http://blockchain.info/

Bitcoins cost roughly $3.41 in electricity to mine. They sell for $3.67. That is a 26 cent profit if you mine and sell today. But in general the prices have been falling. If you don't sell immediately, you risk losing any profit.

With Bitcoin, you are competing against the owners of 7,479,400 BTC. Most of these owners bought there BTC for pennies a BTC. Say for example, knightmb who bought 371,000 BTC for $5,000. That is (1.35 cents/BTC) if you are keeping score. So basically, the early adopters are still making piles of money selling their hoards. There is no solid bottom to BTC prices at the moment.

If you mint and sell immediately, you are not really doing much to support bitcoin as a growing economy. If you buy with cash you are basically enabling the speculators and early adopters to sell off their hoards at a profit. (Good for them!) If you hold these coins you will likely lose value (at least for a while). In that case you would be better to hold off your purchase until BTC bottoms. If you spend these coins immediately on goods, you are building the economy. (Go Bitcoin!) Convince enough people to do this and the early adopters will cease selling there coins because their wealth is increasing and hoarding is preferable again. BTC prices will spike and you still won't have any.

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Litecoin is the same as bitcoin in everyway, except it is designed for CPU mining so you aren't competing with the big boys. You are also not selling against giant hoards. It is like a "do over" for bitcoin. Might as well test all your theories at your lowest cost, and highest potential profit.