What are your recommended Philippine Investment Vehicles of Choice?

[callme]

Another advice guys

Sounds maybe obvious but atleast a lot of Norwegians don\'t understand it:

Pay down your debt, better sooner than later.

Nothing kills an economy, personally as in business, like giving away all your profit to handle the interest of a to high and/or a growing debt.

I think to many starts their business with to high debt, and with to high ambitions, and they are to impatience to let their business grow in an economical healthy pace.

To much to fast, and they forget that its a huge difference between an earned dollar and a credit dollar.

[Metz]

Best investment choice in the Philippines.  Paid for home, zero debt, years supply of food, silver, gold, tools, small arms, skilled trade, brains.

US stocks and Bonds are a joke.  Total ponzi scheme ready to collapse.  See zerohedge.com for updates on the current fiasco in the markets. 

The governments of the US and the ECB are printing money, both Europe and the US are done for.  When the rest of the world realizes what America did to the dollar and reserve currency, it will not be pretty.  The printing of money the last couple years is the reason why inflation is so bad. 

In the Philippines you need to put yourself in a self reliant mode.  Dependence on pensions, social security, mutual funds, anything that you can not physically hold in your hand or stand on is folly.  It is a mathematical certainty that American social security will collapse and that US Gov treasury notes will default.  Same goes with Euro pensions and Euro bonds.

 The social safety net for Filipinos is very small, for foreigners it is nonexistent.  You get sick, injured, broke, no one will help you unless you got something in trade.  Your relatives prob won\'t even help your Filipino wife and half Filipino children Because they will assume that you are the \"rich white guy\" and either thru envy or plain jealousy will have a bout of pleasure at seeing your downfall. No matter how much you help them, unless you are one of the very small minority who has truly assimilated will ever see your kindness repaid. 

Think about putting your paid for home off the grid, install some solar panels, install a cistern and or well, with a good quality water filtration system.  Then have a skilled trade, something that has real value.  Plant a garden or at least have garden seed.  Even if things take 5 years more to collapse in the US, you still got a roof over your head, your lights on, food in your belly, and water to drink. 

Being prepared this way first, will let you have the luxury of looking at other investments because you are not desperate and hungry. 

I learned the hard way this experience.  I lost nearly everything I had several times in my life, and I am only 37.  I finally learned the long game. Something my father nor my school, nor my military training taught me.  It has taken me since October 2003 to get from Zero to nearly self reliant in my home.  Not there yet, but in a couple months, I will be off the grid except for my machine shop and we have been debt free since last August.

We are even putting away a years worth of food in the pantry for us and family members.  The security that we do not have to worry about food, or utility bills if a emergency happens like illness, injury, unemployment, or national crisis is the best thing a man can have for his family.

[Gray Wolf]

Metz,

Your post should be required reading for eveyone.  Excellent information, sir! 

Thank you! 

[intocebu]

Metz.. All those Ideas Are Excellent I Have to Keep them in Mind also within 2-1/2 years as i am going to give up the Cold High Prices and Taxing Life here in the USA and Sell My Condo and move to the Philippines will Build a Small House with my Fiancee. I am Going the Philippines in March to Get Married in April to my fiancee In Bohol and When I\'m Down there we will look for land and a Little store to start a small Business ... All the Information on this form is Great ..I would Love to use Alternative to there electricity solar must be a Little expensive i don\'t know thats would Be Practical for sure.....Dave

[BingColin]

Metz, an excellent post, and while I would not disagree with a lot of the things you say, I am perhaps a little more conservative and hopeful. Certainly the US and EU are on a downhill slide but it will be many years before countries such as China take up the reins. The developed countries will, in time, be forced to downgrade in respect to the total world population. Most of the ‘richer’ people live on credit’, this has to stop. The US will go through its ‘ups and downs’ but will continue to stagger through all these crisis’s without too serious an effect on the present adult population. The EU made the mistake of taking in too many countries and needs some serious reorganizing. Fortunately, for me, the UK is not part of the monetary union and will not be too badly affected.

I don’t agree that the Filipino families will refuse to help. This may happen in a very few cases, but I have more faith in them than you seem to have.

Most of your recommendation for becoming independent are good. Solar panels are the way to go, but are too expensive at the moment to make a good investment. Water is cheap and plentiful, a well would be useful, but again expensive filtration systems are not economically justifiable. Growing vegetable and perhaps keeping some livestock would be good, but a year’s supply of food

I am not an economist nor too much into politics, these are just my personal opinions.

Colin

[trevor]

Well as for me i think that is an excellent post Metz. But  i tend to go along with what Colin post. No one can predict the future, things will be hard like it has been for the past four or five years and may even get worst. Your predictions made it seems like Dooms Day is just around the corner. Yes it would be good if everyone can control their future and be self dependent but that will not be the case. On the other hand i do agree with you on taking control of our fianances. Better to be safe than sorry. We will see.

[Lunkan]

Well.
Yes, Metz\' solution is surely among the most safe.

--
Concerning choosing which shares to invest in, is one of the main rules
\"Don\'t listen to what broker says.\"   
Brokers earn money on any trades, so they don\'t bother much if they are good or bad trades they handle.  On top of that the majority of them aren\'t any good at analyzing and predicting. Some Swedish journalist made a research where they compared the results of the Swedish brokers recommendations, and the \"choices\" the chimpanzee Ola made by throwing arrows, and the monkey won...   

BUT it\'s possible to make money on shares by \"just\" buy close enough to bottom and sell close enough to top. If you can do that, then even random choosing mostly beat bank interest. The odds can be improved much by just make a simple very rough valuation* and buy if it\'s higher than what they cost on the stock marlet.


*A = Obvious assets = money + store and estate adjusted down if you believe they are to optimistic
R = Adjusted result á la me   = the result they tell + developing costs + temporary costs as e g expansion. Then adjust the result if anything special happens as e g an important developing is ready now/soon.

(A + 3 R) divided by total numbers of shares = Rough value.
(If reading the Reports and news proper, the valuation can be made much more detailed.)

The economies in some South East Asian countries have developed much better than North America and Europe during the last 10 years, so I believe in a longer perspective that will continue.
I don\'t know how the Philippine company economy has developed but the GNP (=including public production) has developed very good. The badest year RP had PLUS 4.5 (2008) when many American and European countries had MINUS.
Two years ago I looked a bit at the Thai stock market just to show an ex how to count roughly. Just looking at around 8 companies by choosing them by what they produce, I found 4 having much better results than bank interest (=around 12, 22, 24, 31 %).

I DON\'T recommend doing as I do, because I often gamble and even put all money at only 1-2 companies, when I have found something I really believe in long term ready to get much better result soon, or something I believe is just negative over reaction. I predicted a half year before the \"IT bubble\" would burst, so I didn\'t had any shares when it happened. Counting from when I started buying after the burst, I have an average of
almost 20 % per year fluctuating between +51 and -20.
If I recount only counting when I used the money for shares then it\'s
a bit over 30 % per year fluctuating between +112 and -20.   The best result I got during almost everything else fell ! 
Earlier I have recommended shares, which have gone up from e g 6 to 16 (very fast) and 44 to 204,
but I don\'t recommend anything since an evil insect (=tick) bite me, gave me TBE virus, almost knocked me out, so I\'m not sure if I think complete now. So now I know how it feels to think normal 

A Swedish friend lives on investing his own money. He has grown his money from around 250 000 SEK to 6 000 000 SEK since 1988, although he has lived on them too, including going to Thailand/Philippines many times to look for possible wife   

Both above during inflation had been only around 2 - 4 % per year. Bank interests have been very low mostly.

So it\'s possible to beat normal bank interests rather much.

[Metz]

I have decided to get the basics down first before the rest.  It is a terrible feeling not to have money and have the lights get turned off for a month.  Been there done that.

Moving to Phil\'s, you have to think like a pioneer on the frontier in many ways.  In some ways you have a advantage by being in Phil\'s.  You can afford to live poor.  By that I mean that you can own a home and not have to come up with $8000 dollars yearly tax like a co worker did in Buffalo NY.  Because of the cultural difference, I don\'t feel the pressure to keep up with the jonses.  Having A car not a fancy new car is that in itself a status symbol.  I can ride a moped to work without getting nasty gossip behind my back. 

You can have chickens without some gov goon fining you thousands of dollars cause you don\'t have the right gov permits and blessing from some faceless bureaucrat. 

[Lunkan]

Yes, but in RP it can be 6 - 8 years in prison for supporting people to get good marriages !!! 

I have never bothered what other people think anyway, just bothered what I would think if other would do the same. E g I preferred buying old cars, when I earned as most too, because I drive like a car thief, so i break the cars in 2 - 3 years anyway, so it can even be good if the road is so bad, so I will have to buy a jeep   
And I used an old bicycle rather often when I had 2 cars too.

My perhaps future wife found it very odd, when I said I find it better to have a good functioning but old ugly car to try to avoid envy from neighbours.

(Concerning taxes I have some questions, but better I put that in an own topic.)