Just Simply Holly

It saddens me to see the path our country is taking. I seen example after example of how bad our economy is during my recent road trip. Gas prices are ridiculous! When we left NW Ohio, the average price of a gallon of gas was $4.09. As soon as we crossed into Indiana it dropped to around $3.89. For most of the rest of the trip the average price for a gallon of gas ran between $3.79 and $3.95, with one small station outside of Las Vegas advertising the lowest price we seen of $3.59. It wasn’t until we got into California that gas prices went back up over the $4.00 a gallon price.

Throughout many of the areas that we drove we noticed business after business that was closed and boarded up. Some areas seemed to flourish while others seemed to be virtual ghost towns with the majority of businesses no longer open.

I received a funny email from a friend the other day that included several funny cartoons about gas prices. One cartoon showed a man offering an arm with the person behind the counter saying “I’ll need your left leg too”, another showed a couple with a baby sitting at a desk and the man behind the desk was saying something like “And you have proof that this is your first born”. As cute as these cartoons were, they do somewhat reflect what the common person is going through right now.

Thousands upon thousands of families are struggling to make ends meet, and are often having to decide which bill to juggle until the next pay day. Many struggle to survive from paycheck to paycheck and don’t have the benefit of financial security from good investments through a futures broker. It’s sad to see the daily news stories about the unemployment rates going higher and higher, which go hand in hand with higher foreclosure rates and higher homeless rates. Yet our government continues to deny that this country is in a recession. What is it going to take to make them open their eyes and wake up?

Although I wouldn’t consider 42 as being “old”, I do think that at my age I really need to start planning better for the future. I’ve thought about making some small investments with some of my pay, but just have never been sure about how to invest or even what I should invest in. Stocks can get a bit crazy now and then, so investing in the stock market worries me. One of my friends told me that they recently decided to purchase some silver as an investment. This sounded interesting to me so I decided to look into it and see if it would be a good investment and I found some really net information!

For instance, if you decide to purchase sliver as an investment, the most common forms are silver coins and ingots. Unlike gold, silver is most commonly used as an industrial commodity and the industrial demand for silver has grown consistently over the past 30 years. Silver is also very commonly used in the manufacturing of many medical and health care products because of the fact that is has some very unique antibacterial characteristics. I was very amazed to find out that because of these characteristics in sliver it is often used to help prevent bacterial infections in burn victims by incorporating a layer of fabric that contains sliver into wound dressings.

So, from the viewpoint of someone who knows little to nothing about investments, silver sounds like something that is smart to invest in for many reasons.  Obviously, because the demand for it continues to increase, which in turns causes it’s value to increase.  But knowing that I’m also investing in something that also helps people medicinally is a plus for me!