"Well, first of all, I want a nice apartment. Timonium or Cockeysville, that area, two or three bedrooms, ground floor. A nice place, not some dump, you know? Maybe even a townhouse. I haven't got a clue what's available or the prices. Can you dig up a real estate agent or broker for me? Dangle the house or property sale in front of them, maybe they can help with the apartment."
"Well, I'll see what I can do. I haven't looked at that sort of thing in a few years either."
"Well, get in touch with Missy and Jake. Let them know I'm coming back, too. Maybe they'll have some ideas. Also, let them know I'm going to be spending some money in the near future. I'm going to buy a couple of new cars as well as the house or property. They need to know for taxes and stuff."
"Makes sense. Between the three of us, we can figure something out. When are you planning on moving?"
"Another week or so. I'm going to call a moving company today, get some pricing and timeframes, I don't think it will be this week, but if you can get me some answers by the end of the week, we can go from there.", I replied.
"Carl, when I was in the service, they had to move you and pay for it.", he commented.
"Yeah, but it's at their convenience, and only to my address of record, which is my frat house in Troy."
"Figures. Worse comes to worse, you can stay in a hotel for a few days while checking apartments, and then move in. You'll have to come up here anyway to look at property."
I promised to do that, as well as introduce him to Marilyn and Charlie. He agreed to set up a nice lunch date with the others, to introduce my family to them. I also called up both Missy and Jake, to let them know I was going to be writing some large checks in the near future (for some new cars, if nothing else) and to transfer some funds (Missy) and tell me the tax ramifications (Jake). Of course I told them about a lunch date also. Finally, I hung up and went to digging up a phone book to call some moving companies.
Marilyn and Charlie came home, and I gave her a quick synopsis of my results, and then dialed around for a moving company. I got somebody from the local Allied company to make an appointment to see me later that week. After that I made us lunch, Charlie got a bottle, he fell asleep afterwards, and Marilyn and I took a little nap of our own. Afterwards I pulled my pants back up and left her snoozing in the bedroom. I went out to the living room to think.
The Sixties and Seventies were one of the most turbulent times in American history, made more obvious by coming off one of the calmest and quietest periods. From about 1946 to 1960, the nation was quite peaceful. We were unquestionably the strongest nation in the world, and nobody messed with us. Oh, there was the Korean War, but compared to World War II, it was small potatoes, and never fully engaged the public. It wasn't even a war, just a 'police action', like we were out arresting the North Koreans and Chinese.
Domestically, the economy was booming. As the only great nation in the world not rebuilding from the utter devastation of the war, every American who wanted a job could find one. Things were quiet and happy, or at least it seemed that way at the time. For a fifteen year period the country was governed by a pair of presidents, Truman and Eisenhower, who were quiet and unassuming and relatively popular.
The next two decades were totally different. My parents' generation raised a bunch of spoiled brats, the Baby Boomers, who rebelled against everything their parents stood for. Suddenly we were back at war, a big war, an unpopular war, that allowed huge numbers of rich white kids to avoid serving. There was an explosion of drugs, some good and some bad. The Pill allowed women to control their bodies and enter the work force in growing numbers, but totally altering the social landscape in doing so. Recreational drugs like marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and LSD exploded onto the scene and into mainstream communities. Urban violence hit new highs. All the minorities - blacks, women, even the gays - started mouthing off and demanding their rights.
It seemed like there was a war on everything. We got the War on Drugs, the War on Poverty, the War on Inflation, the War on Cancer - we were fighting everybody and anybody. Riots in urban areas were common, as somebody was always fighting over something. We got new civil rights, women's liberation, anti-war violence - nobody was happy about anything. In a twenty year period we had five presidents. One was killed, the next two quit early, and the last two got voted out of office ignominiously.
And now we had entered the Eighties. To almost everyone's amazement, the nation calmed down. There were a lot of reasons, but one that nobody talked about was simply that my generation, the Baby Boomers, simply got tired of fighting everybody! By then we had husbands and wives and kids and jobs. Who has time to protest when they've got to go to the supermarket to pick up the groceries?
Politically, we saw the same thing. We only had two-and-a-half Presidents during this time (Bush 1 was generally considered to be Reagan's clone) and both were considered above average Presidents, although Reagan was loved and Clinton was detested. Economically, America was on a tear. The digital revolution hit everything, and the world center of anything electronic was the good ole' US of A! For almost 20 years investors made a solid 20% return in America. It was almost a golden age.
In retrospect, it was much like a roller coaster. After World War II, the nation had been on a pleasant but gentle glide. The Sixties and Seventies were a lot more like a very bumpy uphill climb, with lots of dips and scares. Then we hit the Eighties and Nineties, where we coasted on up to the very tip-top of the ride, and we all threw our hands in the air and went, "WHEEEEE!" Of course, everybody knows what happens next on the roller coaster, you get a sickening plunge into the abyss!
For right or wrong, Reagan proved to be one of the three most influential Presidents of the century. Teddy Roosevelt led the country to become a global power and broke the backs of the giant trusts and monopolies. A generation later it was his cousin Franklin who led us through a Depression and a World War. He also saddled us with the concept of Big Government - Social Security, jobs programs, and government regulation. All that succeeding administrations did was simply to add on to what FDR had already created to fight the Depression. Reagan came to office with the promise of limiting government. We needed to downsize drastically. Government wasn't the solution, government was the problem! Even though his success at taming the beast was limited, he spawned two generations of deep thinkers who ran wild with his beliefs, and ultimately led to the Tea Party and the demise of the central Federal government.
So what to do with my money? Where should I invest it? Just as important, what did the timing have to be? For the last couple of years, since the run-up with my accounts based on the silver bubble, most of my funds had been in fairly simple investments, some money market funds, and a few big cap stocks like Exxon and IBM. My only real startup, so to speak, was Intel, which I bought during the IPO. The boom, though, was about to start, and was set to go hog wild. I needed to think!
Wal-Mart was an obvious place to invest. So too was Hewlett-Packard. Buying ATT before the split in a few years was going to be a wise decision; after the split, over the next twenty years the Baby Bells and Ma Bell would go through umpteen different configurations, but ultimately would be much more valuable. Keep an eye out for the IPOs for Microsoft and Dell. Intel would capture the growth of the tech market. When biotech started getting big, pick up some Amgen and Genentech. Buy Pfizer at some point. Amazon and Ebay. Pick up Apple after they rehired Steve Jobs. Diversify. Dump anything tech related in 1999, except Apple, before the bubble burst. At some point in the future sell short on both Enron and Lehman Brothers. Dump everything by the summer of 2008, before the start of the Great Recession.