[Red]

I sat through an economics meeting earlier this week and the consensus was that inflation would begin to rise along with commodity prices. The government is just like us, when you spend more than you make, nobody is going to loan you money at low interest rates. Even without disasters and conflicts, expect gas prices to continue to steadily inch up. Any hiccups, could drive a big jump in prices.

BTW, don't invest in any long term bonds or interest bearing notes. The rates you can get today will look paltry in a few years, so you don't want to be locked into any low interest returns for more than a year or two.

The current administration is expected to pass new capital gains rates (25%), which means for many of us, the capital gains tax hit may be larger than our ordinary income tax rates. When it happens, look for opportunities to convert 401ks to Roth IRAs. That may be the only way to beat the tax man long term. Look at your federal taxes as a % of your adjusted gross income (AGI) for 2008 - how much more would you have to make to get to 25%? You may be better off to take the hit earlier and avoid taxes on the gains in the long term under a Roth.

[centrider]

Red said:

I sat through an economics meeting earlier this week and the consensus was that inflation would begin to rise along with commodity prices. The government is just like us, when you spend more than you make, nobody is going to loan you money at low interest rates. Even without disasters and conflicts, expect gas prices to continue to steadily inch up. Any hiccups, could drive a big jump in prices.

BTW, don't invest in any long term bonds or interest bearing notes. The rates you can get today will look paltry in a few years, so you don't want to be locked into any low interest returns for more than a year or two.

The current administration is expected to pass new capital gains rates (25%), which means for many of us, the capital gains tax hit may be larger than our ordinary income tax rates. When it happens, look for opportunities to convert 401ks to Roth IRAs. That may be the only way to beat the tax man long term. Look at your federal taxes as a % of your adjusted gross income (AGI) for 2008 - how much more would you have to make to get to 25%? You may be better off to take the hit earlier and avoid taxes on the gains in the long term under a Roth.

What economics meeting? Where? With whom? Was it the Feds or a brokerage? What's your background?

[bwilson4web]

Red said:

. . . Even without disasters and conflicts, expect gas prices to continue to steadily inch up. Any hiccups, could drive a big jump in prices.
. . .

Many of us have known the planet has reached peak oil. This pretty well forces the prices up due to short supply. What was curious, beyond understanding, was the rise in fuel prices a year ago:


We were conditioned to seeing a March price rise but in 2008, prices had not really fallen off from the 2007 March price increase. An interesting set price steps that are entirely consistent with peak oil, price instability.

Bob Wilson

[jdenenberg]

You also need to take the falling value of the US dollar into account in your analysis.