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?
The large corporations do that buy buying influence from our “representatives” in a government that is 10 times as big as it should be.
Take away the life and death power that government and unelected bureaucrats have over businesses and the free market will correct a business that has grown too big.
The business will be unable to use the seeming limitless power of government to suppress and crush competitors.
You voted for change, and now that’s all you have left. Amazing how you still can’t see past your envy of the CEOs who made “too much money” to see the real problem.
Sorry I don’t believe in demonizing business..
“CEOs were paid well because their buddies were on the corporate boards.”
I don’t disagree that at some corporations this may have been true. But, the fact that CEOs were making big bucks has very little to do with the stock market crash. Moreover. Wall Street operated on low salaries and year end bonus’. There’s nothing unusual about this. The mail boys making 600,000 a year at Goldman Sachs certainly didn’t complain.
Inflating the housing bubble with trillions of dollars of Fed guaranteed sub prime mortgages crashed the financial sector. The guy writing this retirement lament should focus on those villains.
But after his I am a supporter of this President remark, I withdraw and sympathy I may have felt.
Is it me, or are people just that dumb?
And if your money were truly conservatively invested, there's no way you should have lost more than 30 percent.
This article is a whiney bunch of hooey.
Hey, newbie, two questions:
Are you the author?
Did you vote for zer0bama?
How many Human Resources managers, Directors of Communications or Senior vice presidents for global support services do you think are losing their jobs?
Too many companies will layoff the productive people 1st while the MBA's protect their own, even if it means driving the company into the ground.
Sorry, but the mortgage market wasn't the only sector of the economy 'bubble-ized' by Fed monetary policy. Just about the entire economy was impacted, and it made for oversized bonuses for CEOs - stocks were bid up because the world was awash in cash looking for a return (such as what we saw in commodities last year).
But my original point stands - the increase in CEO compensation was way greater than the increase in market capitalization. And it's become almost impossible to break the stranglehold of the oligarchy on the corporate domain. Which is how we get government policies that skin working stiffs, such as the proposed cap-and-trade - a lot of corporations actually like the concept because it will be a barrier to entry for a lot of potential competitors.
i was feeling bad for him til this. sorry, if you supported the Obams, you were asking for this mess.
By supporting 0bama, you are supporting socialism.
I cannot understand how anybody can be a supporter of this president anymore when he and his administration are making things financially and economically worse for everybody, not just the rich. Any reasonable, thoughtful and competent person can see it clearly. Our president is an unmitigated disaster. He is naive. He is clueless. He is dangerous. The only thing he really cares about is his agenda. He cares not for this country, its history or its citizens. He cares not about throwing the Constitution of our great country under his bus as he has done with so many others.
bttt
We must become the party of small business, where there are higher wages and jobs created
Pal, it may be time to question your standing as a conservative if you're going to make a blanket statement demonizing big business. Just about every big business was a small business at some point. Who stands as the arbiter of classifying any successful business that has grown to a size you would call "big" as part of the problem?
Man, what the heck is happening to this site? Now we're at the point where self-proclaimed conservatives are trashing capitalism too.
On Fox this morning -- Obozo's stimulus has resulted in a 2 million job LOSS -- not one job has been saved, let alone "the 5 million he'd create." The White House is now rewriting history to say that Obozo didn't really say he'd create or save any jobs. The Fox analyst predicted unemployment at over 10% by the fall, with worse to come. I'm 62 and have no idea how I will make-up my lost "safe" investments so I can retire. There are about 23 million boomers in the same condition. We may be the single largest, angriest voting block in 2010.
I stood at my pole for the Obama election from 5:00 AM to 7:00 PM. I watch many retire people come by me angry at the GOP and voting for the illegal alien. Does most people’s brains die at 65 years old?
Well, I finally decided to get in the market (mutual fund thing) in October, right before it did the last little dip. Lost value as it bounced down a bit more.
Since then I’ve been adding a little each month.
Right now (Friday) I’m up about 17%.
No big bucks, just something to play with the next 10 years of so.
“because the world was awash in cash looking for a return (such as what we saw in commodities last year.”
I believe that cash came from inflating housing values and low interest rates. Both caused by left wing government policies.
“And it’s become almost impossible to break the stranglehold of the oligarchy on the corporate domain.”
Corporate oligarchy? What kind of crazy Huff Po talk is this? Corporations are owned by stockholders.
Hugo Obamachev may temporarily have corporate CEOs hiding under their desks, but this won’t last long as his economic policies devolve into hyper inflation.
Actually, the retired guy in this article has seen the worst of it yet.
The best thing you can do to remain physically and mentally fit is keep working.
But controlled by boards. And the boards have become inbred. Do some research instead of buying into the corporations-can-do-no-wrong mantra.
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