Posted on 10/23/2008 6:52:48 AM PDT by indianyogi
McCain -- go after them the Democrates.
The Democrats want to end the private retirement system that has allowed Americans to become a vast investor class and put them back in thrall of the federal government. This is nothing more than a second welfare system that would sit on top of the crumbling Social Security entitlement. It would leave the American working and middle classes with no retirement option other than a government handout. If the Democrats control both Congress and the White House, kiss your 401(k)s goodbye, and get into the bread lines first before the crowd arrives. (via Q&O)
heh...
We already have reason enough to start a new revolution...
If the marxist Obama and the democrats gain control of the federal government, that is enough reason to start the new revolution.
The fedreral government nationalizing 401k’s is only another shot being fired.
Its pointless to keep redrawing the line every time they cross the previous one. Its time to draw a line in the sand and be ready to fight when they cross it. No negotiations, no backing down, no mercy (at least not initially). This marxist takeover of ths country needs to end NOW!
McCain has to make an AD about this.
“This will raise your taxes NOW and DESTROY your retirement later.”
He definitely needs to end the AD with the question:
“What else will the liberals do once they have the largest controlling majorites in Congress and a socialist as President? Be afraid, be very afraid”
And the people will bring this on themselves. Why? Just Why? What is in it for the Obami masses? Sure if you have a couple million in your mattress, fine. But what about the working class? Do they want to be in charge of the Gulag? I don’t get it. Half the population is ready to give up all that made us great.......
How did they calculate these returns? The Dow was around 950 when Carter took office, dropped about 100 points in a year and then went back and forth for four years.
Thats why we get to them before hand...
There MUST be SOME that take their oath seriously? Its simply a matter of convincing key people that its time to fulfill their oath against the correct domestic enemy.
It can be done, we NEED to try! If they wont fight for us they need to at least agree to stand down.
What about Roth IRAs?
Did you contribute to the plan with before tax monies or after tax monies?
Because if you put you money in before taxes you’re going to get hosed when you go to withdraw those funds or they are converted to a government annuity. There will be huge taxes due on the entire amount.
So I point to all of those who said I was stupid for investing on my own, with after tax monies.
Let’s see the chart of stock market performance vs. control of Congress...
Unless that table reflects the underlying monetary inflation rate in any given administration and removes it or norms it to a base year it’s meaningless.
The chart is interesting, but what many people do not realize is that the influence of the president on the economy and stock market is small compared to other forces.
For example, Clinton. The first 2 years were terrible. After the Republican Congress came in and passed business friendly legislation, the economy and the market took off.
He did make a decision to keep Alan Greenspan. He was also smart enough to sign the legislation the Republicans passed. Other than that he personally did not have much to do with the economic success during his administration, IMHO.
WWPD? What Would Petraeus Do?
These new Democrats are not even comparable to the old Democrats.
I’m not sure what they mean. Do they want to end 401k’s AND privatize SS? Ending 401k’s is a bad idea, but privatizing SS would be great as Congress now takes MY MONEY out of my account and gives it to others.
Contrary to popular belief, Presidents have very little affect on the economy, however, Congress does. Republicans have usually been in power or wielded enough power during the democrat years to affect the budget. You need to go back and look at who had control of Congress during those periods, I bet it'd paint a different picture.
None the less, it doesn't matter who gets elected we're in for a rough couple of years, and if Obama wins and implements his socialists plans, tax, and spending policies it's going to be a lot rougher than it would be otherwise. And remember democrats will control Congress too so a double whammy. I'm sure they'll find a way to blame Republicans though.
I looked at data from 1959-2006, dividing the years into DDD=Dem WH, Dem Senate, Dem House;
DRR=Dem WH, Rep Senate, Rep House;
RDD=Rep WH, Dem Senate, Dem House;
RRR=Rep WH, Rep Senate, Rep House.
The first 2 columns show average annual percent change in real (inflation-adjusted) GDP and disposable income per capita. Disposable income accounts for personal current taxes, so it's a better measure of what families have to actually spend. However, personal current taxes includes taxes on income, including realized net capital gains, and on personal property. Also included in personal taxes are personal licenses. However, contributions for government social insurance are not included
. The other columns should be self-explanatory.
If you just compare parties, D's "win" on all but 3 of the 9 measures. But you get a different picture if you begin to account On 4 of the 9 measures shown, DRR gives the best performance, scores 2nd best on 2 other measures and scores last on 2 (federal taxes & all taxes as % of GDP). Conversely, RRR scores worst on 4 measures, 2nd worst on 3 others and only scores best on 1: federal taxes as % of GDP. But during this period, the only DRR years were under Clinton and the only RRR years were under Bush. To me this demonstrates very convincingly that the excellence of the Clinton years can be attributed to having a Republican Congress to block his excesses and force him to accept programmatic changes (e.g., welfare reform) that saved money. Between that and using the Reagan/Bush peace dividend to pay down the federal debt (and hollow out the military/intelligence in the process), Clinton left office with a pretty rosy economic picture (though it quickly became a recession before GWB could even plausibly affect the direction of the economy). Even so, the Republican Congress did not prevent federal taxes from reaching its highest average level (and total taxes did the same). Conversely, Bush and a Republican Congress did an excellent job of tax-cutting, but otherwise were not terribly good stewards of the budget. Even worse, overall government spending as % of GDP is at its highest level, which in combination with low taxes and mediocre GDP growth culminates in deficits averaging 2.7% of GDP. And if you look closely, you'll see that a Republican Congress is far more likely to discipline a Democratic president on the spending side than a Democratic Congress will with a Republican president. But nearly the opposite is true with respect to taxes. If one assumes that attaining Republican majorities in the House or Senate is well outside what is feasible to achieve within the next 2 weeks, then then the only "choice" facing voters is whether to seek DDD or RDD. If these figures did reflect pure and unambiguous causality and if Obama were a "typical" Dem, then on all measures but 2, we'd be better off with DDD than RDD! This conclusion doesn't even pass the sniff test, reflecting just how far out of the mainstream Obama and this very liberal group of Democrats in Congress is. It's a fair bet that an Obama administration--aided and abetted by Reid and Pelosi-- would perform worse on all 9 measures shown.
Real GDP per Person | Real Disposable Income per Person | Total Unemployment Rate | Teen Unemployment Rate | Federal Taxes % of GDP | Federal Spending % of GDP | All Taxes % of GDP | All Gov. Spending % of GDP | Total Surplus/Deficit % of GDP | |
D | 2.0% | 3.8% | 5.1 | 15.4 | 18.7 | 19.6 | 28.5% | 28.3% | 0.2% |
R | 2.3% | 3.2% | 6.4 | 17.4 | 17.8 | 20.7 | 28.2% | 30.4% | -2.2% |
DDD (14) | 1.9% | 3.8% | 5.3 | 15.6 | 18.2 | 19.8 | 27.5% | 27.4% | 0.0% |
DRR (6) | 2.0% | 3.7% | 4.6 | 14.8 | 19.8 | 19.1 | 31.0% | 30.4% | 0.7% |
RDD (16) | 2.1% | 3.2% | 6.3 | 17.1 | 17.9 | 20.5 | 28.2% | 30.2% | -2.0% |
RRR (6) | 1.9% | 2.7% | 5.3 | 16.4 | 17.6 | 20.0 | 28.5% | 31.2% | -2.7% |
Because many people are too afraid of the stock market right now to think straight. I hear people crying all over the place about their “loss” in their 401k. They are even saying they are going to quit contributing.
I tell them are you crazy? Now is the time to buy. The time to liquidate was last year. My 401k today is still up 37% over where it was when Bush took office. In November 2007, I liquidated half of my portfolio and transferred the funds to the treasury fund of my 401k. Soon I will be reinvesting some of those funds each month for about a year.
I have been buying selected stocks for my IRA and investment portfolio, since July 29, 2008. My best investment todate is a Bank stock which is up 25% even though the market as a whole is down.
The schools need to teach investment principles and help people to understand the market functions and business cycle, and many have no exposure what so ever to this before graduation.
Any one with 10 years to retirement should still be investing in several funds. Any one planning on retiring in 5 years, should have put some of their money in a conservative fund (money market or treasury fund) when the market peaked, to avoid taking money from a fund during a down market.
And I remind them that it is not a real loss until you sell.
And eliminating the 401k is really stupid, I agree.
The economy was not doing too well during the first 2 years of the Clinton Admin. It was not until the Republican Congress came in and passed legislation, that the market and economy really took off.
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