Franchise businesses such as Wendy’s, McDonald’s and Burger King and many other food and clothing items are booming. The people setting up franchise ideas and businesses know a good thing, and are really promoting this idea. Franchises for just about every conceivable kind of business are being sold in ever increasing numbers. Some franchises are good. They treat both the franchisor and the franchisee very well. Others are very one-sided. Still others are almost total rip-offs that trap one into paying 10 to 50 times the actual value of the business idea, equipment, or whatever it is they are trying to get you to buy. Here’s a checklist of questions before you buy any Franchise Business. Continue reading
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Why Land Often Beats Stocks And Bonds
As investors look for ways to ensure a good return on their money, land sales are increasing in popularity. Profits, whilst not guaranteed, are often better than those from the stock market, for several reasons:
Less risk, more profit: While some investors have a significant investment in the stock market, often with a comprehensive, well-managed portfolio, for most smaller investors, their experience of the market is limited to one or two companies and they are therefore more open to stock market fluctuations and risks. Company share prices can be affected by many external factors, often beyond the companys control and, unless you are watching the market carefully day by day, you usually have to hold onto your shares for many years in order to turn a good profit. By contrast, if you select the right land, or take the advice of a reliable land agent, you can realise potentially fantastic profits in a much shorter space of time. This is because the land thats normally made available to smaller investors has been carefully chosen. Big land investors buy and then bank land that they think will be ear-marked for development in the future, and then either hold onto it, or parcel it up and sell it to private investors, who reap the benefits if planning permission is granted at a later date. Continue reading
Wall Street Crash, October 1929
This post is probably the most valuable post on this website, for the amount of history, learning, wealth and losses it captures, and lessons that are as relevant today, as they were in the Wall Street Crash, October 1929. Please read and share. Thanks.
Claud Cockburn, writing for the “Times of London” from New York, described the irrational exuberance that gripped the nation just prior to the Wall Street Crash, October 1929 and the following Great Depression of the 1930s, the bread lines, the apple sellers, etc. As Europe wallowed in post-war malaise, America seemed to have discovered a new economy, the secret of uninterrupted growth and prosperity, the fount of transforming technology:
“The atmosphere of the great boom was savagely exciting, but there were times when a person with my European background felt alarmingly lonely. He would have liked to believe, as these people believed, in the eternal upswing of the big bull market or else to meet just one person with whom he might discuss some general doubts without being regarded as an imbecile or a person of deliberately evil intent – some kind of anarchist, perhaps.” Continue reading
Working at Goldman Sachs
Book Excerpt – Mein Kampf (My Struggle)
When my mother died my fate had already been decided in one respect. During the last months of her illness I went to Vienna to take the entrance examination for the Academy of Fine Arts. Armed with a bulky packet of sketches, I felt convinced that I should pass the examination quite easily. At the Realschule I was by far the best student in the drawing class, and since that time I had made more than ordinary progress in the practice of drawing. Therefore I was pleased with myself and was proud and happy at the prospect of what I considered an assured success.
But there was one misgiving: It seemed to me that I was better qualified for drawing than for painting, especially in the various branches of architectural drawing. At the same time my interest in architecture was constantly increasing. And I advanced in this direction at a still more rapid pace after my first visit to Vienna, which lasted two weeks. I was not yet sixteen years old. I went to the Hof Museum to study the paintings in the art gallery there; but the building itself captured almost all my interest, from early morning until late at night I spent all my time visiting the various public buildings. And it was the buildings themselves that were always the principal attraction for me. For hours and hours I could stand in wonderment before the Opera and the Parliament. The whole Ring Strasse had a magic effect upon me, as if it were a scene from the Thousand-and-one-Nights. Continue reading