The Saving and Investing Forum

We are pleased to announce the launch of the saving and investing forum. The idea behind the forum is to provide a place to share ideas and thoughts regarding markets, securities and opportunities from around the world. We value all contributions - but also very much encourage specialists in particular areas (for example residential real estate in Australia) to share their views and provide insights. It can also be a great way for these experts to show their presence.

Markets globally are increasingly quite integrated - the more views and the more thoughts we have, the more useful the forum. And for those firms or individuals that want to stand above the crowd in a certain area, it is a great way to make themselves known to the world.

The forum can be reached either via the main savingandinvesting.com site, or via savingandinvestingforum.com.

Make your views heard and make yourself visible - join the forum.

Great Places to get Market Info

There are some great places to get information on what is going on in stock and bond markets, as well as in the overall economy. Some great ones include:

- Bloomberg.com
- Google Finance
- Ft.com
- The economist
- thestreet.com
- Barron's/WSJ (subscription)

There are many more, but there is so much information that can in fact be had without even paying for it.

Affiliation with Taxcafe

We are very pleased to announce an affiliation with Taxcafe - a leading provider of up-to-date tax information in an easy to read and easy to understand format.

When it comes to saving and investing, the fact is that governments do not want a large group of 60-65 year-olds that are reliant on handouts and begging for money to survive. Therefore, governments in developed countries and even most 'emerging' ones, put in place tax incentives and ways of putting aside money that makes it interesting to do so. For example, the government might allow tax-free compounding of money, contribution to a pension and avoiding all tax on that contribution, or no tax on capital gain of a primary residence etc. These tax incentives are put in place as they are deemed beneficial for the country and its individuals as a whole.

Most of these incentives are fairly straightforward and governments expend a lot of time and money to 'market' them as well - as do banks. Nontheless, for specific tax planning - advice and informing oneself can be hugely advantageous. Finding out what it possible - and therefore legal. That is where Taxcafe comes in - easy and simple guides covering specific topics such as family tax, business tax and property taxes.

Because these laws change from time to time, we wanted to have an affiliation with a dedicated tax expert that stays on top of this permanently. To visit the Taxcafe bookshop, click here:

http://www.taxcafebooks.co.uk/index.php?id=11195


Happy tax saving!

savingandinvesting.com

Aging Populations and Globalisation

There are a number of reasons why there is a strong argument over the medium to long-term to invest in what are commonly known as emerging markets. One of them is that these countries - like Brazil, Malaysia and India have younger populations - populations that can produce more goods, that contribute to GDP more so than older ones, and populations that are working to make it up the ladder and accumulating assets. This is one of the reasons why over the coming 50 years, these young populations are expected to contribute greatly to the world's growth. Furthermore, they are expected to own an increasing amount of the world's assets. Trade between the faster growing countries is a key element of keeping both sides in check - younger poulations produce and buy assets, and older ones consume and sell assets. These are generalisations but there are clearly differences betwen the Europe and the US of today (older) versus the Europe and the US of 50 years ago (younger). The fact that this is the case, serves to contrast also what might be happening in the younger regions of today.

Welcome!

Welcome to the savingandinvesting.com blog. This is a place where we are going to add posts concerning topics that relate to saving and investing - discussion of current issues, further elaboration on certain topics that are covered in the book 'Saving and Investing', as well as any new initiatives.

Welcome and first post should be there soon!