Too bad she didn't sit tight. IIRC, the market was under 3,000 in 1987. It's almost 13,000 today.
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I think the risk three fold:
1) There could be "degree" bubble - not necessarily an education bubble, so the value of the degree won't justify its cost. I.e., students get screwed. It's like having bought a house that is now underwater. Although one gets to pay it off with devalued dollars, that same person still lost a shitload of money.
2) After "1)", if the perceivied value of education drops, so might the tuition and legions of professors and administators could be laid off. That may not be a bad thing for the dead weight out there.
3) You suffer as we all do for unaffordable debt and all we might suffer in a currency collapse. lol?
But from just the student perspective, your attitude might be OK. Like Seraphim wrote, you need to make sure the degree is worth it (state-licensed doctor, bar-certified lawyer, professional engineer, gubblemint edumacator, et cetera).
True. So, if gold was $500 in 1988, and it's worth $1740 now....and the stock market was at ....say...2300 in 1988 (I am just guessing - I don't remember exactly when the recovery happened) and it's worth 12,900 now...
I think the market was the better investment.
You almost have to. Unless you've the the entrepreneurial spirit, you won't be able to get many jobs. We already have a record number of college graduates working as wait staff in restaurants. Why should an employer hire a high school graduate when he can get a college grad for the same money?
I think the key is balancing the portfolio. Metals, stocks, real estate....I think bonds are off my list right now because the interest rates are crap. CDs used to be another fixed income option, but again with the interest rates.
All of these things are good to have even if we do go through a period of massive or even hyperinflation.
WE can pick all kinds of dates. Some will show one doing better over the selected time period, some showing the other doing better. It is difficult to do comparisons prior to 1972 though since the price of gold in dollars was set by the government- not the market.
If we want to look at the other extreme, start four years later with 1980 and end in 2001. Gold went down from $850 to $250. The Dow Jones was also about 850 that year but rose to over 10,000 by 2001. Which did better?- stocks by a huge amount.
Time to whip out the Ron Paul warnings so we can wave them all over the statists faces and say "HE TOLD YOU SO MOTHAFUCKA!"
No, that's not my question. You look to all recorded history to back up your claim that "gold is the best store of value", do you ever look to all history for any other kind of advice? Such as "for all of history home ownership, tv ownership, internet usage was either rare or non existent, therefore these all be non-necessities"?
Is going to college necessary to land programming/developing jobs or can getting certificates cut it? Wondering if going to school is worth it.
for a minute I thought you meant land developer, but no, I don't think programming and coding jobs require a college degree, here's why :
The recent rise in demand of programmers and coders are for UX/UI, Objective C (iPhone apps), Java (Android apps), so if you can find a way to learn it, secure a few gigs, build your portfolio, you're more employable than a person with a degree but no experience. The experience is the hard part, getting somebody to trust, and pay you. Paying to get a college degree is easier, in that you can control your time and money if you're willing to do it.
where is the option to use my social security funds to pay off other federal debts?
There are a few options for programmers.
If you are smart and a whiz kid, you should take a bunch of online tutorials and learn how to program on your own. Then go on freelancers.com and find jobs and make money on your own (go check out what is in demand and what pays the most to determine what languages to learn).
Also, if you are a whiz kid you can get your foot in the door helping out at a small company learning and programming from the ground up and you will gain the experience you need and you can stay in the private sector and grow easily. You may need to go get a cert just to get your foot in the door as a temp or something along those lines.
Then there are your two options of being an independent contractor or having a salary. An independent contractor gets paid more per hour but you are constantly looking for your next job so you have the job of acquiring contracts and the job of a programmer. If you can do both, more power to you and if you are steadily employed you will do well. But companies have people working full time to get the next contracts so it is no minor task.
On the salary end you will likely need a college degree. The degree is usually a lazy way for a manager to weed out the applicants and matching degree and experience they will determine your salary.
If you just want something stable with a steady paycheck (and you are a good kid, no trouble), you can go work for a defense contractor and make a decent salary. The biggest thing in that arena is your degree. The government actually pays the contractor based on your degree, so having one and perhaps going for your Masters is beneficial (even if you do not learn much in college, the degree is all that matters). Also, this comes with getting a security clearance. If you can get a clearance, you bump up your salary and job stability significantly. It makes it so that you will not lose your job to foreigners and kids like you fresh out of college that can probably do everything you can do, having the latest tools and work for half your salary.
I chose the latter route...my income is steady. I have also stepped that up a bit and worked in a war zone which bumps up your salary significantly (almost 3 times).
But I am now learning the hard fact that there is a salary ceiling for programmers. Above that ceiling is management where there is no ceiling. It also comes with a lot more stress, responsibility and you do not get the small joy of creating something from your own work (though a manager may argue that by telling the programmers what to code, they have created it).
Hope that helps.