You know how you sometimes lose a few coins when you sit down somewhere, because the coins silently slip out of your pocket and hide themselves between the chair and the cushion? Not a big deal. You know how you sometimes see a transaction on your credit card statement, and you can’t remember what the money was spent on but that you did in fact spend the money yourself? Not a big deal. You know how you sometimes lose a receipt from the grocery store so you can’t remember exactly what you bought? Not a big deal.

A few years ago, Donald Rumsfeld admitted that the Pentagon had lost track of an estimated $2.3 trillion. That’s trillion with a “T”. That’s a big deal, wouldn’t you agree?

That much money is probably enough to wipe out a few known infectious diseases as well as rid the world of hunger. And they just “lost” it. More than a few people should go through their pockets, there’s bound to be at least a few billion in there somewhere. Have they checked under the cushions in all the chairs (which have cushions)? I’ll bet they’d find another billion or so…

Read more about it here.

Popularity: 98% [?]

There’s so much I hate about money. I hate the fact that money is what makes the world go round. Everything is ultimately about money. It makes me sick.

So the fact that I suddenly found myself fascinated by the stock market caught me completely by surprise.

Two or three years ago I suddenly got this urge to buy some stock - to invest in something so that I could eventually build a solid portfolio. If I did things right it would be much more rewarding than putting money in a savings account, and much more exciting. The only problem was: I had absolutely no money to invest. I was behind on every single bill. That was partly because I was trying out lots of different tools and services related to internet marketing, and buying lots of books and courses on internet marketing. I had planned to build a small online marketing empire. Needless to say, I had to choose between the two - I couldn’t do both. I didn’t want to quit the internet marketing game without having made any money so I postponed my investment plans.

That was a huge mistake.

Don’t get me wrong - I learned a LOT about marketing and building a business. I’m very confident that knowledge will serve me very well in the near future. However, I started reading some financial newspapers from time to time, and I started to keep an eye on various companies’ stock prices. Every once in a while I thought: “If I only had 10,000 kroner to invest in that company I’d do it in a heart beat.”. As it turns out, those thoughts would have made me a very wealthy man if I’d acted upon them.

One of the companies I wanted to invest in was a Norwegian company in the salmon industry. It was nearly bankrupt or something and the stock price was shifting from 0.03 to 0.04 kroner each day on the Oslo Stock Exchange. I was convinced that one of the elite finance moguls here in Norway would snap up this company and turn it around quickly. Sure enough, one of those great business men did exactly that, and the stock for that company was last traded for 7.91 kroner yesterday. If I had bought 10,000 kroner worth of stock in that company when I wanted to, those shares would be worth 1,977,500 kroner today.

Rats. Darn. Okay, here it comes… Shit.

Another company I really wanted to buy stock in when they announced they were going public was Google. Needless to say, that investment would have paid off nicely as well. I believe it’s still a very good idea to buy stock in Google today, as that company has only just gotten started… (And that says quite a bit.)

It’s fascinating, and to some degree terrifying, how some people can make a huge fortune by playing the stock market while others fail miserably at it and lose everything they have. I recently saw an interview with George Soros on TV. He made his fortune on the stock market. He started with $5,000 and is currently worth about $8.5 billion! He has long since abandoned the life of a financial speculator and investor and is now using his money to support human rights groups, among other things. Using the stock market he made his fortune grow by roughly 30% per year.

My first real venture into the world of stock investment has resulted in a 41% increase in the value of my portfolio for the first 9 months – so I’m on the right track ) However, it’s extremely unlikely that I’ll be able to do as well with the stocks I purchased during the last month. I’m still very optimistic though, and as strange as it is – it seems I know what I’m doing. How that came to be, I don’t know.

Now my main problem is this: I REALLY want to buy a MacBook Pro – and that would require me to sell all my stock. I really doubt it’s possible for me to double the value of my portfolio within the next couple of months, so I’ll either have to find the money somewhere else, or go ahead and sell all my stock, or postpone the purchase. I must admit I don’t like any of those alternatives.

Maybe I could start a brand new pyramid scheme! Seems to be all the rage these days. Then again, maybe not.

For the record: I still hate the fact that the world is ruled by money. However, until that changes it would be wise to make the most of what we’ve got. So I’ll try, while having some fun in the process (hopefully).

Popularity: 34% [?]