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[Sean M Cary]

Aren't many of the things traded nothing but mutual funds full of foreign stocks?  Nobody said you had to stay with internal investments.  I agree that the foreign stuff is better currently.  When the US does take a hit in 100 years or so, the whole world is going to take the same hit.

My International fund for my Government 401k (TSP) is down 10k since June...so I would not say it is doing great.

[Free]

Aren't many of the things traded nothing but mutual funds full of foreign stocks?  Nobody said you had to stay with internal investments.  I agree that the foreign stuff is better currently.  When the US does take a hit in 100 years or so, the whole world is going to take the same hit.

i hope you are right. 100 years is a long time! Its only been 40 or so years since we went from being the worlds largest lender/creditor to the world's largest debtor. Our economy has been growing over the past 5 to 7 years not from increases in production but from consumer and government spending funded all by debt. i hope i turn out to be Dr. Doom who is proven to be wrong, but i think we are in some unchartered waters here and we are in for a drastically lower standard of living and some painful choices to make.

Does anyone agree with me or am i just being Dr. Doom?  Heck, i certainly don't have any answers but does anyone else think we are headed for a major disaster?

Free

[SPIDERMAN]

If  and I repeat IF  I went liquid right now I'd be down close to $400k . Anyone want to ask why I'm chitfaced long about now

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[vagabond6542]

You put Vagabond in a tight range there...

He's old enough to have seen them for also old enough to not remember it!

I resemble that.

[vagabond6542]

maybe i am a pessimist but i just am not bullish long term on the US market. We produce less and less things that the world wants, we are not savers but spenders, we are the largest debtor in the world and we cant stop spending ahead or revenues.  i just dont see how that bodes well for the US dollar.  Right now the Fed has the printing press working 24/7 and each dollar that comes off that press makes each dollar i own worth less. i have been putting my 401k in emerging markets and commodities (including gold and silver).  In the short term, its hard to know what to do and there will certainly be lots of volitility BUT in the long run, there are fundamental problems that all point to a collapse in the dollar and long term inflation.  So, maybe you can make money in the US equity markets but the question will be what that money will be worth in purchasing power.  i dont have the answers but i can read a balance sheet and know that the US is broke and lots of promises our government is making are not going to be met.

Free

I think I can give a little insight. Before the dollar went off the "Gold Standard" in or about 1965, and we started the Bartering Standard, the dollar was worth about $0.25. Now take in the rate of inflation and time since 1966, the dollar should be about worth $0.025 cents. And the reasoning pretty much stands out. In 1967, a person could own a $12,500 home and pay out a $125/month mortgage. Today, a person ( without the present housing crash) could own a $125,000 home and have a mortgage of approx. $1250.00 /month. The question on purchasing power is that as time goes by, We are going to pay more for less. But there is a bubble effect that goes with the rise. And we are in it now. I heard in the CNBC news this morning, that Congress got a "Wake up" call from Paulson of what could happen if intervention is not acted upon. If I were to speculate, we were heading for another 1929 and the world would follow. Take a look at how the world banks are linking and interacting on money transfer in the billions.
I hope I gave a better picture. I could be a little inaccurate, but not by much.
Just my .02.

[vagabond6542]

If  and I repeat IF  I went liquid right now I'd be down close to $400k . Anyone want to ask why I'm chitfaced long about now

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Don't do it. Ride the storm. You might not lose as much if any. And it will stabilize.

[iski]

OK...who's old enough to remember the x rated comic books back in the very early 70's?  One of them was about a pirate ship with a Captain Pissgums...aaaaaarrrrrhhhhhggggg, crank my tool, matey

Not easy to get locally, but we found a few anyway.  Some were really funny & figure some of those writers went mainstream - SNL, Second City maybe?




For those watching the market & our govt. throwing a trillion or so into propping it up, the Dow was down only 34 points last week.  Dow was UP 40 over the past month.  So basically, the Dow is where it was in mid August right now. 

[FNGw/08SERK]

Not easy to get locally, but we found a few anyway.  Some were really funny & figure some of those writers went mainstream - SNL, Second City maybe?




For those watching the market & our govt. throwing a trillion or so into propping it up, the Dow was down only 34 points last week.  Dow was UP 40 over the past month.  So basically, the Dow is where it was in mid August right now. 

Makes one wonder if the players that a hand in the meltdown are the same players buying??? 

[iski]

Makes one wonder if the players that a hand in the meltdown are the same players buying??? 

Excellent point.

Some folks made a LOT of money this week.

Unfortunately, I was not one of them.

[hunter]

Excellent point.

Some folks made a LOT of money this week.

Unfortunately, I was not one of them.

The big boys on the street have a WAR CHEST behind them.  It goes down, they pump in more money and lower their average and bring it back up, it goes up when they are short, they short more and kill it.   
We are the unfortunate ones, when it goes down, we don't have any more to out in.
And in cases like me (using margin), the down side is more radical and because of the margin call, I can't stay in any more. 
Just sharing my saga because it's cheaper to learn from other's mistakes. 

 

[SPIDERMAN]

Don't do it. Ride the storm. You might not lose as much if any. And it will stabilize.

I still have all of my holdings in the same financial instruments as always this morning and have a nasty hangover too


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[hunter]

I still have all of my holdings in the same financial instruments as always this morning and have a nasty hangover too


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Coyote Ugly ...   

[Free]

Its easy to get comfort from short term swings in the market. You can usually look at numbers and say this week is better than last week. In the short term, you can torture the numbers until they start to sing, but in the long term, the numbers cant be rationalized away. The longer term trends (last 7 to 10 years) are incredibly disturbing. We have built up all this "wealth" - not on productivity but on paper gains and borrowings and turned that around to buy consumer goods.  Credit card debt and commercial real estate will be the next cards to fall and then the US could go into a sustained long-term recession.  If home prices are falling, then its only a matter of time for commercial real estate to fall.  Lenders were making commercial loans with the same zeal as the home lenders, creating rising prices.  With a recession, businesses will pull back due to lower demand and those strip malls will start to fail and those new high rises will not be filled.

So, then the question is - what is going to bring us out of this recession/meltdown this time?  I think we have to go back to actually producing things that the world wants (thats the only thing that makes sense to me). We have given up high paying manufacturing jobs for low paying service jobs  over the past 15 years. I still maintain that this time it is different because the fundamentals of our balance sheet are so different from what they have ever been.  hope i am wrong

Free

[hunter]

Its easy to get comfort from short term swings in the market. You can usually look at numbers and say this week is better than last week. In the short term, you can torture the numbers until they start to sing, but in the long term, the numbers cant be rationalized away. The longer term trends (last 7 to 10 years) are incredibly disturbing. We have built up all this "wealth" - not on productivity but on paper gains and borrowings and turned that around to buy consumer goods.  Credit card debt and commercial real estate will be the next cards to fall and then the US could go into a sustained long-term recession.  If home prices are falling, then its only a matter of time for commercial real estate to fall.  Lenders were making commercial loans with the same zeal as the home lenders, creating rising prices.  With a recession, businesses will pull back due to lower demand and those strip malls will start to fail and those new high rises will not be filled.

So, then the question is - what is going to bring us out of this recession/meltdown this time?  I think we have to go back to actually producing things that the world wants (thats the only thing that makes sense to me). We have given up high paying manufacturing jobs for low paying service jobs  over the past 15 years. I still maintain that this time it is different because the fundamentals of our balance sheet are so different from what they have ever been.  hope i am wrong

Free

Hard to compete with Chines.  And as long as INS issuing work visas to Indians who come over and work as consultants... chit, don't get me started on that ..

[SPIDERMAN]

This is a good place to mention that if you're having trouble with Credit Card debt, you should call the bank who holds the actual debt, close the account and work out a payment schedule. If you are pro-active in this you can usually get them to drop your interest rate significantly. This gets the debt paid off quicker, protects your credit and saves you money long term. The key is for you to be the one calling the bank not waiting for them to call you.


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