One of the great things about the United States is that the owner of a piece of land owns whatever is underneath it. Thus, if you strike oil in your backyard, it is yours to sell, lease, borrow, or develop. Conversely, if you sell the land, then the new owner has the rights to any minerals.

In fact, only in the United States do private investors own a patch of property all the way to the center of the earth and into the sky. In this sense, real estate truly is the basis of all wealth. It includes everything on the land (buildings and structures), over the land (air rights), and under the land (minerals, oil, gas, water, thermal energy, etc.).

In Texas and Oklahoma, things get even better. In these two states, the ownership of the land and the ownership of the minerals can be separated. In other words, you can buy a piece of land, split off the minerals, sell the land without the minerals, and then go about mining the minerals, even though you no longer own the land. And in Texas, mineral rights are perpetual. These rights are the icing on the cake.

Baen has shaped mineral rights into an art form, and the icing on the cake (the mineral potential) has become the cake. The cost of drilling an exploratory well to see if there is any oil or gas can be enormous—millions of dollars. However, oil companies are willing to do this free of charge to you and give you a small percentage (12 to 25 percent royalty) of the output of the well should it be productive, in return for you giving them the contract to drill on your mineral rights, even if it is no longer your land.

Baen sits on many oil and mineral rights all over Texas. Some still need to be drilled to see if the wells will be productive. Some have been drilled and turned out to be dry (although new technology introduced by oil companies in the past five years ensures that some 90 percent of wells drilled these days are productive).

And others are quietly producing oil or gas with no overheads to Baen—no leaking roofs, tenant complaints, or other challenges associated with conventional commercial real estate investment.

I, too, have become an oil man, and while my income from this operation may not be spectacular, I get a certain satisfaction knowing that my share of oil that is pumped out of the ground is far greater than the oil I consume in vehicles.

So where should you look for accurate information? Well, the best sources are private economists and independent analysts. They have been warning people of impending problems for many years.

]]> /be-smarter-than-government-officials-%e2%80%93-outwit-the-crisis/feed/ 0 /how-to-find-a-reputable-payday-loan-company/ /how-to-find-a-reputable-payday-loan-company/#comments Fri, 21 Nov 2008 14:13:01 +0000 admin http://www.estatescommerce.com/how-to-find-a-reputable-payday-loan-company/ The most essential part in finding a reputable payday loan company is to do as much research as possible and get all of the information you can. The United States Truth in Lending Act was created to make credit providers to give complete disclosure on their loans in regards to interest rates, fees, loan terms, and other items. This applies to credit card companies and all payday loan companies. They are obliged by both federal and state law to provide you with all information you would request.
Try using the web and examine various reviews of all of the sites. There are many payday loan sites present in the Internet and every one of them gives you something a little bit different. Use the internet to look for these sites and examine closely everything that they have to offer. However, that will usually not suffice. Additionally, you should consider consulting reviews from people you know and, more importantly, from some people that you trust. If someone in your immediate family has used a loan corporation, ask them about the sort of rates they paid. What is more, you should find out the attitudes of the company they used and how reliable that company might have been.
Finding a reputable company is the most important thing you can do. If you pick a good payday loan company, all of the other elements will fall into the right places. You will have the possibility to benefit from better rates, lower fees, and have the peace of mind that in typically associated with taking a loan from a good credit source.

You might ask why would anyone recommend buying stocks at times like these? As a matter of fact, I believe that now is one of the best times ever to invest in stocks. Here’s why.

In his now classic book Stocks for the Long Run, Jeremy Siegel explains that stock market returns are extremely stable over a longer period of time and outperform every other asset class in the long run. In spite of huge social, political and economic upheavals over the last two centuries, stock market returns have proven to be very predictable in the long run. Through two world wars and multiple other conflicts, through the great depression, Black Monday, terrorist attacks and all kinds of natural disasters, the long term payback provided by owning stock has been predictable and consistent.

It may look like the end of the world to you, but it is not true. Eventually, the economy will recover, the market will recover and stocks will follow their predictable path.

1. If you look for mortgage quotes from a well-known lender, your information is absolutely safe. You do not have to go to every Tom, Dick and Harry on the web to find good mortgage opportunities – stay with the brands you know you can trust. Their online security will be state of the art and you will get much better home mortgage information by shopping around.
2. Quick Processing – Online mortgage institutions are not restricted by the same home loan procedures as large local banks. They have turned loan processing automation into an art form, therefore they are able to take you from application to closing in virtually no time.
3. Low Rates – Online mortgage companies and home loan specialists have access to such a variety of lenders and rates that they will most likely find a program that is suitable for every client’s needs.

How safe is all this plastic?

Cash has its apparent advantages.  When you buy a sandwich for $2.95 and you give the cashier a $5 bill, you know he didn’t cheat you when he hands you $2.05 right then and there.  However, when you give your card to a waitress at the local restaurant, how can you be sure she hasn’t taken a moment to sneak into the office and copy your card number and signature?  You don’t, and the effects of such question are having a serious impact on credit card firms and the companies they do business with.

So what are the credit card companies doing about it?

In response to such problems, the well-known credit card companies have devised more secure methods to do business. MasterCard International and Visa got together and developed a set of guidelines called the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards.  This is a list of twelve guidelines that imposes strict regulations on all transactions occurring between the card company and the merchants it makes business with.  Although these standards have been present since 2005, merchants need some time to catch up to them.  Nevertheless, last year there has been clear improvement, and both credit card companies have stepped up their tactics to the point where merchants might be witnessing losses of service should they not fall in line soon.  (You can familiarize yourself with the 12 guidelines and the details of this plan on the homepages of Visa or MasterCard.)

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