Commercial Loans and Fun Blog

Retirement Plan In a moment I am going to introduce you to three self-directed IRA custodians, but first I have some disturbing news coming out of China.

Alibaba is China's largest internet retailer. You can think of Alibaba as the Amazon.com of China. Jack Ma is their President, and he is very much the peer of our Jeff Bezos. Jack Ma is a very smart guy.

Starbucks

Mr. Ma said today that there is no solution to the trade war taking place between China and the U.S. The trade negotiators will be unsuccessful, and this trade war will last for 20 years. It will still continue long after President Trump has left office. In Jack Ma's opinion, the world will end up getting divided up into two huge trading blocs.

Also disturbing was an announcement by China that it would indeed be retaliating against the U.S. for this latest round of tariffs. Okay, we knew that; but what sent a chill down my spine was the comment, "... at a time of our own choosing."

In my last blog article, I explained that China's last remaining economic bullet was to suddenly devalue the yuan by 25%. This would almost completely neutralize the 25% tariff that Trump has promised to impose on Chinese goods in about three weeks.

Such a sudden and dramatic devaluation of the yuan would likely lead to a crash in the U.S. stock markets. Why? Suddenly, across the globe, Chinese goods would be 25% cheaper. U.S. companies selling overseas would see their sales and profits crumble.

Afford Food

"... at a time of our own choosing. How about one week before the elections in November? There is nothing like 20% to 30% sell-off in the stock market to ensure that the Republicans lose both houses. Impeachment suddenly has the votes.

You will recall that I have sold every penny of equities in our company pension plan, my 401k, and my IRA.

Bad Guys Nose

Now let's talk about using your IRA to make investments other than those sold by stock brokers. If you have a self-directed IRA, you can invest in real estate, partnerships, trust deeds, coin collections, physical gold and silver, and even art.

An IRA is, by definition, a bank account. A number of banks have therefore set up fee-based custodial trust accounts, and the bank, as custodian for your IRA, holds title to the assets. If you want to invest in first trust deeds, the following three self-directed IRA custodians will serve you very well: