| Use cash to purchase: CD/GIC/bond - peanuts for income: below rate of inflation. After-tax (apart from tax-free muni, available only in U.S.) result is *way!* below inflation! Who wants to subsidize the borrower?? Mutual funds - recent heavy drops in price levels, continuing. Manager dines on some of it, annually. Anyone interested in shrinking dollars?? Stocks - pretty well the same game (but there's no fund manager to eat part of the value). Anyone interested in shrinking dollars? Real estate - the foreclosure rate being what it is ... are prices about to stop dropping any time soon? To say nothing of developing anything resembling an advance! Gold - purchase, assay, shipping, storage costs ... maybe insurance (if available) ... apply. Provides no ongoing income. When you sell ... shipping, assay, brokerage costs apply. You'd better hope that there's a major advance in price in the meantime!
_________________ Take your choice! All of the above said ... I generally prefer to own stuff myself, rather than lending my money to another entity ... ... which often produces a better return on it for themselves than I get! ole joyfoul P.S. Buy pigs! Each mom produces from eight to about a dozen ... maybe more ... per year. Howja like them apples? (Pigs like apples, too - in fact, they'll eat darn near anything ... they say that farmers in the midwest used to run pigs and cattle together ... and feed the cattle!). Maybe just a rumour! o j | 
