The problem with Real Estate (at least where I live) is that the net return is generally negative or barely positive after purchase (assuming you have an 80% mortgage). The gross return is somewhere around 5-6%, depending on area.
Yeah, plenty of people have gotten rich off houses, but that's mostly been all in the last 30-40 years. Guess what? The 1st world have just come off the biggest property boom in history, lasting approximately 30-40 years in length. It could (and probably will) stagnate or fall in price (in real terms) over the next 20+ years.
Businesses are a good idea, except serviced based as discussed and manufacturing was good one time but if I bought a manufacturing business now, I couldn't sleep at night thinking about China. I think import/export would be good or a manufacturing business that holds IP at home but builds shit offshore.
In the long term, the sharemarket will bounce back but it's probably got ome more falls in the next 12 months or so. At this stage of the game, my money would be in cash and paying down debt (especially cc debt, then work on any mortages you may have - I hear house payments are tax dedictible in the US). If you have no debt, I'd save some in a high interest account and with the rest I'd buy precious metals - gold & silver. They won't give you a 'return' as such, but they will protect your money against inflation.
It's highly likely the US won't be able to pay back the debts they owe other countries and will try to inflate their way out of debt. The way to do this is to print money (which incidently they don't even need to do that anymore they just keep pressing the '0' key until their bank balance is as large as they want.. I'm seriously not making this shit up). This means there is more money curculating around in the system which devalues the existing currency, so when you go to buy your new LCD TV, it's now twice as expensive as a month ago.
Anyway, good luck with whatever you buy bro.
