Damn the economy

[RecycleMichael]

I know there are Bush apologists who say the economy is doing fine. I just got my investment statement and I disagree.

The Dow Jones is a hundred points lower today than it was a year ago.

Anybody else for President.

[inteller]

sounds like you are investing in the wrong crap then.

There is always some place in the world where money can be made.


My statement says I know what the hell I'm doing....not necessarily that the economy is doing well.

[sgrizzle]

Since I missed out on the bottled water craze, I've put all my money into canned air.

[spoonbill]

147% up on mine this year.  Lots of Apple stock, metals, and mining.  I'm still waiting on my XM/SIRUS merger to go through!

Wish I could do that every year.  Usually around 14% - 20%.  We've all taken a little hit this last week.

When they unleash this years stimulus package, I would like to encourage everyone to go buy an Apple with their gubment check.

Thank you!

[cannon_fodder]

Not a Bush apologist but any means, but the president has very little impact on the economy.  Aside from his retarded spending habits - which is of course actually Congress deal, he has very little to do with the current downturn.  I don't care if it's Clinton, or Reagan, or whatever politician is in the Whitehouse... their impact on the economy is limited.

Long term over spending.  Promising future spending  without funding.  Encouraging home ownership to everyone.  Screwed up immigration policy.  Faltering education.  Growing bureaucracy for small business.  Increased compliance cost for corporations.

Gee, if only I could think of some economic problems that government has caused and/or should fix.  Don't care who it is, my guess it whatever 'they' do to "fix it" makes it worse in the long run because it will involve more of 'them' in "it."

Not that I'm particularly worried about the current economy.  The downturn was not severe enough before and the rebound to rapid.  Way too many companies are still over valued.  My money is over seas (moving lots to Japan) and doing just fine.  I'll be brining it home in 6 months or so when things calm down/bottom out and profit from the panic.

My contrarian and over seas funds made 15-22%.  Other funds 9-12%.  I'm OK with that.  Of course, I had a few losers (clearly too many lately), but as a whole I did acceptable.

[Wilbur]

Now is the time to buy, not sell.  Remember, buy low and sell high.  Not buy when things are going good and selling with things are bad.

[Conan71]

And, RM, a year from now, it might be up 200 points from where it is now.

[spoonbill]

quote:Originally posted by Wilbur

Now is the time to buy, not sell.  Remember, buy low and sell high.  Not buy when things are going good and selling with things are bad.

Just got off my morning buying spree.

INTL
more APPL
ARRS
and a great little fund AGRBX

[grahambino]

quote:Originally posted by spoonbill

quote:Originally posted by Wilbur

Now is the time to buy, not sell.  Remember, buy low and sell high.  Not buy when things are going good and selling with things are bad.

Just got off my morning buying spree.

INTL
more APPL
ARRS
and a great little fund AGRBX

INTC?
AAPL?

[si_uk_lon_ok]

Fund stops investor withdrawals

Thats 20% of my pension tied up in that damn fund. At least I'll have 40 odd years for it to bounce back before I need that pension.

[we vs us]

quote:Originally posted by si_uk_lon_ok

Fund stops investor withdrawals

Thats 20% of my pension tied up in that damn fund. At least I'll have 40 odd years for it to bounce back before I need that pension.

Hm.  That's fascinating.  Instead of runs on banks, a la 1929, we've got runs on 401k funds.  

Are funds FDIC insured?

[si_uk_lon_ok]

quote:Originally posted by we vs us

quote:Originally posted by si_uk_lon_ok

Fund stops investor withdrawals

Thats 20% of my pension tied up in that damn fund. At least I'll have 40 odd years for it to bounce back before I need that pension.

Hm.  That's fascinating.  Instead of runs on banks, a la 1929, we've got runs on 401k funds.  

Are funds FDIC insured?

Well this one definately isn't.
I think the problem is the fund is over invested in offices for financial services. Financial services are rather wobbly at the moment with lots of people being laid off and demand decreasing.

Oh and the UK has already had a run on a bank. It looks like it'll end up being nationalised as the government had to pump so much into it.

[FOTD]

Is our media questioners so incompetent and unknowledgable that none asked a rather simple question.
"You are saying to give the middle and lower classes a tax rebate or gift or whatever to quickly stimulate the economy. Does it not follow that when Bush proposed and got tax breaks for the extremely wealthy a couple of times, that policy was wrong and may have contributed to our present problem. If more of the Bush tax breaks for the wealthy had been more equitably distributed, wouldn't we have had a more steady and stable stimuli to the economy? In other words was Bush like Reagan wrong on his early economic policies?"

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011708M.shtml
New Inflation Data Explain Middle-Class Squeeze
   By Kevin G. Hall
   McClatchy Newspapers

   Wednesday 16 January 2008

Washington - New data from the Labor Department confirm what most middle-class Americans already know: Inflation is squeezing them.

   As consumer prices rose by 4.1 percent last year, the highest rate since 1990, the prices of basic essentials such as food, gasoline and health insurance climbed far more steeply, explaining why so many Americans are telling pollsters that the economy is their chief concern.

   The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday that the price of food and beverages rose 4.8 percent. At the same time, real weekly earnings failed to keep pace, rising 0.9 percent for the year. In the simplest of terms, a dollar earned bought less.

   This partly explains why the economy so frustrates Americans.

   "From a standpoint of the consumer, they react to (inflation) like a tax increase. They feel less wealthy, they feel pinched and they are looking for institutions or people to blame," said William Beach, an economist and the director of data analysis for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative policy-research organization.

   The consumer price index collects price data on just about every imaginable good or service in 87 urban areas around the country. These data are culled, products are assigned numerical weight based on their relative importance to consumer spending, then an average change of prices is determined.

   The Labor Department issues monthly reports on consumer inflation based on this data, detailing broad categories of consumer expenditures such as transportation, energy and medical care.

   But these categories tell only a partial story of the middle-class squeeze.

   Digging deeper into the data reveals, for example, that the price of bread rose 7.4 percent last year, almost twice the rate of inflation.

   The price of eggs rose 29.2 percent in 2007, while the price of fresh whole milk was up 13.1 percent. Since July, when milk prices first soared, the price of fresh whole milk has risen by almost 23 percent.

   "The kinds of things you purchase every day are going up (in price)," said Gus Faucher, the director of macroeconomics at forecaster Moody's Economy.com in West Chester, Pa. "People who are at the lower end of the income scale are going to feel that more."

   It's not just rising food prices that are pinching the budget of working Americans.

   The price of health insurance, another major political-campaign theme, rose by 10.1 percent last year. Medical inflation also continued to outpace the broader consumer inflation rate. The price of medical care nationally rose by 5.8 percent in 2007 and the price of medical care services rose by 5.3 percent.

   But consumers perhaps most felt the energy-price squeeze. Gasoline prices rose 8.2 percent on average last year, the slowest rate of growth since 2002. But pump prices began climbing anew in October and for the last quarter of 2007 average prices rose by just more than 30 percent.

   Similarly, the price of fuel oil used for winter home heating rose 7.4 percent for all of 2007, but in the last three months of the year rose by more than 27 percent.

   On a brighter note, electricity prices also rose last year but by only 3.9 percent, slightly under the broader consumer inflation rate. The price of utility-provided, piped-in natural gas - largely a domestically produced product, unlike oil - fell 1.4 percent in 2007.

   For baby boomers sending their children to college, tuition and expenses rose by 6.2 percent last year, the slowest rate of growth since 2001 but still rising faster than the inflation rate. The cost of attending a technical or trade school rose by 4 percent.

   For working parents with young children, the cost of child care and nursery school rose 4.3 percent, slightly above the inflation rate. The cost of feeding and caring for Fido or other family pets rose 3 percent.

   The cost of permanently checking out - funeral expenses - rose by 5 percent in 2007.

   The inflation news would be worse if not for China. Prices for the types of consumer goods that are coming almost exclusively from China were down last year as in earlier years, serving to hold back broader U.S. consumer inflation.

   Apparel prices fell 0.4 percent in 2007, footwear prices fell 0.9 percent and the price of furniture and bedding - China- and Brazil-dominated products that once were the domain of the Carolinas - fell by 0.9 percent.

   The price of toys, which now come mostly from China, fell 4.7 percent last year. It's fallen every year since 1997.

[spoonbill]

quote:Originally posted by grahambino

quote:Originally posted by spoonbill

quote:Originally posted by Wilbur

Now is the time to buy, not sell.  Remember, buy low and sell high.  Not buy when things are going good and selling with things are bad.

Just got off my morning buying spree.

INTL
more APPL
ARRS
and a great little fund AGRBX

INTC?
AAPL?

Yeah, sorry I'm a bit lexdisic.

[jne]

My CREF stock went backwards....