[MD]

...and. invest them in sustainable infrastructure.

Fixed rate of course.

Basis:

Future dollars may come cheap(understatement)

Even if you lose the bet, you have improved the system.

[Revi]

We have a new 1% loan program here in Maine where you have energy auditors come and do a blower door test and check out what you can do to save money on energy. Then you can have all sorts of things done, including fixing the roof (if you also insulate to R-38 ), new heating systems and putting in new windows. We figured it out and you can actually make money by doing some of this stuff. You can save more in energy than you pay in the loan payment.

This is a great house fixup. You can only do it to your primary residence and you have some income guidelines, but if I was younger I would buy an absolute wreck of a house and gut it and fix it up with this loan. You have to have some equity in the house already, but if you had a 7% mortgage and you got the place cheap, you would have a nice tight energy efficient house, and the equivalent of a 4% mortgage.

Our state is doing some great stuff lately. We have friends who are a young couple who just bought a house. They are getting their chimney fixed up and a more efficient boiler which will get rid of their electric water heater. They figured their savings, and they'll only have to pay around $10 more a month because of the savings in electricity.

Is now a good time to borrow money for sustainability projects? Yes!

[Bas]

...and buy euro's with them, then when the dollar crashes, you can buy back 10 times the number of dollars that you borrowed...

currency trading 101

[MD]

Some have become wealthy playing that game; a lot more haven't.

[Bas]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MD', 'S')ome have become wealthy playing that game; a lot more haven't.

[NeoPeasant]

Too late, I already borrowed all I could a couple months ago to buy oil futures, certain they would go nowhere but up.

[MD]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('NeoPeasant', 'T')oo late, I already borrowed all I could a couple months ago to buy oil futures, certain they would go nowhere but up.

[mekrob]

I'm in school right now (soph), so I can't do it just yet. But after I graduate and get a couple of years of work in and have some money and rep saved up, I'm planning on taking out a shit load of loans and credit cards, getting cash, converting to gold, euros, yuan and yen (and useful stuff) and fleeing the country. I just have to hope that the crash isn't for a long time (5-10 years), so that I'll be able to pull this off. Why not steal from the system that steals from me?

[Bas]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('NeoPeasant', 'T')oo late, I already borrowed all I could a couple months ago to buy oil futures, certain they would go nowhere but up.

[NEOPO]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Bas', '.')..and buy euro's with them, then when the dollar crashes, you can buy back 10 times the number of dollars that you borrowed...

currency trading 101

[Kingcoal]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Bas', '.')..and buy euro's with them, then when the dollar crashes, you can buy back 10 times the number of dollars that you borrowed...

currency trading 101

[nth]

You cannot make 10 times buying Euro and sitting on it.
People make money by buying heavily leverage forward contracts. You can easily lose all your money even if Euro increases in strength.

[NeoPeasant]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Bas', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('NeoPeasant', 'T')oo late, I already borrowed all I could a couple months ago to buy oil futures, certain they would go nowhere but up.

[coyote]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('NeoPeasant', 'I') didn't really. I was just trying to make a point about making big dangerous bets on apparently sure things.

[MD]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('NeoPeasant', '.').. I was just trying to make a point about making big dangerous bets on apparently sure things.

[MD]

I am selling everything and investing the proceeds in the future; in a direct and concrete fashion.

If I bet wrong and end up in debtors camp; so be it.

[MD]

Plan B:

Buy a hill-side hollar along a state highway sum-whar in appalachia.
Preferably south facing.

Set up a front business on the highway.

Secretly build a hidey-hole up the crick sum-whar. A big hidey-hole. One that would made Saddam proud. All concrete with horizonal well bores back into the mountain for water and deep ventilation shafts to hide the heat.

Be very very paranoid secret about the whole set-up. Build it all myself using the equipment from my little construction company on the highway.

Stock it for ten years and ten people.

How's that for a doomer fantasy rub?

[TorrKing]

There is usually considered to be a correlation between potential gains and risk. However, from what I understand, silver defies that rule. Of two reasons:
- Silver will come in demand when economy goes down, since it's value more than likely never will become zero.
- Much of the silver in the world has been spent for industrial purposes. But because we don't use silver for money anymore (or yet) that loss isn't calculated into the current price. When the need comes for using silver as money again, it will be far more precious when it used to.

So, buying silver should be a much safer and probably even better than buying paper money of any kind.

[EnergyUnlimited]

I think, it is a time to pay off debt, not to take any more of it.
I remember the time, when my debts were paid off (about 6 years ago) and my family was only growing richer from that time on.
If anone of you has any debt, which conceivably can be paid off, than do it by all means.
You (or your children) may manage to the cast of those "free" in post PO and "post consumer civilization" world. Otherwise your long term future may be very bleak...you do not want your grandchildren to be chimney cleaners at the age of 6 or prostitutes at 10 after all.

On the other hand, if you are screwed up beyond any hope to get out of shit, then borrow more by all means and enjoy while party last.
Mekrob with his ideas may be onto something too...however I do not believe, that he will be able to borrow much money after 10 years or so from now on.

[MD]

I have also been debt free for some time, and you are right in that wealth grows easily from there. It's especially fun when the asset pile reaches that critical mass and takes off.

It's all vapor though. All those that want to dive back into the financial world as their investment haven have missed the point.

All that is over.