Magic numbers: retirement/investment coffers

Well there ya go -- somedays yer up, somedays yer down, most days spent spinning round and round.

Just remember: bulls make money, bears make money, pigs get slaughtered.

pig market?

What a journey.

This is an interesting newsletter predicting the actions of Bernanke and thus the Fed by going over an presentation he did for the Bank of Japan in the late 1990s.

An interesting link indeed. Not so much "prediction" as summation -- the FOMC is meeting tomorrow. The markets have essentially priced in a rate cut of a full 1%, US markets are down a bit, but there is no mass exodus. I have not been watching the "shorts" but if short volume build significantly and commodities retreat way below their recent speculative spikes Chairmen Bernanke's nightmare becomes reality. Yet even that might have silver lining -- a retreat of gas prices would kick start summer travel and maybe even help the domestic car makers blow out their inefficient models...

There are still an awful lot of companies in the US that do, one way or another, actually make things. If raw materials prices fall and the dollar remains weak the advantage it gives us to increase production and exports is huge. If the Presidential candidates are to be believed that they will do "all they can" to get Americans "back to work" I can only hope that means dialing down bureaucratic barriers against investment. From tax implications to the environmental regs there is a lot to hope for... The speed with which government "gets out of the way" ought to be telling.

>The speed with which government "gets out of the way" ought to be telling.

Like how they "got out of the way" of that sub-prime thing?

Sorry, the economy/sharemarket needs some adult supervision IMHO. Perhaps that dampens some of the booms, but it also softens some of the busts.

Like they got out of the way of our manufacturing base turned into financial (service) sectors that created the subprime.

What a journey.

Regardless Bill, they still did not have proper regulatory oversight. Naked greed ignored by too many with vested interests. Greenspan should hang his head in shame...

I agree. We need to put it under total absolute governmental control OR join another more worldly currency.

It's absolutely stupid to have currency markets in this age. Just come up with ONE.

What a journey.

I think we're not talking about the same thing anymore, Bill.

happens way too frequently.

What a journey.

I dont think anyone here disagrees that in a "free-market capitalist" system, the enticement for people to "do stuff" where stuff might be, (good), (hard work), (more than is required), (stuff that's risky), etc is the money and personal benefit they can glean from doing said stuff.

However, In the absence of regulatory bodies (where I believe the chasm betwixt Bill and Tony is) people will do stuff that's not in the "public interest" or stuff that's "harmfull to a lot of other people in society" simply to make that buck. They will do Enron style accounting, convincing the market that they're making money, and highly profitable while actually losing a lot of money and being a very risky investment. They will do Enron style manipulation. Shutting down power generation plants in order to spike the short term price of electricity, something that society at this point cannot be without, thus making a huge killing by gaming the system. And they will play fast and loose with their duties/regulations/safety requirements etc.

Basically, as long as the cost from being punished (fines, lawsuits, etc) is less than or close to the profit gained from NOT doing the "right thing" then companies will have considerable enticement to NOT do the right thing.

Thats where I and I believe Tony and many other "free market" liberal/democrats lie. We want business to grow, we want technology to be invented, the internet to flourish. We want startups to come up with new and innovative ways of power generation, and green recycling, and more efficient manufacturing. What we don't want is for companies to be incented to do "bad things" because there's no oversight.

Look at the mining industry, for 7+ years they have been getting a nearly free ride from MSHA. Not that things before BushII were exactly ONEROUS in terms of safety and regulations, but even that modicum of "restrictions" were pretty much thrown out the window, and what we get are worse and worse safety records, employees complaining about old, untested equipment, etc. Same with the banking industry. For 20+ years now, the lending industry has been getting less and less regulations and more and more incentives. Thus you get fewer and fewer reasons for a lender to NOT give out the loan. The bankrupcy laws are tougher now. The "reselling" and "repackaging" of mortgages means that the original mortgage company rarely if ever actually assumes the risk of the mortgages anyways, its an invitation to disaster.

There are RICH people (making 120+k a year) in RICH HOMES (say a mill plus) that were getting ARMS that there was no WAY they would ever be able to pay, because the assumption (by the lender and the owner) was that prices would simply keep going up, and they'd just refinance again in another couple years. This isn't simply a "poor people were too stupid" problem. This is a "everyone was out for themselves and nobody was watching the chicken coop.

Morg "I agree, Greenspan really did a disservice by saying that there was no problem, nothing to see here, carry on." anti

> Basically, as long as the cost from being punished (fines, lawsuits, etc) is less than or close to the profit gained from NOT doing the "right thing" then companies will have considerable enticement to NOT do the right thing.

There is a fundamental problem with accountability. In some respects corporations have the rights of an individual, in other respects (cough: bankruptcy laws:cough) they are treated as an entity and the individuals responsible are clear... There aren't enough penalties for doing the wrong thing.

gold standard

discuss

What a journey.

Hell it worked SO WELL back in the day... We definitely need it now.

Ok, no more snark. I would just say that aside from some of the negatives (like raising the price of gold to a ridiculous price and killing processes that need gold to function), I dont see how it would help us NOW. I mean we are SO FAR in debt that its not even funny. We would literally have to slash our budget like IN HALF, or something (I dont have the time for the numbers right now) and you KNOW they aint about to slash the defense dept in half. So really we'd be slashing maybe 20% off of defense, and say 60 or 70% on everything else.

Morg "That would just do WONDERS for our country..." anti

they can't print more gold

What a journey.

I'm actually starting to be in favor of tying the currency with real, physical existence and value. I think finances have gotten so far removed from reality that they're starting to work with imaginary numbers. (And, yes, I DO mean the square root of -1.)

hey, stop looking at my bank balance

What a journey.

ya know Bill, fiscal responsibility starts WITH TAXPAYER'S MONEY!!!!

sobering:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/retirement/stories/crabb.html

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/retirement/stories/thibeau.html

I watched that episode, or parts of it from the site... I could hear stories like that all day.

Meanwhile, the CEO of JP Morgan was paid 29 million dollars in 2007.

29 million in one year.