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So.. what's the right answer here? Long term savings / investing seems, from my perspective, to be a really unsafe bet. I watched my father take a really substantial hit back when the market fell. I have retirement through PERS to "look forward to" assuming I make it that far. What else can I do to protect a moderate quality of life in 20 years? I'm starting to feel like there will be no retirement.
Right now it's a mater of protecting what you have. It looks as though it may be difficult to accumulate wealth on a monetary basis. The regulations they are putting in are dangerous to the working man. To me and it's just opinion I would use all extra funds to get out and stay out of debt. The biggest wage increase in your life will be from paying off your house. You will make more on your money paying off a car loan than you will get on your money in you bank.
After that it all depends on your lifestyle as to what you put your money in that holds value.
Thanks Jim,
I have a moderate savings and investments that are slowly increasing as time goes by, but I can never quite shake this feeling that I should be doing something other with this money, than letting it collect the paltry interest rate. The CD rates alone are silly to the point of me wondering if I shouldn't just use it to pay off all my debt (minus maybe the mortgage) and all of a sudden have triple the discretionary income I had before. I guess I could use that to purchase more real assets instead of fake dollars in a fake account that seems subject to manipulation by people who don't have my interest in mind.
Many unions no longer have pensions per se - many now have some form of 401K, if not outright.Sorry I wasn't posting clearly. The pension as I understand it were government and union pensions. However I am not sure if 401k's are now considered part of the banks funds and subject to a Greek haircut. Plus with all the confiscation laws and government notification by the banks of cash movement it's unsafe to even remove your cash from the bank in large amounts.
Many unions no longer have pensions per se - many now have some form of 401K, if not outright.
No bank holds my 401k/IRA - they are held by various investment management institutions.
As for the Greeks - you saw what happened there right?
Now imagine that happening here, but an order of magnitude worse, in a country with 100 million firearms, less than 2 million active/reserve military, less than number LEOs, and all of those would also be subject to the same financial issues.
I don't think any bank or politician or gov. official has any illusions about what would happen if they made any kind of large money grab. The economy would fail, the government would fall, there would be chaos. And no - nobody wants that to happen.
My parents and grandparents lived through the Great Depression. My Grandparents were farmers from the Dust Bowl. They moved here, and not only survived, but thrived. My father worked on WPA projects - he helped build a number of dams along the Columbia and worked on other projects.A lot of those 401k and pension financial institutions are investing in bank derivatives and that is why the move to back the derivatives by the FDIC. There really isn't a safe place for money when the crooks have the government in their pocket.
What happened the last great depression? Older realities told me the banks closed and even drilled the safety deposit boxes to steal people's money. Yet the public didn't burn it all down when everyone was in the same boat.
My parents and grandparents lived through the Great Depression. My Grandparents were farmers from the Dust Bowl. They moved here, and not only survived, but thrived. My father worked on WPA projects - he helped build a number of dams along the Columbia and worked on other projects.
Back then there was no expectation of a safe haven for monies placed in a bank, much less the government providing a "safety net", because there was no such thing.
Today, not only is there such an expectation, but about 50% of the population have some kind of income from government social programs, many have their sole income from such programs, the rest of us support them through taxes. This expectation has grown over the last 70 years. My parents generation, the generation that was self-sufficient, is gone.
Today, more than half the population is dependent on government hand outs. Everybody has been promised, time and time again, that their money is safe in the banks.
Turn off that spigot, take people's savings away from them to prop up the banks and other financial institutions because they are "too big to fail"?
Uh yeah, bad things will happen. People won't sit back and say "oh well". They won't take "too bad, so sad" from the government or the banks. Heads will roll, cities burn.
Politicians and banks know this. They aren't stupid.
My parents and grandparents lived through the Great Depression. My Grandparents were farmers from the Dust Bowl. They moved here, and not only survived, but thrived.
This is a path some are taking. But the issue is timing. Timing...Run your debt to the roof, protect the assets you want to keep and bankrupt out when it crashes.
Put money in disaster cleanup companies.Good points but.....
I've been buying Exxon (XOM) and some other things the last few weeks. Hoping to see a bottom soon. If you have time to hold out when things sink, oil is still a safe bet IMHO. Plus it pays a good Dividend!
Also the oil sands smaller players will probably get all bought by the Big Mega Oil Companies during this slump created by OPEC. OPEC is trying to kill American oil independence but I think they will lose this time.
It's a gamble all right but I'm a buyer right now! Wish I had some big money to gamble like your guy buying Chevron. I might just score a new truck with my winnings this time next year if my luck holds out though.