I pulled the trigger on currency investing.....wish me luck!

About two weeks ago I decided to move some of my money from cash in US Dollars to other currencies.

I wanted to do this because I wanted investments outside stocks, bonds and housing....and I do think the US Dollar has not finished its slide. I wanted yet another way to diversify my investments.

I was trying to decide between opening a FOREX account, buying currency ETFs, or just opening a foreign currency World Market account at Everbank.

I chose the last of those three, and parked some money in several places.

First, I went put come money in these currencies with a World Currency Account:

• Chinese Yuan
• Swiss Francs
• Euros

Then I invested in a single Commodity CD with positions in:

• Australian Dollars
• Canadian Dollars
• New Zealand Dollars
• South African Currency

I then opened an account and bought a little bit of Gold in one of their Metal's Accounts.....

Then kept a small amount of money in a checking account in US Dollars.

Will it all pay off....in one way, I hope so...but that sort of relies on the US Dollar sliding....which in he long run, really stinks for us if it does. So perhaps I will think of this investment as sort of a hedge on possible bad things to come.

Hmmm....it is happening....China is growing to be a big market....when will they be #1?

This Financial Times article states that China has just past the USA as the #1 consumer of Japanese goods......yikes, I know they are closer to them than we are, but I was always led to believe that it would take China several decades to consume at our levels.

Sorry Charlie....they seem to be getting there sooner than that.

So what happens when they are the #1 consumer nation? What will our place be in the world....what will the world need the USA for? (I submit that our value add today is that we consume and pay for the goods made so that these other emerging countries can build up their infrastructure.

In fact, these countries loan us money to make our purchases.....sort of "bootstrapping" their own growth.

Bill Gross thinks we will see a Trillion Dollar Deficit.....(three years from now?)

<<- The current total US Government Debt
YIKES....this YOUTUBE video of an interview of Bill Gross of PIMCO Inc. is quite interesting. At the end of the video, he talks about the need for the government to run up perhaps a one trillion dollar deficit year....perhaps 3 years from now.

Ouch.....

Here is an interesting "Open Letter to Obama" that Gross posted. Check it out.

Bill Gross' Latest Discussion of the Economy Situation

Bill Gross of Pimco Inc. is one of the world's largest mutual fund managers, focusing mostly on bonds. Called "the nation's most prominent bond investor" by the New York Times^[1], he manages Pacific Investment Management's Total Return fund (the world's largest bond fund and fifth largest mutual fund) and several smaller ones

Bill Gross is a very enlightened speaker with a lot of insight into the investment market, and world economies.

But he isn't always the easiest person to listen too and understand....often seemingly speaking in "code".

But even with this, I find listening to him to be quite interesting and educational.

Our Dollar is Shrinking......now what to do?

Here is an MP3 post that talks about the shrinking dollar, and the US position in the world.....and it may perhaps give me a good view of what we might want to think about for future investing.

The US has been the global super power, and I suppose people elsewhere want to see us fall.

How to invest based on that.....I guess we all have to figure out how to navigate this era.