Investing in stocks and bonds is a scam in America. You must be thinking that government has done a great job by passing the financial reform bill but beware friends - wall street lobbyists have spent billions to have the bills do exactly what they want - use unclear dubious words and give big financial companies enough leeway to work their way out in case another crises dawn upon us.

It seems that I have literally started getting alienated with the US government and the scam it's playing. So why do I think investing is a scam? Here are my reasons:

With recent downturn in economy and crisis on the Wall Street almost every American (perhaps every person in the world) has seen one's retirement saving going down quite substantially. Even the safest haven in the retirement plans, viz. money market fund, couldn't keep money safe.

If you already save money in a retirement account you must be knowing that your money usually goes either into bonds or stocks. And by any standard none is a safe haven for a retiree.

I found an interesting article ( How Companies Raise Money )on the London Stock Exchange about how companies raise money.

It will answer the following questions while making a few stock/bond related concepts clear to you
- Can a company issue new stocks anytime?
- What is a "stag"?
- What is primary and secondary market?
- What is "Rights issues"?
- What are "Script issues"?
- Why does a company issue bonds?

In this financial turmoil caused by sub-prime mess and wisdom of Wall Street veterans everything looks bad. Declining 401K balance is heart breaking and fear starts creeping in forcing us to think "what next?".

During the housing boom these were the events that took place:

Easy Loans

Loans were made available with very low teaser rates that would be jumped to a higher rate after 3 or 5 years

Converting Loan Into Investment

I am a great fan of Warren Buffet's investment style and how he has made so many investors rich through his financial intelligence and entrepreneurship.

I am also a great fan of Index fund. So when I heard about Buffet throwing a challenge to active investors if they can beat a low cost index fund in a long run (10 years) after expenses and fees I couldn't stop reading about that.

Most of us want to make progress in life, have good lifestyle, make good money and enjoy the life with family. Many times we ponder if we should start this venture or we should go with that strategy to make money and lead a better life. Our constant struggle to make progress in life makes us myopic and we lose our capacity to think beyond the short term gains.

Even though economy is doing bad and recently there was a huge drag on the stock market somehow I managed to get away with more than 30% return in last two months.

In January I bought SLB, Visa, GE & GLD.

Why I bought them?
Since economy was not in a great condition and sub prime mess still fresh I thought buying oil service company and Gold would be a nice idea as no matter what they will do good in rising inflation and uncertainty. So I bought SLB (SCHLUMBERGER) and GLD (Street Smart Gold ETF).

Look at the bottom for my recommended mortgage lenders

When you look for a mortgage lender to either buy your home or refinance your existing home you are always faced with so many choices that it really becomes a time consuming process. Terms like conformal loan, non-conformal loan, points, PMI, LIBOR, HELOC, etc. etc. are good enough to give anyone headaches. Combine that with tons of options and numbers. Happiness coming with buying a house just evaporates with these stressful options.

I will come straight to the point. You need to have 6 months of expenses saved in hard cold cash that you can take out anytime you want. If you are married to a working partner then you are fine with savings of expenses for 3 to 4 months.

If you haven't yet done that please do that ASAP and make it a point that every month you put some portion of your paycheck to build your 3 to 6 months of emergency savings.

Where should you put your saings for emergency? Definitely in a saving bank account so that you can withdraw money whenever you want.