Well, German bonds are probably going to be very stable, though the Mark no longer exists, so it couldn't switch over to the Mark. Forex is very risky though. I'd hardly call it a good place to invest your earnings. Try a mutual fund specializing in Southeast Asia or Latin America. Those are probably the best bets. If you want something that will be steady long term, transport companies, shipping lines all offer dividends as well as some stock growth. It really depends what you want and what length investment you're talking about

If you have some cash to play with, real estate has become an excellent play in some of the depressed parts of the US. I live in Southern California, where property prices have fallen 40-70% from where they were 4 or 5 years ago. If I had $200,000, I'd immediately pay off my condo, buy two more in the same complex for cash, and have a comfortable (but not extravagant) living off the rental income for the foreseeable future. In Nevada, the ownership-to-rental-cost differential is even higher. Real estate has pretty well bottomed out here (and, I imagine, elsewhere) since the banks stopped lending a few years ago. Most of the transactions where I am are for cash, so the prices can't get much lower than they are now. If you have money burning a hole in your pocket, I'd say real estate is the way to go at the moment - people are always going to need a place to live, no matter how down the Wall Street pirates are on this particular industry at the moment. And unlike bonds, you don't have to worry as much about a government deciding to default and unilaterally declaring that your investment is suddenly worth 20% of what you paid.

$200 will buy you a nice explanation.

My bank account is a good place to start. You might lose out initially but if the market is volatile, you'll have comfort in knowing that your money isn't going to waste.

Golden guns.

Gold and guns.

Invest in a new personality.

Be fair, Putin. You tried that and it was an unqualified disaster.

Yes but I had bad advice.

Surely golden guns is funnier than gold and guns. Don't pull a Dane Cook orathiac, by which I mean stealing a joke and making it less funny.

Tettleton, Beck said yesterday to stock up on gold, soup cans and MREs. I figured that might help you.

When TV personalities start telling you to invest in something, that is a sure sign the market has peaked and it's time to get out.

Who watches TV for investment advice? You Tolstoy? I suggest reading peer reviewed journals to develop your own baseline.
Invest in a personal subscription to J-Stor and realize that TV investment advice is for the Putin's of the world.

I don't like gold at all Eden. Spending time selecting good equities, bonds, and keeping a nice cash margin is my plan at the moment. 40-40-20 mix in that order. Glen Beck is still on TV?
I'm much more worried about deflation than inflation. QE II ends in five days.
Where is supply going to come from?
I'll trust Say's Law. You can keep your idiotic Keynesian-government spending lunancy.

Goldfinger, the "Mark" is the name of any German central bank currency that replaces the Euro once the Euro fails.

Green energy! Or any other technology that's going to dominate our economy in the future.

Is global warming real or not? I don't care, but green energy is a horrible investment.
The only thing driving demand is government subsidies.
I refuse personally to invest in any industry that relies on federal subsidies for the majority of it's demand.
I drive a hybrid because of the cost of gas.
That is about as green as I'm going to get with any of my investment cash.

Gruppo Campari isn't a bad pick. They own Austin Nichols & Co. and world wide demand for good bourbons, Wild Turkey in this instance, is growing. Wild Turkey just began production in a brand new distillery that can produce twice as much as the old plant.

Don't believe me? Research it yourself and crank up that Scott trade account.

Give it to an investor, and make sure he doesn't take too much of your profits.

Vanguard index funds if that is your angle.

Well, Tettle, I don't believe the Euro will collapse, and there will almost never be deflation due to the central banks taking action. The deflation of money causes hoarding and contributed to the Great Depression, so they won't ever let that happen. I believe the worst recent deflation was January '09 and that was -0.1% I believe if I remember the stats correctly.

But I say put it in mutual funds instead of individual stocks. If you go for stocks, pick food companies and shipping companies. Those are going to make the most money over the next few years because many Americans only have money for food (this is of course if you choose American corporations). For bonds, i say choose municipal bonds from NYC or some other large metro area that isn't likely to default on them.

Goldfinger, all credible viewpoints. What about Robert Schiller's statement that home prices could fall another 10%-25%? Japan's real estate prices fell for fifteen straight years after their real estate bubble burst in 1990. 27% of homeowners are underwater today. If prices continue declining how many more people lose their homes and if they don't see their consumer spending drastically curtailed? More foreclosures means even more downside pressure and lower prices. It's is exactly the vicious cycle that you pointed out from the Great Depression. The biggest investment for so many Americans is their home, and so many people can ill afford a reduction in their homes value. Lower home prices could kill demand that could lead to broader deflationary pressures. The Fed keeps buying bonds, but who is borrowing? Consumers credit from banks has dried up significantly, 25% less than 2008 and that is a huge number. More reduction in demand. The fed can keep buying bonds, but who is spending the cheap money the fed is flooding into the economy?
The public union pension and benefit liabilities that all large cities are facing and the enormous portions of those pension liabilities that are not properly funded means I'm not going near Munis at the present. There are some good corporate paper opportunities. A couple of years ago Ford had some sweeeeeeeeeeeet deals when they were refinancing right before the meltdown hit.
I love short-term bonds, 18 months or less. I like Aussie bonds, German bonds, South Korean bonds. I thinking about Icelandic too. Iceland refused to bail out their banks and I trust any nation's bonds that had the guts to let banks fail instead of sticking it to the taxpayers. Excellent advice on food companies. I'll start reading up on ratios, management teams, debt levels, and internal investment of individual companies. I think that Grupo Campari falls into this category even though they supply liquid food so to speak.
I want to focus on products that are popular in Asia and Latin America among the emerging middle class there because that groups spending is growing faster than any other groups spending. Don't look now but tobacco sales are exploding in those areas even as they tank in the US/Canada and western Europe. Poland is an excellent area for investment too. I still like putting short-term money (18 months or less) into individual stocks. Everything long range belongs to a Vanguard fund.

Old Baseball cards

or new(ish) magic cards

@ Tettleton: "Is global warming real or not?"

It's real.

Can cutting C02 emissions stop global warming?

Nope.

Green energy is a tricky beast, dominated by popular opinion and whatever the celebs of the hour are interested in. I wouldn't touch it with a 10 ft barge pole

Cutting CO2 emissions will *help*.

In terms of pure investment, you may be right that it's not a safe investment currently.

The stock market can fuck off anyway.

I received $400 for some of my old baseball cards. It's such a pain to turn them into cash. Dealers want to pay a wholesale price. Finding a private party and getting cash is always problematic. There are so many more liquid ways to invest. I'm trying to build a complete Topps 1967 set just for nostalgia, but that's it.