Bill Gates dumps dollar for euro ... ?

[obnoxiousdrunk]

The dollar’s downward trend has not been broken since I wrote a column about the subject in December. (link) In fact, the trend seems to be accelerating. Bill Gates openly stated yesterday he is pulling out of the dollar and is instead investing in euros. Microsoft’s co-founder has made many mistakes in the past (I write this on an Apple computer, so I may be biased), but this is a wise move, indeed. He’s probably not the last one to pull out of the U.S. currency.

Bill Gates, whose net worth of $46.6 billion makes him the world’s richest person, is betting against the U.S. dollar.

“I’m short the dollar,” Gates, chairman of Microsoft Corp., told Charlie Rose in an interview late yesterday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “The ol’ dollar, it’s gonna go down.”

http://www.sebimeyer.com/?p=1229

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. I figure this trend will continue

I'm just waiting until China decides to call in the chips.....

[hogwyld]

7. Warren Buffett...

George Soros, and many other people a lot smarter than me are also betting against America. They have access to a lot more information than I, and thus know that we are all doomed.

[ProfessorGAC]

10. Buffet Barely Moved Anything

He moved under $400 million to Euros. Given that's only 1% of what he has, i don't think he's betting against. Just expanding his portfolio. That's what he does, and he's pretty darned good at it.
The Professor

[SteppingRazor]

2. Does this mean we'll invade Seattle, capture Gates...

and put him on trial? :evilgrin:

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

5. Where have I heard that before? n/t

[tjwash]

3. The rats are abandoning the sinking ship.

Mission accomplished by the neo-cons. They are succeeding in turning the United States into Mexico.

[Tace]

4. The Gates Story Is From January

[swag]

13. It sure is, and the dollar has actually strengthened quite a bit since

then. If Gates went short on the dollar when $1.30 of it bought a Euro (roughly where it was when he made his remarks), he has lost some money now that it takes less than $1.20 to buy a Euro.

[hogwyld]

6. Our death spiral

The world is fed up with us and our policies. Once China and Japan make the move, the Great Depression of the '30s will look like a walk in the park. Starving, homeless people will have no recourse but to begin a new revolution. Batten down the hatches, it's going to get pretty rough.

[Lasher]

8. I'm doing the same

I'm no Bill Gates, that's for sure. But in my own humble way I'm doing the same. For years I've stuck mostly to S&P 500 based mutual funds for my stock investments. Anticipating a continued downward trend of the US dollar, however, I have been moving away from dollar-based investments.

On 2/11/05 I invested equal amounts in an S&P 500 index fund, and in an international (non-US) stock mutual fund. To date I have made 1.22% on the S&P index fund and 6.81% on the international fund.

I will continue this migration away from US stocks, as my outlook for the US economy continues to be dismal. Regardless of who is in charge in the future, it would take a very long time to straighten out this mess that Dubya and his Republican majority have created.

[rucky]

9. Here's how you can do it, too:

www.paypal.com

you can keep an (interest-bearing) account in Euros and change back in a click... pounds and Yen, too, if you're feeling saucy.

[Javaman]

11. I'm brain dead on these things...

Can you explain how it works with paypal?

[rucky]

12. ok, you sign up for an account

and transfer some money from your existing bank account to your Paypal money market account.

There it sits. They issue you a debit card & you earn competitive interest rates - just like a regular savings account. The difference is, under "account settings" you can assign which currency you want to hold your money in (they also give the exchange rates they're working off of). You can do a combination of diferent currencies when they ask you how much of your cash you want to convert.

Then, when you check your account, your balance displays - itemized by whatever currencies you're saving in. You're safe as long as your currency is strong against the dollar. When you need to liquidate, you can go back to the dollar at whatever the exchange rate may be at the time.

Did that make more sense?

[Javaman]

14. yes, very much so, thanks!