On top of all his accomplishments, he was also a highly successful investment broker. He became a partner in an investment firm called C. Clothier Jones & Co. in 1929. His business partners in the small $5 million ($61.5 million today) firm were some of the brightest, most successful investors in the world.

Of course, after the stock market hit the skids in 1929, the company took a hit. But thanks to the rally in first half of 1930, C. Clothier Jones & Co. was in better shape than ever. He was on top of the world in the spring of 1930. But just like the year before, market speculators pushed stocks higher than they were worth. By late summer, the rally turned into another massive sell-off.

When October came around, Williams and his partners were doing everything they could to stay in business. Their investments turned to dust, and they were so incredibly overleveraged the only course for them was to fudge some numbers and blatantly lie to shareholders. Williams left the country in mid-October to get married in Europe. By the time he returned, he was a wanted man, for market manipulation. Four of his colleagues and large investors in the company had ended their own lives in that single week…

We’re fortunate to have history lessons when trying to figure out the market. But there are certain aspects of today’s market that just weren’t there in 1930. Some, like emerging economies, give us a serious advantage over our forefathers. Even if the average investor of 1930 were aware of a possible second downturn, his options would be incredibly limited. Only a millionaire in 1930 could invest in other, safer economies.

Today, it’s as effortless as buying an ADR through your online broker. We’ve ramped up our portfolio to reflect our favorites: Asia, Africa and Latin America.

The Ghost of RN Williams originally appeared in the Daily Reckoning. The Daily Reckoning, a FREE daily e-letter, offers a "uniquely refreshing" perspective on the global economy, investing, and today's markets.

Take Canada, for instance. They have historically presented us with amazing dividend yield opportunities. The country’s vast resources offer plenty of investment potential. Large trusts have been set up to collect royalties as these resources are mined and drilled, and in turn they send them out to shareholders in dividends.

Unfortunately, Canada changed its tax law recently. Now instead of just collecting a straight dividend check, we are charged 15% before we ever see the money. The government of Canada wanted a piece of that lucrative pie. Of course, if the yield is large enough, we should still consider it. Other countries like Switzerland charge even more, upward of a 35% dividend tax.

So which nations have no dividend withholding tax? Brazil tops the list. Rio’s newfound spotlight could help bring more focus to this great dividend-paying nation. We are constantly looking there for more opportunities.

The U.K. is also a notable safe haven. While we aren’t necessarily bullish on the British pound, we do enjoy the tax break on many of our holdings in the Lifetime Income Report portfolio. Some other places with a 0% withholding tax we should note include Hong Kong, India and Mexico. We’ve been scouring these markets to find some income payers for you.

The Stealth Dividend Tax originally appeared in the Daily Reckoning. The Daily Reckoning, a FREE daily e-letter, offers a "uniquely refreshing" perspective on the global economy, investing, and today's markets.

We converged all the indicators of a proper market recovery — both small-cap performance and economic indicators — in an easy-to-read index. We call it the Small-Cap Recovery Index. While it may not have the sexiest name, we are quite proud of how well it’s working.

The index itself measures where we are in the recovery. As of now, the SCRI shows a 7% increase since we started it a few months back. But here’s where it gets interesting…

We wanted to use this as a tool to predict where the actual stock market is headed. That’s where the SCRI Oscillator comes in. The oscillator compares the SCRI’s performance to the S&P 500. If the SCRI is outperforming the S&P, stocks are generally undervalued compared with the whole economy. Unfortunately, the opposite is currently true.

As you can see, the recent market rally looks like it’s overblown. It was simply too much too fast. Of course, this tool is very new and has yet to be truly tested. But so far, it’s working. When it was outperforming the S&P, it pointed to a short-term bottom. We expect the opposite this time. It looks to be pointing to a near-term peak.

Market Rally: Too Far, Too Fast originally appeared in the Daily Reckoning. The Daily Reckoning, a FREE daily e-letter, offers a "uniquely refreshing" perspective on the global economy, investing, and today's markets.

We’re told media conglomerates are among the most hated industries in the market today. Everyone knows they are struggling to keep afloat with competition from the Internet. Newspapers compete with blogs and free news sites. Magazines compete with nontraditional gossip and entertainment websites. And television ad revenue is continuing to dry up because of TiVo and DVRs. Even motion picture studios and record labels aren’t realizing what they’d like because of the never-ending efforts of media piracy.

But that doesn’t explain why these companies are still trading at astronomical ratios. Take The New York Times Co. for instance. NYT is one of the most out-of-favor stocks on Wall Street, or at least that’s what you’d think. Meanwhile, it’s trading at more than 2.2 times its book value. That means that if they called it quits tomorrow, shareholders would only receive about 45% of their money. And by shareholders, I mean preferred shareholders. Commoners probably wouldn’t get a penny.

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp is a little better at 1.5 times book, which would be a fair valuation for a growing business. Murdoch’s precious Wall Street Journal addition isn’t even helping. He can add as many of these fallen media giants as he wants. It’s still not helping him grow his bottom line.

The problem is debt. These companies are swimming in it – especially smaller, regional media companies. Citadel Broadcasting, owner of the ABC Radio Network and 4,500 affiliates, is expected to close its doors soon, even though it somehow pulled a $2 million interest payment out of thin air earlier this month. The company owes some $2 billion, but its common stock is worth about six cents per share on the bulletin boards.

We already know what happened to Tribune Co. The owner of the 162-year-old Chicago Tribune filed for Chapter 11 last December, and was just cleared to sell the Cubs and its Wrigley Field.

These stories are nothing new. They’ve been happening for a while, and it doesn’t look like they are going away any time soon. According to Reuters, television and print companies, along with automobile and airlines, are about four times more likely to go bankrupt in the next year than any other type of company

So why are the likes of The NY Times and News Corp still trading for more than they’re worth?

To us, it sounds like another case of investors covering their eyes and ears and pretending not to know there’s even a problem. So instead of building up the bubble, we’re just sitting on years of letting the bubble bounce on down the road. Today’s economic situation might just be the pinprick to pop this forgotten 20th century blister.

Last year, print ad revenue fell 18%. When these advertisers start filling newspapers and magazines again, they’ll do so in the online versions first. After all, that’s where the sweet 18-34 age group spends most of its time.

Murdoch and Turner can spend any amount of money on traditional media business they want. The industry as we know it – and the stocks that represent it – are headed for a collapse worse than the tech and financial services industries. At least tech and financials still play a significant role in the world economy. Television and print media don’t.

You can see how the market treats ugly industries. It just lets them hang out for years longer than they should. GM was dead long before Obama grabbed the defibrillators. The same has been true with television and print. That’s about to change.

Both the auto and television/print industries as we know them are showing us a new way to watch a collapse. Make sure you’re on the right side of this trade.

Sincerely,

Jim Nelson
for The Daily Reckoning

The New Way to Collapse an Industry originally appeared in the Daily Reckoning. The Daily Reckoning, a FREE daily e-letter, offers a "uniquely refreshing" perspective on the global economy, investing, and today's markets.

This caused the federal debt clock to add a 14th digit (by breaking the $10 trillion dollar mark).

We’ve also got an out-of-control trade deficit. For having a 40% share of the world’s economy, we certainly don’t produce that many goods.

Finally, we have a credit crisis that is causing many to worry that our lenders, like China and Japan, will turn off the tap.

With this nightmarish scenario we find ourselves in, it wouldn’t surprise us if the US’ credit rating fell. That would cause an immediate panic in the currency markets and send the buying power of the dollar into a tailspin.

I guess what we’re saying is get out of the dollar as fast as possible!

There are a couple of ways to go about this:

Currency Protection Strategy No. 1: Sell the Dollar

The easiest way to get out of the dollar is to trade in the cash you don’t need to live on for another currency. You might even be able to hold other currencies in your brokerage account.

Here at Lifetime Income Report, we don’t recommend currencies directly. We’re here to help you find income, not to pick currencies.

Exchanging currencies is one way to protect your wealth from a potential dollar disaster. But it’s not the only way…

Currency Protection Strategy No. 2: Buy Precious Metals

There’s probably no safer way to protect your wealth in the world than to own gold and silver. There are many Web sites and exchanges where you can do this, as well as coin dealers that can help you make this move.

While we personally think precious metals are going to continue increasing in value, you probably shouldn’t just spend all your money on gold nuggets. There’s a big difference between the spot prices and what you would pay. Gold coins, for instance, are trading at a hefty premium over spot.

Currency Protection Strategy No. 3: Buy US Companies With International Exposure

Again, this shouldn’t be a surprise. We have many US companies in our portfolio. After all, we are here for income, not to be global traders. But you’ll probably notice that most of our US companies have plenty of international exposure.

Currency Protection Strategy No. 4: Buy American Depositary Receipts

We saved the best for last. This is the theme we have been hitting the hardest in recent months. ADRs have been a cornerstone of this newsletter. From the very first issue, we had at least two ADRs in our portfolio. This month, we are adding another.

There’s a huge reason why we buy ADRs instead of the currencies themselves. Instead of just the upside of foreign currency to US dollars, we also get the benefit of fast-growing emerging markets and mega income from international players.

You see, foreign markets, especially now, have huge dividend yields.

The US is near the bottom of the list of places for income investors to look. The smart money is in companies staying out of the dollar.

Regards,

Jim Nelson
for The Daily Reckoning

4 Ways to Protect Against a Falling Dollar originally appeared in the Daily Reckoning. The Daily Reckoning, a FREE daily e-letter, offers a "uniquely refreshing" perspective on the global economy, investing, and today's markets.

Still, the region’s penetration rate is only 17%, compared with 75% here in the U.S. The opportunities are boundless.

Most of the time, backdoor plays offer the largest profits in growth industries like this one. Sometimes, however, a straightforward approach is your best chance at the quickest gains. This is one of those times.

Take China Mobile, for instance. This telecom behemoth is the most obvious play in the region. In the last three years, the company doubled the number of subscribers and grew its bottom line 107%. That’s a rare feat for a $230 billion company.

China Mobile’s growth is impressive, but it’s nothing compared with what a small-cap player can do in this field. There’s plenty of room to grow in the telecom industry of the Far East.

That’s why we’ve been looking for under-the-radar Internet providers in Asia. And we just we found a beauty.

The Latest Penny Stock Play originally appeared in the Daily Reckoning. The Daily Reckoning, a FREE daily e-letter, offers a "uniquely refreshing" perspective on the global economy, investing, and today's markets.

This is the theme we have been hitting the hardest in recent months. ADRs have been a cornerstone of Lifetime Income Report. From the very first issue, we had at least two ADRs in our portfolio. This month, we are adding another.

There’s a huge reason why we buy ADRs, instead of the currencies themselves. Instead of just the upside of foreign currency to U.S. dollars, we also get the benefit of fast-growing emerging markets and mega income from international players.

Foreign markets, especially now, have huge dividend yields. The U.S. is near the bottom of the list of places for income investors to look. The smart money is in companies staying out of the dollar.

Diversify Your Income Investments originally appeared in the Daily Reckoning. The Daily Reckoning, a FREE daily e-letter, offers a "uniquely refreshing" perspective on the global economy, investing, and today's markets.

As you can see, the biggest loser on the list is financials, which shouldn’t be a surprise. The segment’s dividend yield fell 300 basis points (right-hand column) from last year to now.

The sector that pays the most is doing so under the radar: telecommunication services. This is a favorite of ours. That 14 basis point increase is primarily due to AT&T and Verizon — both paying out around 6%.

These dividends aren’t nearly as safe as we’d like, though. Instead of gunning for the U.S. telecom industry, we like to play that game in emerging markets. We already have a Pacific Rim telecom in the Lifetime Income Report portfolio, and we’ll be adding another this week. Even after that, we’ll continue to keep our eyes peeled and noses to the ground in case something else pops up in that industry.

Going back to that table, you can see the next two best-paying sectors are utilities and consumer staples. Our portfolio is already loaded with these, and we’ll continue looking in these directions as well.

Best Sectors for Income Seekers originally appeared in the Daily Reckoning. The Daily Reckoning, a FREE daily e-letter, offers a "uniquely refreshing" perspective on the global economy, investing, and today's markets.