Who has a 401K

efo141 wrote:Hey, look on the bright side. If Bush had his way with privatizing Social Security, people ready to retire would have nothing.

Consider the amount of capital/principle you could have retained had it not been stolen from you in the first place.

Social Security is a guaranteed failure.

Social Security has worked very well for 80 years. The problem is the politicians have expanded it's coverage to include disability and survivor benefits and never had the guts to adjust the normal retirement age to account for people living longer.

When SS was started the average life span was 62, today it is 78. The initial intent of the program was to keep our elderly from starving to death. Today it has been morphed into a 20 year retirement program which is unsustainable.

The solution is obvious but political suicide, increase the retirement age.

The only problem with SS is that it was over-funded & worked too well. That left a big cash cow that the politicians couldn`t keep their hands off of so they kept raiding it & never putting anything back. My 401 is now probably less than half what it was( refuse to look anymore ) & I will be 62 soon & already retired. The only problem with working longer is I had a job that I actually had to do work at. If I were sitting in Washington being catered to & on recess most of the time I could see working longer. Besides that it`s the only way most of them can keep anyone into looking at what they have done. Sit in Washington or sit in prison.

billw wrote:Social Security has worked very well for 80 years. The problem is the politicians have expanded it's coverage to include disability and survivor benefits and never had the guts to adjust the normal retirement age to account for people living longer.

When SS was started the average life span was 62, today it is 78. The initial intent of the program was to keep our elderly from starving to death. Today it has been morphed into a 20 year retirement program which is unsustainable.

The solution is obvious but political suicide, increase the retirement age.

They have already increased the retirement age to 70 yrs. old I am 42 yrs. old That pansi scheme will collapse soon and there won't be anything left for me or my children. As for the topic at hand, I have a 201k or mabey a 1.501k. but don't let the government get it's hands on it, I'll take my chances.

BrockWilt wrote:I dont have a 401k. I would love to have one right now if it would be possible, but my company doesnt offer one. Now is the best time to pump money into your 401k when everything is so low. Stocks are only going to go up from here. It is how a market works ... up then down up then down up then down ... its just now our wonderful president is making things worse and prolonging the stock market plunge ... but with or with out govt help we will come out of it. sooner if it werent for the govt stimulus and spending and taxes and ... u get the point

e.alleg wrote:For those that lost a ton in the stocks the only action is really to stay put and wait. The stocks will go up again, they always do. Will they be back up when you need to take money out, that's the tricky question. Taking money out when the market is down is foolish, if you keep your money in you haven't actually lost anything except on paper. If the company you invested in went bankrupt then you did lose, sorry.

This is quite true historically. Even when all seems gone with the markets things look up in the future. The problem here though is that things are starting to look like they may not return to normal for quite some time. The difference between this recession and previous recessions is credit. Look around and you will notice everyone lives off of credit. If there is no credit from home equity, credit cards, no small business loans, etc then how does an economy come back? The contraction that is occurring will continue for all of 09 and possibly the beginning of 2010. Another thing to consider is our economy is 70% based on the consumer. If the consumer doesn’t come back because credit is gone businesses won’t make as much money. Therefore P/E ratios won’t climb and stocks will continue to sag for many years to come. Yes the markets will come back but it depends on your timeframe. You can’t simply listen to a broker or your financial advisor who down 20% said stocks will come back and then down 30% said this is a buying opportunity and now down 50% said the rally of all rallys is coming. These are the same advisor’s who overwhelmingly missed this 50% decline when the market was still bullish into October of 2007.

OK so go ahead and call me an idiot but I got out of the market a while ago. Rally, buying opportunities, naa as they say "fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me". They can keep what ever they can get from the government (our tax money that is), they just can't keep any of mine. They say there is 9 trillion sitting on the side lines just waiting for the right moment to jump in, that sure will fill a lot of mattresses, since it's not in the banks because if it was in the banks then the banks would be better off than they are letting on. yep the more they say the less it makes sense.
I figure there is only one reason they keep saying to keep the cash in the market and thats so they keep getting those nice big fat bonuses. it's now down to 1996 levels so we just went back in time but everything else is still in 2009 price and size not at 1996 price and size so the companies are still getting rich (we are paying more and getting less).
Perception is all it is and as for me I just want a bed and food and a hot shower everything else is just a great big bonus to me.
I have a saying and it's , people only want to be rich for one reason and thats so they can tell somebody else what to do. I just don't have a need to tell somebody else what to do, if I can't do it myself I may ask for help but I'm not going to sit on my butt and tell somebody to do it. (not much of a control freak now am I)

This won't make anything better but a good laugh at the experts. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boMqAHTDZbw

I hate to bring this up but on a more troubling note. If your still putting money in your 401k at work and work is matching it you might want to ask just where it is going. The stock market went up so fast because everyone started doing 401k's. Now it's going down the tubes and I believe that most people are still putting the same amount of money in the market from work. So where is all this money going?
I know, I know, stop thinking and just start putting more money in so the upper crust can do what they want with others peoples cash.

hi all

couple things here

1 Flickenstein was ringing the church bells for 1 year year to 6 months before the housing fell and bear stern. msn money
he kept saying it was a house of cards and the implosion would be a depression... it isn't yet because of the fed printing money.. nobody believed him becuase the dow went from 12400 when i started listening to him to over 14000....

2 i would be careful on who's kool aid i drink went listening on social sucurity. the truth is if nothing is done and it is left alone you will get 70% of you retiriment that was promised..... the goverment wants to do something because soon it has to start paying back the trillions it has stole . to make the budget deficiant look smaller.... you have been screwed by the left and right on this. don't let no one kid you otherwise.