-24 months from today.

Check out this hilarious must-see parody on Hitler and the housing market bubble.

If you still have any appetite for real estate, check out these cheap investment homes and land.

Happy Thanksgiving! Here’s an interesting cartoon on the topic.

[source: NaturalNews.com]

There’s certainly one group of people who have a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving: The white-collar criminals in Washington who are looting the U.S. Treasury and stealing trillions of dollars from taxpayers.

That’s what this financial bailout really is, of course: A grand, desperate swindle that seeks to wring every last cent out of the U.S. dollar before the coming currency collapse. A collapse of the value of the U.S. dollar is coming soon. Just do the math: The end result is obvious. It will either be runaway inflation that leaves dollars virtually worthless or the abandonment of the dollar by the U.S. government and the adoption of a new currency (the Amero?) at confiscatory exchange rates that will wipe out the savings of most Americans.

Now that the Federal Reserve has bailed out Citigroup, it’s back to business as usual. Having personally helped destabilize the world financial markets, they’re now predicting a rise in gold prices to $2,000/oz in 2009.

According to an article in the UK Telegraph:

Gold is poised for a dramatic surge and could blast through $2,000 an ounce by the end of next year as central banks flood the world’s monetary system with liquidity, according to an internal client note from the US bank Citigroup.

The bank said the damage caused by the financial excesses of the last quarter century was forcing the world’s authorities to take steps that had never been tried before.

This gamble was likely to end in one of two extreme ways: with either a resurgence of inflation; or a downward spiral into depression, civil disorder, and possibly wars. Both outcomes will cause a rush for gold.

As a follow-up to my previous 2 posts on gold, here’s a news article about the Australian Perth Mint suspending orders for gold bullion until January. Apparently having it’s workers slog 7 days a week isn’t enough to meet demand!

FEARS of the unknown long-term effects from the global financial crisis have sparked a new gold rush.

With retail and wholesale clients around the world stocking up on the precious metal, the Perth Mint has been forced to suspend orders.

As the World Gold Council reported that the dollar demand for gold reached a quarterly record of $US32 billion ($50.73 billion) in the third quarter, industry insiders said the race to secure physical gold had reached an intensity that had never been witnessed before.

Perth Mint sales and marketing director Ron Currie said the unprecedented demand had forced the Mint to cease orders until January, with staff working seven days a week, 24-hour days, over three shifts to meet orders.

One of the surprising things has been the increase in premiums on gold and silver coins. Even though the prices for both metals have dropped from their highs, the cost of buying gold or silver coins hasn’t dropped proportionately. In fact, there’s been reported shortages of these coins by the US Mint and the Australian Perth Mint, not to mention individual retailers.

Right now the premium on silver coins is a whopping 60%+. For gold it’s a lot lower but still higher than it’s historic 2.5-3%. I just got an email today from a newsletter service that I subscribe to that’s pretty interesting.

If You Want Cheap Gold Coins, Canada Has Them
By Tom Dyson

I don’t trust my bank. And I don’t trust the dollar.

As far as my savings are concerned, I’d rather keep them in gold. And I don’t mean gold futures or gold certificates or gold mining shares. I’m talking about physical gold bullion in a safety deposit box.

I’ve been an avid collector of gold and silver coins and have been following the prices for a years.

Gold is supposed to have a negative correlation with the stock market. This year has proved otherwise. Of course, as we’ve seen repeatedly in the past, all asset classes correlate to the downside.

Gold which peaked at $1030/oz earlier this year, has been trading in the $700 range for a few months. There has been a flight to safety, which for most people means buying US Treasuries. Indeed, the flight has been so large that it has pushed the yields down to absurdly low levels. The yield on the 3-month Treasury was almost zero at 0.4% and the 10 year is 3.52%. (The yield on the S&P500 was 3.55% this week, higher than the 10 year Treasuries rate for the first time since 1958).

I got into a lively debate yesterday with a fellow student about the bailout of the auto-industry. He said the social ramifications of letting them fail were too high. The impact on the local communities would be too high and so they should be bailed out by the tax-payers.

I said they were not cost-effective and there wasn’t enough demand for their cars to keep them in business. Even if the government gave them $25 billion, they’d plow through it and be back at the door asking for another handout. The government, too ashamed to admit it had wasted the first $25 billion would probably hand them another $25 billion. (This is called the Concorde effect, after the failed Concorde partnership between England and France which was a financial disaster).

I read some articles with also drew similar conclusions, but with different viewpoints.

I’ve been busy with Business School and it’s been an insanely hectic month. Forget about writing posts, I haven’t even had much time to sleep!

I just ran the totals for passive income for October and I found out I’ve broken my previous record for monthly passive income that I set in June.

Monthly Passive (alternative, online & dividend) Income was $3,454.99.

The total online income was $2160.67 which is lower than my record by ~$95. However, my investment in a Japanese REIT paid a quarterly dividend that pushed up my dividend income over the usual $1000/month to a total of $1259.18.

Here’s the breakdown of the $3,454.99:

Online Income:$2160.67

• Ebay Publisher Network: $644.97
  
• Linkworth: $403.83
• TLA: $277.72
• Adsense: $207.30
• Kontera: $40.20
• Direct Ads: $234.95
• RevResponse: $26.90
• Amazon: $58.67
• Other/Affiliate: $262.11

Dividend/Alternate Income: $1259.18

I subscribe to a lot of newsletters. One of them Capital & Crises by Chris Mayer had a very interesting write up on John Maynard Keynes:

You probably know John Maynard Keynes as an economist, but may not know that he was also a great investor, maybe the most the successful of the Great Depression era. And for that reason, given all that our own markets are going through, it may be a good time to look at his investment career.

Keynes managed Cambridge’s King’s College Chest Fund. The Fund averaged 12% per year from 1927-1946, which was remarkable given that the period seemed to be all about gray skies and storm clouds - it included the Great Depression and World War II. The U.K. stock market fell 15% during this stretch. And to top it off, the Chest Fund’s returns included only capital appreciation, as the college spent the income earned in the portfolio, which was considerable. I think it must be one of the most remarkable track records in the annals of finance.

What’s the difference between a pigeon and a Wall Street banker?

The pigeon can still make a deposit on a Porsche!

Meanwhile, in what looks like a stunning display of stupidity, the Federal Reserve recently hired someone to “assess the safety and soundness of domestic banking institutions.” The new employee is none other than Former Bear Stearns chief risk officer (from 2006 to 2008) Michael Alix. Unbelievable! The Fed hired the guy who let Bear go bust.

Regular readers know that I’ve been saying the US government is broke for a while now. As if our national debt and unfunded future debt obligations weren’t enough, Henry Paulson proposed spending $700 billion to buy mortgages and other toxic “assets” from banks. Well, not only does the Treasury now want to spend bailout cash on all kinds of financial companies (from banks to bond insurers to specialty-finance firms like GE Capital) it’s becoming more and more obvious that the government didn’t actually have $700 billion lying around. The Treasury has borrowed $600 billion since mid-September, and it wants to borrow a record total of $550 billion during the fourth quarter of 2008 to help stabilize the financial sector.

I made $2,884.13 in online & passive income for the month of September, 2008. After the somewhat lackluster income over summer, this was a welcome increase.

Here’s the breakdown:

• Online Income: $1799.92
  
  • Adsense: $214.78
  • Linkworth: $332.24
  • TLA: $241.78
  • Kontera: $$45.48
  • Direct Ads: $205.55
  • RevResponse: $28.23
  • Prosper Referrals: $25.00
  • Amazon: $58.67
  • Ebay Publisher Network: $580.58
  • Other/Affiliate: $51.59
• Savings Accounts: $127.59
• Direct Oil Drilling Investment: $387.59
  
• Dividends from Canroys: $502.09 (after tax deducted at source)
• Other Dividends: $73.51
  

The affiliate income from Ebay has been growing steadily. It’s more than doubled from August and the total revenue for this year is $1847.67. I think that’s a pretty good return for a little bit of effort (most of which took place in May). In July I added a storefront on this website which focuses on business, cheap real estate, gold coins and other income producing ventures. I recently added a Ferrari and Sports-car for sale page. I don’t expect to sell any Ferraris’ or Lamborghinis’ but I sure enjoy looking at them!