My friend Jeff is a Boeing 777 pilot and has been all over the world. He may be in Dubai, Johannesburg, Frankfurt, Mumbai or Seoul in the course of a month. He was a fighter pilot assigned to an carrier in the Gulf War. Stable guy. Nothing rattles him or gets him too far from…

The stock market goes down 700 points in one day. The stock market surges up 1,000 points in one day. A number of world leaders have gotten together and decided to inject liquidity onto the worldwide banking system in hopes of avoiding a depression and keeping the recession short and shallow. Inflation? Deflation? Everything is…

It seems like every day we hear of another catastrophe in the financial world. Giant institutions “too big to fail” and being bailed out, large banks are being bought out, pension and mutual funds are tottering on the brink of the abyss, and with it the futures of a lot of retirees who have worked…

Breathtaking financial destruction. Blood running on the floors of the exchanges. Dire forecasts and high officials coming to the microphones telling the citizens that they will suffer painful and long lasting hardship if they do not immediately and without further discussion, give up an astronomical amount of money … $700 Billion to be exact ……

… everybody get together and try to love one another right now. In case you didn’t notice, that’s the chorus from The Youngbloods’ classic hit, “Get Together”. You can listen to it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoXYBxprAIQ. So why am I reminded of this song? Two words … Hurricane Ike. He was only here for about 12 hours, but boy, was…

I’ve been active full-time in the world of real estate investing for over five years now. And during that time, I’ve seen dozens of investors go from dirt poor to filthy rich. But I’ve also seen dozens of investors who, well, stayed dirt poor. And what I came to notice over time was that those…

Yep, that’s right. Money WILL NOT make you happy. No amount of money will. That’s what I’ve come to discover over the last few years as I’ve gone from nearly dead broke to earning and spending more than any reasonable person should. It’s our family that makes us happy (sometimes!). Our friendships. The little things…