Every month, I discuss my retirement strategy which is based on building diversified and solid streams of passive income. Two of my core principles are seen by many as being overly cautious.
I’ve mentioned how I choose to not include pensions from the government in my expectations. I simply struggle with the idea of depending on a promise when governments in most Western countries continue to kick the can down the road which will eventually lead to major issues and some tough choices. A lot of countries such as Greece, Italy and Spain have already started breaking some promises. This weekend, we had another example. You have probably heard this by now, but the Government of Cyprus, a small European country was only able to secure a package for its banks by agreeing to terms where every bank depositor will lose 6.6% of its deposits and close to 10% for any amount over 100,000. How in the world did this happen? What is the difference between this and just robbing its own citizens? The Cyprus government explained that it was given no other choice by Germany and that is certainly possible but at some point, every country will end up depending on another if they don’t get their act together. You can imagine what came next. Before the law passed, everyone ran to the banks to get their money out. ATM’s ran out of money and there is now a serious crisis going on. How will this end? Tough to say at this point but this is just one more sign. In a world where the entire system depends on trust, it’s not a good sign to see institutions and governments go ahead with such a measure. It’s certainly not the depositor’s fault that those banks made risky bets.
Being diversified. I’ve talked about how I want to depend on many different sources, to have a portfolio that has strong international exposure and in the ebook that I’m currently working on, I also mention having reserves in foreign countries & banks, as well as physical goods such as gold and silver. It’s a fast moving world and I’d hate to depend on one currency, one bank or one government for my retirement and long term financial future.
Do you trust that your retirement plan will be safe? Or do you think European-style changes will end up affecting you as well?
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One More Reason To Distrust Governments….
Date posted: 03.18.2013 (3:00 am) | Write a Comment (0 Comments)
I’ve mentioned how I choose to not include pensions from the government in my expectations. I simply struggle with the idea of depending on a promise when governments in most Western countries continue to kick the can down the road which will eventually lead to major issues and some tough choices. A lot of countries such as Greece, Italy and Spain have already started breaking some promises. This weekend, we had another example. You have probably heard this by now, but the Government of Cyprus, a small European country was only able to secure a package for its banks by agreeing to terms where every bank depositor will lose 6.6% of its deposits and close to 10% for any amount over 100,000. How in the world did this happen? What is the difference between this and just robbing its own citizens? The Cyprus government explained that it was given no other choice by Germany and that is certainly possible but at some point, every country will end up depending on another if they don’t get their act together. You can imagine what came next. Before the law passed, everyone ran to the banks to get their money out. ATM’s ran out of money and there is now a serious crisis going on. How will this end? Tough to say at this point but this is just one more sign. In a world where the entire system depends on trust, it’s not a good sign to see institutions and governments go ahead with such a measure. It’s certainly not the depositor’s fault that those banks made risky bets.
Being diversified. I’ve talked about how I want to depend on many different sources, to have a portfolio that has strong international exposure and in the ebook that I’m currently working on, I also mention having reserves in foreign countries & banks, as well as physical goods such as gold and silver. It’s a fast moving world and I’d hate to depend on one currency, one bank or one government for my retirement and long term financial future.
Do you trust that your retirement plan will be safe? Or do you think European-style changes will end up affecting you as well?
If you liked this post, you can consider subscribing to our free newsletters hereThis entry was posted on Monday, March 18th, 2013 at 3:00 am and is filed under Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.