Posted on 06/08/2009 6:52:11 AM PDT by PeterL
I retired in late 2006 with a conservative financial plan in place that would last through the lives of my wife and myself and still leave a little something for the kids. My financial planner and I choose an appropriate asset allocation model and we needed only 5% returns to be in good shape. My wife and I planned on working or volunteering, but we could do things because we wanted to and not because we had to. After many years in corporate America, this was a great place to be.
I am still in a little bit of shock over everything that has happened in the financial markets over the past year. On one hand, events unfolded in the blink of an eye and on the other, it was a death by a thousand cuts. My retirement plans were solid and in place and now they are gone. Disappeared. Vanished. Dead. They will not be revived and I am left with the shock, disbelief, despair and anger of trying to figure out what to do next.
Who is to blame for all this because I would like to introduce them to their worst fears and nightmares? Not really, but they should suffer. I played by the rules. I put my money in secure investments. I didn’t gamble on housing or any of the other get rich schemes out there. Perhaps I was too willing to accept the advice of financial planners with all of their asset allocation models and long term investing theories. History always repeats itself, the market runs in cycles, you cannot time the market and so in the end you buy and hold knowing that which comes down will eventually rise even higher…but I don’t think so this time. The mess we are in right now feels very different. No one is talking about rebounding to past highs. All of the talk is can we avoid the dire straits of a total system collapse.
There is probably much blame to go around. For years, while I was still a part of corporate America I was incensed at the salaries, bonuses, perks and power being given to our CEO and to all CEOs. In the good old USA our CEO’s average 450 times the salary of the average worker. The next highest country averaged 22 times the average worker. Not too hard to see that something was terribly wrong, but times were booming, money being made, stock prices climbing so who cared. Of course now we find out that most of these profits were just shell games and the people who could manipulate their way to huge paydays. The foxes raided the hen houses and they have all gotten away.
I need to get back to work. I need to make money comparable to what I used to, but it won’t be easy. My age and experience work against me not for me. The job market is terrible and we just hit 23 straight months of net jobs lost. There is no end in sight, but still, I conduct my daily job searches and try to stay positive and pray I do not lose everything I have worked so hard to acquire.
I am an optimistic person, but it is clear to me that all of the rules have changed. I have no confidence in the economic stimulus plans, although I am a supporter of this President. I do not see how we can buy our way out of this mess. It is like we are trying to pay off the judge in order to avoid going to jail, but the judge is a harsh judge who does not accept bribes. Something tells me that we must accept our sentence and learn from all this. I don’t claim to know what our lesson or lessons might be, but I feel certain that our lives need to change and our desires need to change. “He who dies with the most toys wins” was a funny bumper sticker, but it is funny no more. I think it is time to end this era of greed and selfishness and over consumption. It is time to focus on needs and not wants, and it certainly wouldn’t hurt to think about how our actions affect the other guy, and not just that it is good for me.
There are so many of us in this predicament. It is as if we are stranded on an island and there is no one coming to our rescue. Certainly not the government! Perhaps therein lays our opportunities. Those of us with first hand experience on how the old rules no longer apply can begin to create the new rules. We find strength as we look to each other for strength. Our unique bond expanding into a feeling the connection between us…and this connection feels good and right…and we begin to desire this connection…and nurture this connection…and begin to realize what our world could look like if we took care of each other instead of taking care of our self. Why not put this into action? It has been talked about often but never implemented. What do we have to lose?
No comprende.
Arise ye russian people, Sergei Prokofiev
Anti trust legislation having teeth again (I am very big on this, monopolies are NOT good for the market) AND preventing corporate America from buying our government (you can see it now with Wall St owning the 0 administration and how much funny money of ours he has poured into the bank)
Yes, I agree with your assertion that market forces are the answer. However corporations do not wish to exist within those market forces (see Pharma companies and the fact they face no competition from foreign competitors, see the fact that supplies of oil are high and demand low yet prices are rising again very fast)
Why do these market failures happen? Simple, because big business BUYS big government and pushes the big government to prop itself up when it fails due to its inefficiences.
We have seen hundreds of examples from TARP to GM being chapter 11 as opposed to chapter 7, the 0 administration discarding the sanctity of contracts and the amount of tax payer money that went to businesses which we complete 100 percent failures and should have failed and wiped out the wealth of the board, the CEOs and the management
Again, what big business now does is PREVENT market forces from acting in the rational way that it should act, and big business does hit by owning big government.
If we truly had market forces acting, many of these zombie companies would be 100 percent dead, and trillions of our dollars wouldn’t have been wasted on them
Looks like a Blog-Pimp!
If you supported 0bama, couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.
Next time vote free market instead of communism.
Troll?
Then to imply that others should stop being so selfish and greedy so HE can get back to his retirement is also ridiculous.
I personally think it sucks that many who have worked so hard and earned a happy retirement have to return to work. But I resent somebody in that circumstance telling me that I'M partly to blame because I work hard trying to achieve and obtain things for myself and for my family.
Psst!
PeterL is a libtard troll. Evidence:
My advice to PeterL to get his career back on track is to advise him to seek a job for which he is qualified. Read this book, Petie:
Warning: the job can involve lots of standing over counters. Not good for geezers with bad backs!
I think troll is the name of this poster.
And I will give you one more example, today, of big business mixing with big government to prevent the free market from operating correctly.
In a true market system there would be NO “mandate” for individuals to buy health insurance. This push does one thing and one thing only, put money in the pockets of insurance companies, whose flawed models have been part of the rise in premiums. These are not the rules of a free market
Private health insurance faces a bleak future if the proposal they champion most vigorously — a requirement that everyone buy medical coverage — is not adopted.
The customer base for private insurance has slipped since 2000, when soaring premiums began driving people out. The recession has accelerated the problem. But even after the economy recovers, the downward spiral is expected to continue for years as baby boomers become eligible for Medicare — and stop buying private insurance.
Insurers do not embrace all of the healthcare restructuring proposals. But they are fighting hard for a purchase requirement, sweetened with taxpayer-funded subsidies for customers who can’t afford it, and enforced with fines.
Such a so-called individual mandate amounts to a huge booster shot for health insurers, which would serve up millions of new customers almost overnight.
FULL ARTICLE:
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-fi-healthcare...
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