Lol ... you know how it is with the old timers. They've got all kinds of advise for the younger hands. I guess i'm no different.
From my own personal experience i would recommend that a young person just starting out consider the idea of getting in with a newly converted worker owned business. What happened with us was that the owner of the company we worked for was retiring. He didn't want to sell out to a larger outfit and throw all of his employees under the bus. With some help from the technical assistance team he put together a deal where his employees could buy him out.
The employees each bought a share in the company. Each share price was about seven grand but the employees were allowed to pay for their share over a period of years with a small deduction from each paycheck.
There's a twofold benefit.
The first is short term yearly profit sharing. If the company does well there's a nice fat bonus at the end of the year.
The long term benefit is where an 18 year old could really make out. After the first fifteen years, the debt used to buy the company will be paid off and they'll be turning pretty good profit. Share prices will likely increase in value up into the hundreds of thousands of dollars as the debt to income ratio improves.
This isn't such a great investment for an old timer like myself but it's a heck of an opportunity for somebody that's just starting out. It's not very much different from investing in the stock market except that the shares are held by the employees and not by Joe Blow investor with a mutual fund. Otherwise from that ... it's structured and run just like any fortune 500 company on the stock market.
Looking for a stock that might provide a comfortable retirement ? This idea of employee ownership and active day to day involvement involvement in the company that you own stock in might be another golden opportunity.
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