Yea, it's a scary time right now. It's time to start doing some more spreading the investments around.

Don't forget about the gas and oil prices.

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A persons wealth is in either real estate or investments. Usually, if one is down the other is up and vice versa or both will be up. This will be the first year since 1932 where both will be down.

I am holding pretty steady, although I am not in any "high risk" investments.

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I think some of the young guys around here haven't grasped the concept of a 401k. They don't realize that it is just a big savings account rather than a pension and that there aren't any guarantees. It is quite conceivasble that a person could work 25 years for a company and retire with just a year or two's worth of salary to live the rest of their lives on. Social Security isn't going to be around much longer.Medicare is a nightmare.

I guess pensions aren't always guranteed either. We have a guy who works part time here. He retired after 40 years at Beth Steel. The Federal government took over Beth Steel's pension plan and capped the max any retiree can get at $45k. They also cut his medical benefits and to add insult on injury they are making him pay back any $$'s they paid him over $45k per year. He doesn't even get a pension check until that money is repaid.

Yep, pensions just aren't what they used to be and also due to the fact that most people don't stick around at companies to long either.

Seems to me the best thing right now is a Roth IRA account.

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We might see a 1,000 point drop in the market this week.

If it wasn't for Bernanke cutting rates, we might have seen it yesterday alone.

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It's a great time to buy a house though. Real Estate is depressed and mortgage rates for non sub prime loans are at the lowest they have been in 50 years.


I mentioned on the other thread about the book I was reading about the market crash in 1929. The book was written in 1979. Things are eerily similiar between 1929 and now. For instance, back then they called them "pools" today we call them Hedge Funds. They both served the same purpose. in 1929 a large amount of American stocks and debt were held by the Chinese through the Shanhai Stock Exchange. In 1929 we had a clueless Federal Reserve same as we do now. There is about another 8 or 9 similiarities that I have found so far. (I am only 1/2 way through)