Alternate History
The Associated Press has a feature on people who are dependent on the stock market for their retirement. This is the wonderful future that the Hedgemony thinks everyone should share – the cat food diet when corporations behave badly and the market drops like a rock.
If you look at brokerage literature or web sites you may notice in some inconspicuous place warnings like these: “Brokerage Products: Not FDIC Insured • No Bank Guarantee • May Lose Value” or “Yields quoted are past performance and no guarantee of future results”. They are telling you that you are gambling on your future, and that gamble doesn’t always pay off. Are you feeling lucky? Well, are you?
6 comments
We have an economic system that’s run like a floating craps game.
Having been in the military and the market, I can assure you, Michael, there’s a good deal more integrity involved in a floating craps game, than a brokerage. The proprietors of craps games are well aware of the amount of “brokerage” that would be involved if they cheated.
When I look at how much the value of my retirement savings have fallen since the first of the year I get a little dizzy. It is more than I paid for my first house!
I’m more than thrilled that my Mother “went liquid” a couple of years ago, and has been making money in CDs and a savings account. It’s not a lot, but it’s ahead of inflation.
Sigh. Before the Commander Guy stole the chair and decided to start wars everywhere, I had every expectation of retiring comfortably, if not early. Now… who knows. Many of my investments are of the “socially responsible” kind, and so far, they haven’t taken a beating quite as bad as I expected. But I can’t imagine anything holding up against a serious recession (or worse). Your mother is, IMHO, very wise, Bryan.
She was a bookkeeper and the books weren’t in balance. The increase she made wasn’t covering the management fees, and she had a very conservative portfolio. She made good money during the Clinton years, but Bush was a bust and she bailed.