If I may paraphrase "The American President": "These are security measures that have no hope of providing security"...Jello Biafra, in his first album with the Melvins, "Never Breathe What You Can't See", also harps on this subject in the song "The Lighter Side of Global Terrorism"...
In reply, I would like to bring to light the primary fact: as a college junior, he represents that he wishes to have some money after college, with no time frame stated. Therefore, I'm working under the assumption he wants to have a sort of liquid reserve immediately after graduation (which is either 2 or 4 years away, I assume also). Most of the posts I have read (and, admittedly, I have not read all the posts) focus on long-term investing and not necessarily what his financial goals are. Couple decisions that you need to make first and foremost. First, do you plan on staying in the area, moving, or undecided after you graduate? Second, do you plan on getting a job in your chosen field immediately upon graduation? These will both primarily affect your decision on investment vehicle. If you are undecided on location, or are certain you are leaving the area, then real estate is a potentially a poor choice in the current economy (depending upon your area, obviously). In addition, with interest rates on the rise, the stock market may not be the best choice either as the majority of your short-term (again, I am assuming we are talking about a window of 2 to 6 years or so) appreciation on stocks will come from growth stocks, which are generally driven by investment and, hence, negatively affected by rising interest rates. Therefore, if it's liquidity you are looking for along with relatively short-term appreciation and less risk than growth stocks, I would suggest either investing in a mutual fund targetting income stocks (such as a Dow Jones index fund) - these are also generally no load - or non-coupon bonds or bond funds (see the following for a description of bonds) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bond_(finance). And, as always, NO CREDIT CARD DEBT!!!!
In the book "This Business of Music", by M. William Krasilovsky, there is a very poignant flowchart/diagram. In this diagram, it shows in a nutshell how music goes from the artist to the consumer/fan. The bottleneck within this diagram was, not surprisingly, the distribution channels - where the music goes from the manufacturer to the stores/wholesellers. The major distribution chains, at least within the US, are essentially owned and operated by the major music companies. That is the real reason the RIAA and record companies are so concerned, because a large portion of the markup between the artist to the consumer falls in the distribution chain. Therefore, whoever controls the distribution of music essentially controls the elasticity of supply/demand and, therefore, can potentially move pricing. In addition, and to paraphrase from memory, when Radio was first developed, the music industry was concerned that allowing people to listen to music for free would destroy the music publishing industry (i.e. the printing and selling of sheet music). Then, the creation of the recordable, blank cassette tape was supposed to destroy the music industry. And so on...There is no argument that either the RIAA or the recording industry can use that will disprove the simple fact that they are ultimately only concerned for their own pocketbooks, not those of the artists themselves.
Slashdot Mirror
If I may paraphrase "The American President": "These are security measures that have no hope of providing security"...Jello Biafra, in his first album with the Melvins, "Never Breathe What You Can't See", also harps on this subject in the song "The Lighter Side of Global Terrorism"...
In reply, I would like to bring to light the primary fact: as a college junior, he represents that he wishes to have some money after college, with no time frame stated. Therefore, I'm working under the assumption he wants to have a sort of liquid reserve immediately after graduation (which is either 2 or 4 years away, I assume also). Most of the posts I have read (and, admittedly, I have not read all the posts) focus on long-term investing and not necessarily what his financial goals are. Couple decisions that you need to make first and foremost. First, do you plan on staying in the area, moving, or undecided after you graduate? Second, do you plan on getting a job in your chosen field immediately upon graduation? These will both primarily affect your decision on investment vehicle. If you are undecided on location, or are certain you are leaving the area, then real estate is a potentially a poor choice in the current economy (depending upon your area, obviously). In addition, with interest rates on the rise, the stock market may not be the best choice either as the majority of your short-term (again, I am assuming we are talking about a window of 2 to 6 years or so) appreciation on stocks will come from growth stocks, which are generally driven by investment and, hence, negatively affected by rising interest rates. Therefore, if it's liquidity you are looking for along with relatively short-term appreciation and less risk than growth stocks, I would suggest either investing in a mutual fund targetting income stocks (such as a Dow Jones index fund) - these are also generally no load - or non-coupon bonds or bond funds (see the following for a description of bonds) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bond_(finance). And, as always, NO CREDIT CARD DEBT!!!!
In the book "This Business of Music", by M. William Krasilovsky, there is a very poignant flowchart/diagram. In this diagram, it shows in a nutshell how music goes from the artist to the consumer/fan. The bottleneck within this diagram was, not surprisingly, the distribution channels - where the music goes from the manufacturer to the stores/wholesellers. The major distribution chains, at least within the US, are essentially owned and operated by the major music companies. That is the real reason the RIAA and record companies are so concerned, because a large portion of the markup between the artist to the consumer falls in the distribution chain. Therefore, whoever controls the distribution of music essentially controls the elasticity of supply/demand and, therefore, can potentially move pricing. In addition, and to paraphrase from memory, when Radio was first developed, the music industry was concerned that allowing people to listen to music for free would destroy the music publishing industry (i.e. the printing and selling of sheet music). Then, the creation of the recordable, blank cassette tape was supposed to destroy the music industry. And so on...There is no argument that either the RIAA or the recording industry can use that will disprove the simple fact that they are ultimately only concerned for their own pocketbooks, not those of the artists themselves.