Are you more pessimistic about the economy than most?

[andy158]

My 401k is through my employer and sponsored by Wells Fargo. No choice of sponsors. The only options I have is to switch investments into limited catgories all of which are loosing money. The only reason I participate is they match a small percentage of what I contribute. Like many other middle class people, I can't afford to purchase stock and fund a couple of IRA's. This is my sole means of retirement other than the Social Security that will be gone by the time I retire. Go figure!

[Logan]

I just got my 401k statement and guess what? I moved all my investments into "secured low risk mutual funds" a year ago and still took a 4.48% hit! You are better off putting it under your matress like most companies are doing now. There is no "secure" ROI out there now for the common people with a shoe box full of money. Yet another factor stiffling our economy.

There is an awful lot of truth in the George Carlin video link posted earlier.

You need to find a better finance manager. My 401K is up 25.9% from September 29th 2008 to date. September 29th was just before the financial free-fall.

This is thanks to a money manager I pay $5 a month.

Logan

[andy158]

I just got my 401k statement and guess what? I moved all my investments into "secured low risk mutual funds" a year ago and still took a 4.48% hit! You are better off putting it under your matress like most companies are doing now. There is no "secure" ROI out there now for the common people with a shoe box full of money. Yet another factor stiffling our economy.

There is an awful lot of truth in the George Carlin video link posted earlier.

[Logan]

Ford? You are judging the entire 14 trillion dollar US economy on Ford?

Oh boy!

I'm finished! Logan all the best and enjoy your recovery!

I guess you're not paying attention?

And yes I am enjoying my recovery. My company is the busiest I've seen it in 10 years and there is no end in sight

Logan

And it's mostly discretionary income being spent!

[Xue]

Banksters are Coming for Your Retirement Next

http://www.activistpost.com/2010/07/banskters-are-coming-for-your.html

Search for The Economic Hitmen
and
George Carlin -"Who Really Controls America"
on youtube.

Chelsea's Wedding
Let Them Eat Cake
By Paul Craig Roberts
8-2-10


It is not unusual for members of the diminishing upper middle class to drop $20,000 or $30,000 on a big wedding. But for celebrities this large sum wouldn't cover the wedding dress or the flowers.

When country music star Keith Urban married actress Nicole Kidman in 2006, their wedding cost $250,000. This large sum hardly counts as a celebrity wedding. When mega-millionaire real estate mogul Donald Trump married model Melania Knauss, the wedding bill was $1,000,000.

The marriages of Madonna and film director Guy Ritchie, Tiger Woods and Elin Nordegren, and Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones pushed up the cost of celebrity marriages to $1.5 million.

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes upped the ante to $2,000,000.

Now comes the politicians's daughter as celebrity. According to news reports, Chelsea Clinton's wedding to investment banker Mark Mezvinsky on July 31 is costing papa Bill $3,000,000. According to the London Daily Mail, the total price tag will be about $5,000,000. The additional $2,000,000 apparently is being laid off on US Taxpayers as Secret Service costs for protecting former president Clinton and foreign heads of state, such as the presidents of France and Italy and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who are among the 500 invited guests along with Barbara Streisand, Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey, Ted Turner, and Clinton friend and donor Denise Rich, wife of the Clinton-pardoned felon.

Before we attend to the poor political judgment of such an extravagant affair during times of economic distress, let us wonder aloud where a poor boy who became governor of Arkansas and president of the United States got such a fortune that he can blow $3,000,000 on a wedding.

The American people did not take up a collection to reward him for his service to them.

Where did the money come from? Who was he really serving during his eight years in office?

How did Tony Blair and his wife, Cherrie, end up with an annual income of ten million pounds (approximately $15 million dollars) as soon as he left office? Who was Blair really serving?

These are not polite questions, and they are infrequently asked.

While Chelsea's wedding guests eat a $11,000 wedding cake and admire $250,000 floral displays, Lisa Roberts in Ohio is struggling to raise contributions for her food pantry in order to feed 3,000 local people, whose financial independence was destroyed by investment bankers, job offshoring, and unaffordable wars. The Americans dependent on Lisa Roberts' food pantry are living out of vans and cars. Those with a house roof still over their heads are packed in as many as 14 per household according to the Chillicothe Gazette in Ohio.

The Chilicothe Gazette reports that Lisa Roberts' food pantry has "had to cut back to half rations per person in order to have something for everyone who needed it."

Theresa DePugh stepped up to the challenge and had the starving Ohioans write messages on their food pantry paper plates to President Obama, who has just obtained another $33 billion to squander on a pointless war in Afghanistan that serves no purpose whatsoever except the enrichment of the military/security complex and its shareholders.

The Guardian (UK) reports that according to US government reports, one million American children go to bed hungry, while the Obama regime squanders hundreds of billions of dollars killing women and children in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

The Guardian's reporting relies on a US government report from the US Department of Agriculture, which concludes that 50 million people in the US--one in six of the population--were unable to afford to buy sufficient food to stay healthy in 2008.

US Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said that he expected the number of hungry Americans to worsen when the survey for 2010 is released.

Today in the American Superpower, one of every six Americans is living on food stamps.

The Great American Superpower, which is wasting trillions of dollars in pursuit of world hegemony, has 22% of its population unemployed and almost 17% of its population dependent on welfare in order to stay alive.

The world has not witnessed such total failure of government since the final days of the Roman Empire. A handful of American oligarchs are becoming mega-billionaires while the rest of the country goes down the drain.

And the American sheeple remain acquiescent.

[banca rotta]

Ford just posted record profits. Sorry but everything is fine. The news loves to spread fear because fear brings ratings.

Wouldn't it be boring if you turned on the news and everything was great?

Logan

Ford? You are judging the entire 14 trillion dollar US economy on Ford?

Oh boy!

I'm finished! Logan all the best and enjoy your recovery!

[Scott50]

XUE,

Most people I work with never saw the affects of the recession. Unemployment is normally around 5% and it jumped up to almost 11% at one time. That means only 6% more people were out of a job than normal so that means 94% are with jobs. I also know a few people who lost their jobs and went off traveling and were happy not to work for a while and they are included in this number.

I lost my job in 2004 (3rd job loss in 10 years) and I was in a recession then. I made it through the last few years in great shape thanks to my BK and that I have remained employed. Like I said before, perception is everything. Every time I turn on the news I see recession and that affects my spending. If I never turned on the tv I would think everything was great and I would spend more money which in turn would put more money into the economy and in turn create more jobs.

When this country believes we are out of the recession then we will be out of the recession!

Logan

your math is WRONG- with an unemployment rate of 11% that would result in 89% of people have jobs (100-11=89)... not the 94% you reference... Math is a lost skill for some people on this board I guess...

[Scott50]

Ford just posted record profits. Sorry but everything is fine. The news loves to spread fear because fear brings ratings.

Wouldn't it be boring if you turned on the news and everything was great?

Logan

Logan- everything is NOT fine. The current "official" unemployment rate is 9.5% and the underemployment rate (people that have given up looking for work and those working part-time that should be working full-time) is around 16%.. Its going to take the economy five years of creating 300,000 jobs per month to get back to pre-recession unemployment rate...

[Logan]

This is true. Just like it took Pearl Harbor to wake up the American people and after we defeated the Japanese and German tyrants of those days we became a super power and things were good all around.

Very soon we will face an economic Pearl Harbor which also will wake up the American people and we will rebuild just the same.

I'm afraid it will take an economic Pearl Harbor to reach the "positive side of things". We will be there but the financial bombs must fall from the sky for people to realize it. For now reality TV will suit most folks just fine.

Ford just posted record profits. Sorry but everything is fine. The news loves to spread fear because fear brings ratings.

Wouldn't it be boring if you turned on the news and everything was great?

Logan

[banca rotta]

I know that...I'm just trying to get you to look on the positive side of things because they are there.

Logan

This is true. Just like it took Pearl Harbor to wake up the American people and after we defeated the Japanese and German tyrants of those days we became a super power and things were good all around.

Very soon we will face an economic Pearl Harbor which also will wake up the American people and we will rebuild just the same.

I'm afraid it will take an economic Pearl Harbor to reach the "positive side of things". We will be there but the financial bombs must fall from the sky for people to realize it. For now reality TV will suit most folks just fine.

[Xue]

The problem that the US economy faces is far more serious than the financial crisis resulting from financial deregulation. The reason that traditional monetary and fiscal policies cannot produce an economic recovery is that so much of the US economy has been moved offshore. As the jobs have departed, there is no work to which low interest rates and massive government spending can recall workers.

This is the real freefall.

http://www.vdare.com/roberts/100714_economics.htm

[Logan]

Hi Logan.

Thanks for your thoughts. None of my postings were an attack on you.



I guess that your postings can be Yin and mine can be Yang or vice versa...cold and hot...we can keep each other balanced with our thoughts...Have a nice Sunday

I know that...I'm just trying to get you to look on the positive side of things because they are there.

Logan

[banca rotta]

Obama is Preparing to Bomb Iran

http://tarpley.net/2010/07/22/obama-preparing-to-bomb-iran/

Odd considering Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize.

[Xue]

Hi Logan.

Thanks for your thoughts. None of my postings were an attack on you.



I guess that your postings can be Yin and mine can be Yang or vice versa...cold and hot...we can keep each other balanced with our thoughts...Have a nice Sunday

[Logan]

XUE,

My entire life we have been in some sort of war or conflict. This has not changed nor ever will change. Please tell me a time period when we were not at war? I remember when I was a kid we had oil rationing due to difficulties with the middle east. Do you remember the cold war?

You can fixate on whatever you want. My life is great because I choose not to worry about the things you just posted. If a bomb is dropped on my head today would I have been better of worrying about it yesterday or off playing with my child? I try to live my life like today is my last day. I am off for a 30 mile bike ride followed by a 5 mile run. When I get tired (and I will) I will think about my friend who is stuck in a wheel chair and would give anything to be able to walk again and that will drive me.

As far as the recession--it is over. It's not up to the government, me or anyone else to find you a job---It is up to you! I've been there and it is not easy but when I look back on some of the experiences during those rough times I don't think I would change anything!

Good luck!

Logan