When listening to feedback from Nabers Group clients, one message is loud and clear, “We want to see investment opportunities from you.”

I sent out a survey to all of my clients recently, and I’d love your input too. With my activities in many circles, I have access to mounds of solid investment opportunities. If you complete this survey it can help me understand what types of opportunities you are most interested in.

Click here to take the survey.

With trillions of dollars going to bailing out failing corporations, who’s going to save you?

Take a look around… you’ll probably have to save yourself. Rollover your IRA or 401k funds into an unrestricted account to open a world of possibilities without triggering any taxes. Here are some ideas…

Invest in gold silver, and other precious metals. The last 35 years is just a tiny blip in human history. The rest of the time humans have been walking this earth, gold has been used as money. We came off the gold standard in 1971 and seem to have forgotten that gold will always be valuable while paper will not. Consider buying gold, silver, platinum and other precious metals to store the value of your wealth.

Cash Flow Real Estate. With the real estate market in turmoil, find a bargain. Instead of hoping for appreciation, look for properties that provide a return-on-investment of at least 10% based on rental income, and own it forever.

Raw Land. Buy land in areas that will always have high demand. As energy prices rise, land near dowtown areas of major cities should have a bright future as urban sprawl reverses.

Foreign Currency. If you are petrified of investing, make the safest bet and keep your money in a foreign bank account in a stable currency. Try Canada or Switzerland.

Foreign Stock Markets. Many countries in Asia and South America have booming stock markets. Skip the U.S. middleman and invest directly with a broker in one of these foreign countries.

Private Companies. You can lend money to small businesses. If you find a business that is looking for investors, you may even be able to buy stock in their business. Sometimes evaluating a small, local business is much easier than a large publicly traded one.

Start your own business. You can use up to $50,000 of your retirement funds to start your own business.

Nabers Group helps individuals enter a world of never ending possibilities every day using Self Directed IRA and Solo 401k plans. Don’t let your personal economy be dragged down with the crashing banks and financial service companies. Be independent and take your finances into your own hands.

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Over the last 7 years the stock market has dropped [as significantly] as it did during the Great Depression.

“WHAAAT?!!” you say. He explains that our perception of this strong bear market has been softened by the declining value of the dollar. In the spirit of comparing apples to apples, we must first consider that in the late 1920′s and early 1930′s the dollar was fixed to gold. So, in essence, the stock market’s decline was measured in gold. According to Rubino, you would see a depression-like chart if you were to measure the past few years of the stock market in gold.

The most convincing thing about his perspective is that he accurately predicted the burst of the housing bubble… in 2003. He forecasted that those who would suffer the most from the popping bubble would be homebuilders’ stocks, Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac, and real estate prices in “hot” (at the time) areas. He even went on to explain that the contributing factions would spill over into other parts of the economy including financial services companies, and banks themselves. At that time, the idea of one of the country’s largest investment banks (Bear Sterns) becoming insolvent sounds crazy, but Rubino warned us all with How to Profit from the Coming Housing Bust: Money-Making Strategies for the End of the Housing Bubble. In fact, if you would have followed his advice to the “T”, you would have profited immensely , provided that you timed it right. “My predictions were early,” admits Rubino, but the astounding accuracy of them sure does lend credibility to his perspective.

In light of the Liberty Dollar Raid, John says, “[When money becomes weak] the government becomes coercive. They start forcing people to use the government’s money and levying all kinds of penalties… The government cracks down on competing forms of money [that] are run more soundly…”

Also discussed was how the currency changes are affecting our mortgage debt and where the true opportunities lie. When asked how long this window of investment opportunity will last, John responded, “A lot of it has happened, but we’re still at the early stages of this process… I can’t stress this strongly enough, we haven’t fixed any of the problems that have caused this. In fact the problems are getting worse. Government spending is up, deficits are up, the government is creating more money than it ever created before. So the forces that are making fiat currencies go down are actually intensifying.” Since the book was written, gold has doubled and silver has quadrupled.

Also expected by the author, is the detrimental impact the general economy will have on financial service companies… especially credit card, mortgage and other finance companies. The full interview is to be released near the month’s end on UNLIMITED RETIREMENT ACCOUNT® Radio.

The trick with getting metals into a retirement plan is in the Internal Revenue Code section that deals with collectibles. Strangely enough, it’s not in section 4975 (which deals with prohibited transactions); it’s in 408 which deals with IRAs. Even more odd is the fact that one part of this section is applicable to self directed qualified plans (like a Solo 401k) with no reference to its applicability within the code sections for qualified plans. This is why tax attorneys have work to do.

In 408(m)(2), they prohibit investment into collectibles and further define collectibles to include any metals or coins. 408(m)(3) goes on to exclude certain coins and bullion from being defined as “collectibles” for the purposes of disallowed investments. It breaks these “certain coins and bullion” down into two categories. (A) is essentially American Eagle coins minted by the United States. (B) is bullion that that meets or exceeds the fineness required by regulated futures contracts if such bullion is in possession of a custodial account at a bank or trust company.

So when it comes to Self Directed IRAs and Solo 401(k)s, it appears that American Eagle coins are allowable for both types of plans. Further, a retirement plan can (through a custodian as trustee) own certain bullion, but cannot do so with checkbook control plans (an IRA LLC or a Solo 401k that is self administered and self trusteed). This appears to offer a benefit to having your transactions handled by a custodian because doing so would allow for ownership of certain bullion (in case you’re lost, bullion is simply unminted metal of a certain purity – such as a 99.9% pure bar of gold). I would suggest that holding gold bullion at a custodian is not a good idea.

Why are you holding gold in the first place? The top reasons are usually:

1. To store value while the dollar declines
2. To store value while the economy and government are dealing with troubles
3. To enjoy increased value due to an increased demand for tangible, uninflatable assets

Right now, it is undeniable that the dollar has been declining and as a general trend will continually decline as long as it is a fiat currency. Most people would further agree that the economy, banking system, and government, in general, is currently in trouble – evidenced by:

• unusually low interest rates
• insolvency of subprime lenders
• mutual fund overexposure to subprime lending
• insolvency of investment banking giant Bear Stearns
• corporate scandals (Enron, WorldCom, etc)
• increasing unemployment
• the fact that goods and services are being created and rendered in China & India at an alarming rate

This situation as a whole is what makes precious metal ownership enticing. Historically, governments, economies, markets, and empires rise and fall. But since the beginning of time, gold has been valuable… always. There’s not too much “always” in our current situation anymore. There’s no more “real estate always goes up every year”. There’s no “the stock market always appreciates at 9% on average” when you look at its current volatility and look beyond a few decades of history. “Gold has always been valuable” is the only always we have left. So uncertain times cause us to revisit that fact.

We’re still talking about “it’s probably not good to own bullion at a custodian” remember? Stay with me; I promise we’re getting there. If you’ve read arguments for or against gold ownership, you’ve probably encountered the threat of confiscation. On April 5th, 1933 President Roosevelt ordered all U.S. persons to surrender all gold coins, gold bullion, and gold certificates to the Federal Reserve. Many historical accounts lead us to believe that everyone just lined up and turned in their gold.

The Collapse of the Dollar by James Turk & John Rubino suggests otherwise. Their data says that gold in circulation was declining for the few years preceding the 1933 confiscation because people anticipated the governmental confiscation and started hiding their gold because of it. The confiscation resulted in about 22% of the gold in circulation being turned in. The government claimed the rest of the gold coins were lost or destroyed – let’s be serious! Apparently, by January 1934 the missing coins were all back in circulation.

In light of the actual happenings in the gold confiscation of April 1933, there has never been an effective confiscation. If history repeats itself, would you prefer to be a person who has surrendered their wealth or who has protected it? If you’d like to protect it, you can’t do so owning bullion in a IRA custodian account. Placing bullion in the hands of a custodian (a bank or trust company) effectively surrenders it from the start in the case of future government confiscation.

If you need one more reason not to let IRC 408(m)(3)(B) bother you, it’s that ownership of minted coins is more liquid anyways. When it comes time to sell a coin, a U.S. minted American Eagle is immediately identified for its reliable purity. A gold buyer will likely not require testing of the actual coins. With bullion, that reliance on purity is not always there. The premium you pay for a minted coin is so nominal, that the extra ease in selling is surely worth it.

More precious metal food for thought is that I encourage you to also consider silver. Firstly, there has never even been an attempt by the U.S. government to confiscate silver. Secondly, the “buzz” is about gold, and much of the inflation hedging has been manifested by gold acquisition. So, the buzz has probably run the price of gold up more than the price of silver. As a third point, consider that silver has many industrial uses. It is used as a component in most electronics, and the flattening of the world (as observed by Friedman) is quite rapidly bringing cell phones and computers to billions of workers in India & China – all requiring silver in the manufacturing process.

I recently took a look at a checking account of mine that has had $15,000 in it since December of 2006. A year of that sitting there made me $6.59 in interest from Bank of America. More importantly, I did a basic calculation that told me that my $15,000 was now worth $13,122. Had I invested that $15,000 into gold during the same time period, it would be worth about $19,707 inflation adjusted. Because I was invested in U.S. currency I experienced a 12.5% loss while gold experienced a 31.4% gain. Hindsight is 20/20 and we can all become billionaires investing in the past, but in all seriousness, there was no denying that the uncontrollable floating value of the dollar was hurting me. The minute I realized what was happening to my money, I invested $6,000 into an equal split of gold, silver, and platinum. I’m receiving 0 dividends, and I don’t check the prices every day, but I have something of value. It’s probably not going to get me rich, but I’m positive these physical objects will always have value. And maybe Chindia will run up the price of my 100 ounces of silver.