Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Many years ago when we began to invest in stocks and bonds we spent lots of time looking for stocks that would give us the lottery win by running up 10 or 20 fold.   This type of approach is similar to today's buying of a lottery ticket in a effort to hit a home run.  Frankly the chances of either of these approaches working is so remote the only thing one is doing throwing away your hard earned seed corn money.  Yes, one of 300 million hit the lottery, but if you are dumb enough to put your one precious life span on those odds then you need to stop reading now. 

Sometime in the early 1980's a lady stock broker who was the mother of a friend of ours at the time saw we were starting our  journey in stock investing and asked us which stocks were getting our money.  We gave her a list of some of them and she then noted  ALL of them were not blue chip type selections.  We noted we were looking for a stock that would give us a nice profit quickly.  At this point she looked at us and said that she had been investing her money and others money for over three decades and the only way she had found to make enough to get the big win was to invest in high quality companies over the long haul and let them do the heavy lifting.  We changed our approach and have been most happy with the result.  That is not to say some portion of your assets should be in more speculative issues, but your odds are much better with larger cap companies growing and reinvesting profits. 

Many in today's investing world are doing the same thing with their insistence on placing assets in the so called BRIC's.  That is Brazil, Russia, India, and China.   They are wrong now and if they continue will be wrong three decades from now as well.  Brazil is having issues regarding over heating land prices since much of the land for economic growth is right at the coast and nothing much past about 30 miles inland. Add in some continuing political issues and you got a weakening economy. India can not get past the corruption that has been rampant there for ages and the real killer the cast system that keeps many from moving upward in a true free market system.  Russia is so dependent on oil income that the latest gains in natural gas and the slow lessening on dependence on foreign oil is causing oil income to slip there.  Russia also has killer demographics as the country is actually losing people quickly and that is a sure sign of a dying economy.  China has hit upon the brick wall of economic freedom versus personal freedom and despite liberals in this country pointing to China as the perfect solution to governmental approaches China is finding people really do value personal freedom.  China also has a demographic issue as well and in less than 20 years will be losing population itself due to the one child policy in acted many years ago.  For a final look check out Japan as to how an economy can stagnate when government gets too much in the way. 

Let's throw in that Europe is a basket case and will be until they unravel the social spending issues there that are killing long term investing by people wanting to make a buck. Makes one wonder why people in the US want to follow Obama over that cliff with Europe. 

The only economies in expansion now are the lower Asian economies where young people and capital is still in the start up phase of free markets.  They will grow, but if freedom and free markets are not fully expanded there and  many of the same issues noted above will stop their economies in less than a decade. 

The opportunities for investing for real future gains in wealth and prosperity are mostly right here in the old USA but only if we make decisions now to secure that wealth for us and our children. 

It all comes down to the old boss, being the same as the new boss.  That is IF we in the US decide we still want to be boss.  This is not a political posting, but it is to the extent that IF we want to be the economic superpower again all the ingredients are here to make it happen, lots of free and standing by economic capital, lots of domestic energy, lots of willing small business wanting to expand,  and lots of unemployed workers to put to work.  Allow the free market to work and  presto you will get growth and expansion that will be the envy of the world in less than 5 years.  We opined on this earlier in a posting about how lean and mean companies have got in this country from feasting on things such as cheap long term capital and cheap energy from natural gas fracking.  Now it is up to you re-elect Obama and you get Europe. Elect Romney and some help in the US Senate and you will find jobs and newly minted wealth that will again wow the world.  Having lived most of our life in a world of plenty and economic freedom we know the difference having lived just a few years in the alternative of a command and control economy from Washington and we know what we prefer.  However it is now your choice and your future. We got ours in the 1980's and 1990's when economic liberty and personal liberty were in vogue it is now time to decide if you will get yours or if you prefer this stagnation of debt and decline.