July 23, 2014
- Number of seniors living in “poverty areas” explodes
- Meanwhile, the kids move back in… and the kids are in their 50s
- The next step in our aggressive-but-achievable retirement plan
- The world can’t get enough of one industrial metal
- Why diversification matters in gold stocks… a twist on affordable housing in the nation’s capital… readers unload on our “epically long snoozers”… and more!
Retirement wasn’t supposed to look like this: Part 1. One in four Americans now lives in what the Census Bureau describes as a “poverty area.”
Those are neighborhoods where at least 20% of the people live below the poverty line — defined as a family of four getting by on a yearly income of $23,600 or less.
In 2000, the number of people living in poverty areas totaled 49.5 million — about 18% of the population. By 2012, the number soared to 77.4 million — nearly 26% of the population. The figure grew everywhere — cities, suburbs, the sticks. And it grew in every region of the country…
Break it down by ethnicity and white Americans have experienced the biggest increase. In 2000, 11.3% of white people lived in a poverty area. Now it’s 20.3%.
Break it down by age and the elderly have experienced the biggest increase. In 2000, the number of people in poverty areas age 65 and over totaled 5.1 million. The number has exploded 66%, to 8.5 million.
Retirement wasn’t supposed to look like this: Part 2. “I said, ‘Mom, I’m so sorry, but I don’t know what to do,'” recalls Debbie Rohr.
We hear plenty about college grads with no jobs moving back in with the parents. But what about the middle-aged moving in with still older parents? Rohr is 52. She and her husband and her twin teenage sons recently moved in with her 77-year-old mom, as explained by the Los Angeles Times last spring.
“At a time when the still sluggish economy has sent a flood of jobless young adults back home,” the paper reported, “older people are quietly moving in with their parents at twice the rate of their younger counterparts.”
Whatever the arrangements, the number of people living in “multigenerational households” — homes with at least two adult generations — is exploding. As of 2012, it was 57 million Americans, according to the Pew Research Center.
That’s 18.1% of the population. Back in 1980, it was only 12.1%. On the other hand, it’s less than the 25% figure in 1940.
“The number of multigenerational families soared during the recession,” says the L.A. Times. “It has continued to rise since then, although at a slower pace.”
We presume you’re not in as desperate a fix as the people whose growing numbers we’ve described today. But you might still feel jittery about your retirement prospects.
We sent you an email earlier today about a special project with the potential to change your life… and we urged you to keep an eye on your inbox at 5:00 p.m. EDT.
But just for being a faithful reader and reading today’s episode of The 5, you get to see it early.
So here’s the deal: A year ago, we conducted a survey among our readers asking, “What’s your number?” Not the total retirement savings you want to live comfortably, but to live your dream — where you wouldn’t have to worry about a budget for meals out, or golf or travel.
The average number we got back? $4.512 million.
We conducted that survey as part of a “beta test” involving 917 readers eager to reach that number as quickly as possible. Now, a year later, we’re taking this effort to the next level — in a project we’ve given the code-name Gamma-nMC.
The project is not appropriate for everyone. But if retirement’s on your mind and you’re interested in a retirement strategy that’s both aggressive and achievable… you really need to follow this link right now.
The S&P 500 is inching higher into record territory this morning. As we write, the index sits at 1,988.
The only major index in the red this morning is the Dow — off 10 points, to 17,104.
In the precious metals complex, gold sits where it did about 24 hours ago, at $1,305. Silver is oscillating around $21, and platinum is off a bit at $1,477.
Palladium — this year’s star performer — has slipped from its 13-year highs in the last week. Still, at $871 an ounce, palladium is up 23% from when our team tipped you off in these virtual pages on March 12.
“Aluminum is an industrial metal, with a very similar set up to what we saw in palladium,” writes Matt Insley on the scene at the Sprott Vancouver Natural Resource Symposium.
Indeed, aluminum entered a bull market this week, reaching 16-month highs. “Inventories are heading lower,” says Matt, “and demand, especially here in the U.S., is starting to pick up.
“Unlike precious metals, where we’re still waiting to see some real positive upside,” Matt goes on, “the trend has already formed for aluminum. For the past nine months, aluminum prices have marched higher.”
Bloomberg News ticks off some of the factors at work: “Stockpiles monitored by the London Metal Exchange slumped 9.4% this year, to the lowest in 22 months. Producers outside China cut output after prices on the bourse slumped 13% last year. Demand will exceed supply by 136,000 metric tons this year, with the deficit widening to 504,000 tons next year, Bank of America Corp. estimates.”
With all that in mind, Matt has put his Real Wealth Trader readers in options on an aluminum producer with the potential to double or even triple in the next six months.
“When should you enter the market?” asks Byron King rhetorically, as he wraps up his musings about gold mining stocks.
“Is it too early? Too late for some ideas, even? Well, the fact is that we’ve had several strong investment points for gold and silver in the last six months. Right now, I think we might be due for a summer correction, although geopolitical events seem to be exploding all over the place.
“If there’s a downdraft to gold and silver prices, then you want to be involved in companies that can get their costs down faster than the market can beat down the price. But whatever happens day to day, I think metal prices will go up over the long term because of inflation.
“When it comes to picking companies in which to invest, you need to be willing to diversify across many ideas. While it’s great to put a lot of money into a couple of plays and see one or two do really well, that’s usually not the way life works. In the small-cap resource space in particular, you need to find six-10 quality plays — or more — and spread your investments around.”
[Ed. note: Byron is among the 23 resource investing experts who are identifying their favorite plays this week at the Sprott Vancouver Natural Resource Symposium. If you’re not in attendance, you can still secure a good deal on recordings of every session at the conference.
It’s a packed week: Among the other experts on hand — Frank Holmes and Rick Rule. The inimitable Doug Casey will no doubt have a few choice words. And Agora Inc. founder Bill Bonner will make a special remote appearance. You can hear it all… and for a very good price… by filling out this order form.]
By day’s end tomorrow, a bold experiment in affordable housing should be complete.
On Monday, workers began constructing a three-story apartment building made of… shipping containers.
The idea isn’t as out there as it might sound: Late in 2010, we chronicled the construction of container lodging for factory workers in China’s bustling Hainan province.
But in America?
Well, it’s Washington, D.C., we’re talking about — where the “Great Recession” never really took hold, thanks to the federal government’s perpetual growth. Housing is scarce. So a group of friends who met up at Catholic University recruited an architect professor and came up with the container concept.
Affordable housing, D.C. style…
“In a city of soaring rents,” says The Washington Post, “their experiment in lower-cost, faster-moving construction could lead to more affordable housing and, backers hope, even a floating village of sea-container apartments on the Potomac.”
And if you’re wondering, yes, it does meet code. Here’s the actual wording from Section 104.9.1: “The use of used materials which meet the requirements of the Construction Codes for new materials is permitted. Used equipment and devices shall not be reused unless approved by the code official.”
Who’da guessed?
“Amen to the comments from readers about your verbose sleaze,” reads the first in a barrage of emails after a fellow wrote in yesterday. He revived the periodic fury over the “long-winded presentations” we use to persuade you to buy more of our paid products.
“Frankly,” says another, “I now skip all ads with links because I know that they are just another exercise in hyperbole that will consume 30 or more minutes of my time — 29 minutes of which are required just to get to the point.”
“At least a half-dozen times,” writes a third, “I’ve clicked on what looked like a very interesting, promising link, only to give up in frustration 30 minutes or more later after the darn video still hadn’t gotten to the point. I’ve stopped opening any of the links because it really is a terrible waste of time trying to get to the one bit of interesting information that was the lure. I can’t call it bait-and-switch, because there isn’t even a switch…there is just blah…blah…blah.”
“I too,” a fourth piles on, “am very frustrated by how long it takes to order something, such as the Hidden Oil Riches Roadmap by Byron King. It is quite an ordeal. I almost gave up. I did not read so long because I wanted to, but because I thought the goal would be worthwhile. It should not take so long.”
“Ditto to what your other reader opined,” chimes in a fifth, “about your epically long snoozers… er, marketing videos/transcripts. Fact is, they are an insult to a person’s intelligence, and time (is money) to conscript a person in laconic reveries & diatribes. One gleans a picture of well-heeled old farts with furrowed brows, on sumptuous couches, drinks in hand, held spellbound by every word, but most of us don’t need the warm-&-fuzzies, hand-holding or self-absorption.”
The 5: Here’s the thing. The 5 is emailed only to people who’ve bought something from us here at Agora Financial.
So if you came on board anytime after, say, mid-2010, it’s almost a sure thing you came to us by responding to one of those “laconic reveries and diatribes” in the first place. Strange…
“Dave, I wonder how many times you have to hear from your readers that they are no longer reading or listening to your excessively long sales pitches,” another reader writes. “I still receive your 5 Min. Forecast but find myself reading it less and less because you and your organization have slowly lost credibility with me.
“If you don’t pay attention to these sorts of complaints, I’m sure you are doomed to continue doing what you are doing until one day, too late, you find that you have not only wasted our collective time but you’ve lost the readership you are so confident you have locked up.”
The 5: On the contrary, we never take it for granted that we’ve “locked up” anyone. We have to earn your trust and loyalty anew every day.
If we see response to the presentation format start to drop off, believe you us, we’ll experiment with something else. The marketplace can be fickle, but we do our level best to keep up.
“It is not just a situation where your videos are far too long. Reading the transcripts takes perhaps 20 minutes per link too,” writes the fellow who got this whole thing started yesterday.
“I can assure you that it is a very lonely person who will sit and read or watch any of your links to its entirety. This is marketing madness, a huge waste of time, and is like crying wolf. After a few clicks on interesting articles, most of us know not to bother anymore, as you will never get to the point.”
“If you can’t put it on ONE page,” adds our final correspondent, “I don’t have time to read it and you don’t know how to edit something. I think there are more of us out there who would buy more of your stuff that way — ONE page, try it, please.”
The 5: We have. It doesn’t sell. Be a lot easier for us if it did…
Best regards,
Dave Gonigam
The 5 Min. Forecast
P.S. Look for your first “roving reporter” dispatch from the Sprott Vancouver Natural Resource Symposium later today. For the rest of the week, you’ll get a daily missive straight from the conference floor, laying out some of the most profitable insights from the experts on the podium.
Of course, to get an even better grip how to profit from the rebound in resource investments, you want to listen to the audio recordings from every session. They’re available all this week at a discounted rate… and you don’t even have to watch a “boring, long-winded presentation” to take advantage.