Market's tanking. Noooooooooo!!!!!!

[DP]

Last week I bought a billion shares of Lady Gaga at a buck each and now she’s down to two bits.

The economy is ruined I tell you. Ruined!

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[2 Much Whine]

You think you’ve got problems? I put my 401K in Amy Winehouse stock. Talk about tanking. . . . . .

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[Jiggers]

It’s not ruined, it just had a biiiig rally today. All that big scare for nothing.

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[DP]

Dammit!! Lady Gaga’s trading at $1.25 now – after I went and dumped all my shares!

I’ve been had.

   

 

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[kootchman]

I heard…now it could be rumor.. that Congress is going to trash the Star Spangled Banner as the National Anthem… to be replaced by.. “I Don’t Wanna Go To Rehab”… by Ms. Winehouse

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[JoB]

circling the interent today

an investment strategy that appears easy to get behind…

“If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in Delta Airlines one year ago, you would have $49.00 today! If you purchased $1,000 of shares in AIG, you would have $33.00. If you purchased $1,000 of shares in Lehman Brothers, you would have $0.00 today. But, if you purchased $1,000 worth of beer, drank all the beer, turned in the aluminum cans for recycling, you would have $214.00. Therefore the best current investment plan is to drink heavily & recycle. It is called the 401-Keg Plan.”

BTW.. don’t be thinking that the rise in the indexes means all of that money is back in your account.. especially not if you had some savvy little trader managing your captive funds for you.

someone made money on that self created kurfuffle..

but i am guessing it isn’t those of us with 401K funds riding the tide

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[Jiggers]

JoB…..How are you feeling?

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[kootchman]

Way back in the day…call it indoctrination.. the price of a good stock was related to actual earnings and dividends. A “good” company had to have “good” numbers. IRR, ROI…amongst others. A stockholder was an investor.

The current 401K market is… we are speculators. We buy something in the “hopes” it will rise in value. Like a Renoir, a 57′ Chevy. Speculators used to trade on the commodity exchanges..or other more rarified places (Sothebys ex.) .. with the anticipation that commodity would rise in value.

My simple question is…why are we all speculators (401K) when you can just as easily be an investor? I crack up when the Democrats scream about “oil speculators”… buying and selling base on the perceptions held about future prices. Section 401K made the entire middle class “speculators” flooding the stock market with cash, cash, cash…and making it a speculator pit. Like the sheep we are… now comes the fleecing. Our 401K’s and those that manage them for maximizing the market share price… “we have met the enemy..and he is us”.

God forbid we should invest in good businesses, who pay good dividends… oh, that’s right…we want to tax those corporate earning so we don’t have dividend income in our retirement… we have to sell speculative instruments at the going market rate..up or down… Wall Street Traders must bow down to Jimmy Carter every morning…he was their patron saint. Take away the corporate cash (dividend pool) give the “suckers” warrants of redemption (stocks, futures etc..) and just hope they rise in value. How’s that roller coaster ride going? Like that anxiety?

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[DP]

It amuses me that whenever there’s a sudden downturn on Wall Street, all the junk news stations start talking about “jittery markets” and showing pictures of worried-looking traders on the floor of the NYSE.

Lemme tell you something. Traders make money off investors not stocks, and they make that money whether the market is shooting up or shooting down. So if these guys are worried at all, they’re worried about stuff like moorage space in Aruba and whether their wives are cheating on them with the gardener. They are NOT worried about the economy.

You know, I was thinking just now about drawing an analogy between stock traders and tapeworms. But then I heard a little voice saying:

Hold on there a minute, DP. You’re always preaching tolerance and respect to others. What will people think if you now descend into the pit of hatred and cynicism yourself?

—And besides, what did tapeworms ever do to you?

 

 

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[kootchman]

If you have an IRA with stocks… yo do not have an investment..you have a speculative instrument. Period.

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[The Velvet Bulldog]

What jumped out at me (being something of an enviro-geek) regarding JoB’s facetious 401-Keg example was that the most money was made from recycling. Um, hello green economy?

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[kootchman]

Back to dad’s old sage advice…never allocate more than 10% of your liquidity in speculation. For all you corporatist bashers… bless you all…corporations understand what they are being directed to do…use growth and the resulting rise in stock prices as the metric of performance. It’s what the Mutual Fund industry wants…think of it as the “Great Bubble Bath”’…

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[kootchman]

It’s my money, and I want it NOW…. says the investor.

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[kootchman]

Shut up and pay up.. Fund Manager..I have Congressmen to bribe…

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[redblack]

thank god for defined-benefit plans, ERISA, and the pension protection act of 2006.

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[Jiggers]

All is well..investors dumped it all again today..:) I don’t think that there’s enough money to make a comeback for quite awhile.

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[kootchman]

redblack… those defined benefit plans.. better check and see them again.. they are indexed to the stock market gains assumptions…check WA state… it is 5 billion underfunded… better yet check California.. 155 billion… bankruptcy trumps. See what happened to the NYS “defined benefits” plan .. oooops.

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[kootchman]

CalPers is the largest fund manager in the country…and the most underwater… if the housing bubble taught us nothing… If it ain’t there.. it ai’t there”. The Feds love citizens like you

quote;

Treasury Department officials have begun to borrow against federal pension funds to meet the government’s financial obligations because the country is expected on Monday to reach the limit of its borrowing authority from other sources under the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling.

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[redblack]

i don’t have a federal pension. i don’t work for the government. duh.

and not all of my pension is invested in the market, you know. ERISA defines what investments are too risky and how much of that fund can be put at the mercy of wall street. PPA strengthened that regulation. thank you, democrats, and thank you, george bush, for signing it.

but doesn’t borrowing against federal pension funds to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy seem wrong to you somehow?

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[datamuse]

Nobody reads Benjamin Graham anymore.

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[kootchman]

Duh? …better look and see who insures your pension fund. Now don’t you have a feeling of DUH? Pension Benefits Gaurunte Fund?

From the heart of liberaland… NPR Radio…report.. I know you hate to read… but… this is the ship you are sailing on…might as well know what kind of shape it is in…

http://www.iwatchnews.org/2010/05/03/2686/no-guarantees-pension-benefit-guaranty-corporation

Still cheering?

Dude..underfunded pensions are the largest libability in all American…more than consumer debt, more than housing mortgages..it has NO chance in hell of meeting the obligations it is responsible for… Being the astute guy you are.. did you happen notice that the last major general contractor just sold out to a British Firm… Howard S Wright…now part of Balfour Beatty… Baugh? Purchased by Skanska, Sweden ..Oldcastle, Irish Company has purchased damn near everybody… ummm how does URISA handle this:? Who know owns those pension reserves… offshore I might add. Cause when a company buys another.. it assumes both liabilities and assets…one of the ways a company finances a purchase? The pension funds in reserve!

http://www.lw.com/upload/pubContent/_pdf/pub3386_1.pdf

See you trust government… I don’t. You believe an enacted law protects you… I believe it is just a step away from being repealed or amended. Since forever.. the most secure creditor was the holder of corporate bonds…in bankruptcy court they go first..(after payroll) because they took the chances no one else would… when Obama took over Chrysler… guess what? All those holders of corporate bonds… including some bond funds held in 401K’s… lost it all… nothing you think you have protected by “rights” is secure. You are one lobbyist bribe package away from a screwing… union or corporation… ACORN or Manufacturing Association,… Congress bleeds both sides… until the bills come due…then they pit us against each other. You trust em’ cause you want to…you want to believe there is such thing as a benevolent government… right. “You can’t handle the truth”..we are little wack-a-moles…

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[redblack]

thanks for making my argument that the robber barons are running the show.

yeah, i trust government. i don’t trust corporations or politicians, or the politicians who have allowed the robber barons to take away the only club we have to wield against them.

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[kootchman]

Got me confused.. ya got a pension plan, 401K… and ya give it to the “robber barons” for safekeeping? OK then…

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[jamminj]

CEO’s making 500 times more than their average employee, but GOP wants you to believe the middle class are the problem.

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[JoB]

kootchman..

you may have a self managed 401K

I suspect if you own your own business you do.

but i am guessing your employees don’t

that is if your employees have 401Ks.

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