Posted on 02/08/2009 8:12:37 AM PST by rellimpank
It will never drop to zero and you can rent the land for farming for more than enough to cover taxes.
The figures for farm land values in the area are easily found, and if you can buy at mid level or less, you can't lose money. The value will go up to cover inflation, and in the next building boom you may make millions selling to a developer.
Bump
You can thank your parents (and my parents also) for the miserable state of private sector pensions. Of course, you can thank the rats for demagouging on this issue until it is too late. The role of the greatest generation in this mess is crucial. Without the greatest generation rewarding rat demagougery, the retirement mess could have been fixed long ago. For the most part, the greatest generation has been content to get their lucrative Social Security benefits (low tax rates when working and increased benefits when retired).
The baby boom generation is to blame in not confronting the greatest generation. The baby boom generation has been complacent with many indicating that they do not think Social Security will be there. This complacency is dangerous. The problems with Social Security (and Medicare even more) are far worse than not being there. No politician can vote to reduce Social Security and Medicare. The baby boom generation has paid enormous sums into both programs. Thus, Social Security will be reduced indirectly through negative impacts on the national (and perhaps world) economy). I believe that we are risking a collapse of the world economy over entitlement promises.
“Or, hidden away in the bond funds, a whole bunch of mortgage-backed securities — you know, the “safe” stuff — ...”
Does that mean if our bond fund has FNMA listed in the portfolio, it is holding a mortgage-backed security? And should we then be very concerned?
Your employer’s plan usually gives you a choice of something like 12 max mutual funds that you can move your savings between.
A company like Fidelity would have several hundred mutual funds you could move your money around in (including a gold fund.) And of course, you can always move your money to another company if you didn’t like Fidelity’s results. Something you can’t do with an employer plan.
Everyone did bad in 2008, so pointing out that certain Fidelity funds did bad as well isn’t really news. (No, this is not a Fidelity ad, I just used them for an example.)
Hey, ss must be well managed, the checks keep arriving- right?”
Exactly. At the state level, California is now distributing I.O.U.s to those of us who should be getting a refund check. How long before this happens on the national level? The gobermint is full of fiscally negligent idiots.
I hope you bumped up your exemptions to stop witholding and plan to pay next year’s taxes back with that IOU!
Stay safe in California. The whole state makes me very sad.
We have our 401K and profit sharing funds managed by a small firm. We are only down 0.3% in 2008. Very good. They use these types of vehicles for our trading.
I think I have close to 100 different Fidelity funds through my work 401k.
The original poster was saying to make it simple by using the “pick a retirement date” fund. I was pointing out that it wouldn’t have helped much.
I am also of a view that high schools should offer courses on money management, banking and investing. These are basic life skills that kids ought to be exposed to and ought to be thinking about.
Both local papers took out Mutual Fund tables - they said the information could be found on the internet. That's true of sports scores too - but for reason that have to do with "journalists enjoy sports - but most can't do math" - the decision was made...
Sure did Silver. I've always had my deductions positioned so that I get a very small amount back every year. I've always paid my taxes on time and now I'm getting punished by having the crooks hold back what is owed to me. Doesn't make a difference if it's $5 or $5000, what is mine is mine and if I didn't pay what was owed (like what appears to be a good percentage of Obama’s nominees) I'd get penalized or go to jail for tax evasion. Yet, I'm asked to accept an IOU. I may need to take them to small claims court to get my refund.
“Stay safe in California.”
Thank you.
“The whole state makes me very sad.”
It does me also. What I fear is that the entire nation is being made in the image of California under Obama and his stooges.
...but as the column points out, if all of your contributions get funneled into s****y funds in a market that is especially unfriendly to banks, how is that possible?
This idiot seems like one of those who believed that Bill Clinton discovered the secret to eternal prosperity by “spreading the wealth around” through cheap home loans for all.
Amen. The people complaining about the 30 to 50% haircut they took on their retirement account balances were not complaining when their accounts were going up 10, 15, and 20% a year. If they were middle age and had 80 to 100% in stock based funds, they were stupid and have no one to blame but themselves for their losses. They should have used the money market or fixed interest account option in their accounts to manage risk. Did they realistically think that the stock market goes up every year and never has severe declines? Unfortunately, it does and these people were clueless as to how to manage their retirement accounts.
To their checking account if they were smart. To GM stock if they weren't.
The 401K ‘benefit’ basically eliminated the defined pension plan in the private sector with few exceptions. It saved employers a ton of money and eliminated long term retirement benefits as a liability - except for union workers. Governemnt employees at all levels continue to have defined benefits plans - basically, an annuity for life with no one in government willing to step up and change the system with all of them on the system, big time.
So, it’s bound to happen - 401K funds will disappear or have disappeared even if low risk assets were involved - we are all on our own in the private sector when it comes to retirement. The smart thing to do is work for the government and with that being the smart thing to do - we are all screwed.
These Marxists are getting quite bold these days.
Obama’s goal is to unionize 30% of the work force, the bottom 30% under the SEIU, which seems to be an acronym with two meanings, the original, Service Employees International Union, the other is the State Employee International Union. They are one and the same. State employee unions work under government contract, and have a government funded pension, separate from Social Security. My guess is that Obama has plans for the social security system that he hasn’t told us about, yet. Maybe that talk about the government taking over the 401Ks is part of that plan.
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