SO what subtle differences in the world are you noticing ?

wngrog · Sep 29, 2008

If you have good credit YOU WILL BE ABLE TO BORROW MONEY. Guys, this is bad, yes, but the sky is not falling. There are LOTS of small banks with plenty of cash to loan the right people. If you have money, it is now time to buy, buy, buy.

I took out a small business on friday. Took 20 minutes to get it approved with a local bank. I am starting a little side business and wanted a line of credit. Scared? No. We have the most vibrant economy in the history of earth. If we can keep the ****ing socailist Democrats' hands out of the till we can recover.

Can you believe all the pork those ****ers tried to stick in this "bailout" bill?

I will always, ALWAYS thank GOD that "W" was our president during these years of war and that he stood tough when the polls were aweful. However, this "bailout" socialist BS that he is pushing here is as maddening as his immigration policy.

Screw it. If Wall Street takes a dive then so will OIL and for you and me, low OIL has the biggest day-to-day impact on our lives.

DONT CASH OUT YOUR 401K. That is foolish. Ride this out. Julie and I have lost over 50% of our 401K value in the last year. Let me tell you, after a combined 22 years with the same company, that number lost is a small fortune, but as was said before, I still own that stock. It will come back . Although I am older than most of you punks, as for retirement, I am still young...20+ years is a LONG time for the market.

Cole · Sep 29, 2008

wngrog said:
DONT CASH OUT YOUR 401K. That is foolish. Ride this out. Julie and I have lost over 50% of our 401K value in the last year. Let me tell you, after a combined 22 years with the same company, that number lost is a small fortune, but as was said before, I still own that stock. It will come back . Although I am older than most of you punks, as for retirement, I am still young...20+ years is a LONG time for the market.

Definately not cahsing out, I am just not going to look at my statements for the next 6 months. Hell the money comes out of every check and is before taxes so I don't really miss it.

BamaTJ · Sep 29, 2008

401k deductions help when it comes tax time also, definately don't bail out of it or pay the huge pentalty to have it now. I doubt many on here will actuually need our 401k funds for retirement in the next few years. I am sure 30 years from now it will have evened out! If you have some money to invest now is a good time as you stand to make huge returns whenever the market levels out, Probably not a good time to make short term profits, but if you are willing to invest some money long term you can buy good stock CHEAP! I mean the entire market is down as the DOW dropped almost 800 points today. As soon as some form of economic deal is inked it will raise back up some and you will not have as many great values in the market.

Beyer · Sep 30, 2008

wngrog said:
DONT CASH OUT YOUR 401K. That is foolish. Ride this out. Julie and I have lost over 50% of our 401K value in the last year. Let me tell you, after a combined 22 years with the same company, that number lost is a small fortune, but as was said before, I still own that stock. It will come back . Although I am older than most of you punks, as for retirement, I am still young...20+ years is a LONG time for the market.

Damn, and I thought I had it bad when I lost $5k yesterday and almost 20K in the last year.

wngrog · Sep 30, 2008

When I left Pfizer 2 years ago, the stock was on a downward slope. I had purchased 10 years of 401K stock (first 5 years I was 100% Pfizer), I purchased right at 20% of my income worth including company match. Julie did the same, but for almost 9 years...she switched everything but the match from Pfizer 2 years ago. When I left stock price was just under $30 a share. Most of my career it had been in the $40's. Now it is around $17 on average for the last 6 months

Julie's last day was Friday. 11 yrs with PFE and I had 10 years. 21 years of us heavily contributing to the 401K and it has dwindled away.

That said, we still own the stock. My magic number is $27. If it ever hits $27 (even for a minute) I have a sell order. I will then stick it all in a mutual fund and forget about it for 20 years.

It effects overall wealth and lending power, but I still look at it as "funny money" 10% penalty to withdraw with an additional 20% added to it in taxes the year it is withdrawn. You better be in a LOT of trouble to cash out.

P · Sep 30, 2008

I was thinking about this last night, kinda like "what can the gov't really do to quickly assist day to day operations "

Only thing that came to mind was possibly a cap on interest rates, short term CC companies and mortgage lenders with these stupid flexible rate mortgages and that kind of thing. I mean I look at it like this. Lenders instead of getting "no payment" would at least get some payment or return on the money they have out there. I think people in general WANT to pay thier bills and pay off debt. Given a short time to pay directly at the principle of thier debts should surely intice people with bad debt to make payment. And those without would have "extra " income from the lower mandated interest rates. We all know the more you have the more you will spend. Imagine Joe Blow mortgage owner dropping from say a 11% + rate on his mortgage to say... 5% Your talking 100's- several hundreds of dollars relief to Joe Blow's monthly expenses. With no reprecussion later down the road Tax payer wise. Granted the Lenders have to suck up some profits for awhile, but hey they are the ones that put out high interest loans to people unable to pay back when anyone could get a mortgage and frivilous lending was the trend. Same thing CC wise, CC companies need to take some responsibility for thier actions too, cut there profits short term and get there money back without a "handout" from Uncle Sam. 23% interest to college kids CC'in everything they can because they have no job and have to get by. I mean come on. CC companies wonder why they get so many defaults and people CC themselves into bankruptcy. The way they set up if you pay a minimum you pay them for life. laughing1

If they arent into that ( Lenders ) let em go outta ****ing business then, screw them someone will come along and buy them up ( ex: Citigroup / Wachovia )

Im not real bright but it all seemed logical to me... free up average joes debts every month and get them paying down principles, More money in the pocket means more CASH spent and payments recieved to Lenders = payed down debts on thier end. WIN WIN without Uncle Sam ? :dunno:

Cubby · Sep 30, 2008

I wonder how many of our paychecks come from a line of credit???

muchado · Sep 30, 2008

Cubby said:
I wonder how many of our paychecks come from a line of credit???

I'm happy my check isn't on credit--I see the books 8). We are hitting or exceeding our goals every month which every year are set higher and higher. This said, we have taken a kick to the junk due to customer's financial struggles. Eclipse Aviation is a biz that's really hurting right now. They just lost their biggest customer---an airline which had 700 planes ordered FIRM and another 700 "optional"

at almost 2 mil each

Crazy **** like that is what makes each industry have different weak spots. If Boeing or Airbus went belly up we'd be in trouble

---which is why our company has been expanding it's work with govt. programs so if the private sector flops we have a backup plan.

so you want to vote for change huh?

Man I'm still breathin' hard for thoughts that I cut it close by 2 weeks from when I closed on my house and all this mortgage company BS started

what someone said earlier---times are good for the man with cash right now.

BamaTJ · Sep 30, 2008

Cubby said:
I wonder how many of our paychecks come from a line of credit???

I am glad my company does not have to pay via line of credit!

Cubby · Sep 30, 2008

Matt O. said:
I am glad my company does not have to pay via line of credit!

It could certainly make things interesting.

muchado · Sep 30, 2008

Cubby said:
It could certainly make things interesting.

Finding out that on Friday your direct deposit "didn't make it" would certainly not be my definition of "interesting" :flipoff1:

Cubby · Sep 30, 2008

MUCHADO said:
Finding out that on Friday your direct deposit "didn't make it" would certainly not be my definition of "interesting"

Yeah, poor choice of words. I'm not worried about it happening to me, but making payroll on a line of credit is common, probably more common than people think. I keep hearing people say "I don't need to borrow any money, so how does it effect me??" There it is, you might be getting paid with borrowed money.

I hope congress gets its act together and gets a bill through that works.

InDaShop · Sep 30, 2008

Cubby said:
I hope congress gets its act together and gets a bill through that works.

really? I couldnt disagree more. There was nothing in this bailout that even helped the mortgage crisis.
I am so against this bail out its not funny.
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1845209,00.html

Shifting debt from the financials to the government wont solve or accomplish anything except loot the taxpayer of his earnings and reward the risk taking financial companies and their executive teams.

I stole this section for a paper called "Dow Theory" and I believe it.
"I watched the Obama-McCain debate. The two spent much of the time talking about how
they were going to get rid of earmarks and about how they were going to cut way down
on government spending. Neither of them get it, they just don't see the picture.
Consumers are not going to be spending, they'll be cutting back. Just as corporations and
businesses are cutting back on their overhead and on their spending where ever they can
(much of it will be in the way of lay-offs).

If the economy is going to improve, it will be up to the government to do the spending.
Governments all over the world will have to run up big deficits and increase their
spending. After all, what got the US out of the Great Depression of the 1930s? It was the
massive spending of World War II that finally turned the US economy to the upside. The
giant war effort and related government spending put everybody to work, including
millions of America's women. Jobs were plentiful. And now Obama and McCain are
competing in promises to CUT government spending! Forget it. To get out of this
recession, the US government will have to spend as it never has spent before, along with
running trillion dollar deficits. The government will have to embark on a giant "rebuild
America program." Our streets and freeways are shot, our bridges are tattered, the US
government will have to engineer a massive "make work" program to rebuild America.
Unfortunately, as I see it, Washington will be tempting to start another war."

P · Sep 30, 2008

Im American as ****, my attention span is so short Im already tired of worrying about it honestly. As long as my paycheck hits every 2 weeks Im all gravy in my world. I make my bills just fine and Amber can always go back to nursing if **** gets tight.. Gas goes to total ****, Ill rock the fiddy to work laughing

muchado · Sep 30, 2008

time will heal

Cubby · Sep 30, 2008

InDaShop said:
really? I couldnt disagree more. There was nothing in this bailout that even helped the mortgage crisis.
I am so against this bail out its not funny.
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1845209,00.html

Shifting debt from the financials to the government wont solve or accomplish anything except loot the taxpayer of his earnings and reward the risk taking financial companies and their executive teams.

I stole this section for a paper called "Dow Theory" and I believe it.
"I watched the Obama-McCain debate. The two spent much of the time talking about how
they were going to get rid of earmarks and about how they were going to cut way down
on government spending. Neither of them get it, they just don't see the picture.
Consumers are not going to be spending, they'll be cutting back. Just as corporations and
businesses are cutting back on their overhead and on their spending where ever they can
(much of it will be in the way of lay-offs).

If the economy is going to improve, it will be up to the government to do the spending.
Governments all over the world will have to run up big deficits and increase their
spending. After all, what got the US out of the Great Depression of the 1930s? It was the
massive spending of World War II that finally turned the US economy to the upside. The
giant war effort and related government spending put everybody to work, including
millions of America's women. Jobs were plentiful. And now Obama and McCain are
competing in promises to CUT government spending! Forget it. To get out of this
recession, the US government will have to spend as it never has spent before, along with
running trillion dollar deficits. The government will have to embark on a giant "rebuild
America program." Our streets and freeways are shot, our bridges are tattered, the US
government will have to engineer a massive "make work" program to rebuild America.
Unfortunately, as I see it, Washington will be tempting to start another war."

I need to research it more, but I do believe the gov't got us out of the S&L crisis of the 80's with a similar buy out. I don't believe in rewarding the fat cats on Wall Street for this debacle they've got us in. Many of them need to go to jail. Paulson is probably one of them( why let Lehman Bros. fail and help out AIG???? Paulson is the former AIG man correct??).

Perhaps you are right saying that we need massive gov't spending. Where does the gov't get the money to spend?? Who lends it to us?? Do we just print more of it? What does that do to inflation? My money already feels just about worthless.

I don't know my ass from a hole in the ground when it comes to this financial stuff because I've never had enough money to worry about it.

Draco · Sep 30, 2008

Cubby said:
I don't know my ass from a hole in the ground when it comes to this financial stuff because I've never had enough money to worry about it.

LOL.....that is a problem a lot of people have, me included.

My version......

They are gonna use OUR money to "buy out" these places that were so greedy, that they loaned money to every swingin' **** that had a job. If you wanted a house they would get you in one. (kinda like a car. Look at Bill Heard Chevy for example) Personally, I think they lied or didn't give the whole story about the interest rates. People saw they could get a ~$250k loan for ~$500/month. "Hell yea, sign us up!" Well when the variable rate loan went from 5.5% to 9% they couldn't make the ~$1800 payment, most prolly didn't know what happened. The same people that would under normal market conditions would tell you to f-off if you had filed for bankruptcy are trying to aviod it themselves. Regular people like us that made some mistakes are blown off for poor judgments, they will not suffer any consequences for making the same basic mistakes that many everyday people make.

People trying to keep with the Jones' are a big reason for all this IMO. You can't have a $250k house 3 new cars a boat and the finest clothes on $60k a year....something has to give. Living on credit cards will bite you in the ass, a lot of people are learning that.

Bet the divorce rate goes up in the next couple years also. Everything is peachy till the money problems start.

InDaShop · Sep 30, 2008

Draco said:
LOL.....that is a problem a lot of people have, me included.

My version......

They are gonna use OUR money to "buy out" these places that were so greedy, that they loaned money to every swingin' **** that had a job. If you wanted a house they would get you in one. (kinda like a car. Look at Bill Heard Chevy for example) Personally, I think they lied or didn't give the whole story about the interest rates. People saw they could get a ~$250k loan for ~$500/month. "Hell yea, sign us up!" Well when the variable rate loan went from 5.5% to 9% they couldn't make the ~$1800 payment, most prolly didn't know what happened. The same people that would under normal market conditions would tell you to f-off if you had filed for bankruptcy are trying to aviod it themselves. Regular people like us that made some mistakes are blown off for poor judgments, they will not suffer any consequences for making the same basic mistakes that many everyday people make.

People trying to keep with the Jones' are a big reason for all this IMO. You can't have a $250k house 3 new cars a boat and the finest clothes on $60k a year....something has to give. Living on credit cards will bite you in the ass, a lot of people are learning that.

Bet the divorce rate goes up in the next couple years also. Everything is peachy till the money problems start.

You got it, dead nuts got it.

And then we have Congress who knows less that the common man. Promise, those guys are no smarter than anyone else. I'd even argue they are less smart as they rely on other people to tell them what to do. Most are puppets, most have sold out in some form.

muchado · Sep 30, 2008

We don't need to fund these ****up greedy companies... anyone else catch the CEO's salaries or severence package?????? **** those greedy ****s.

Our stock market has suffered as a result but we can ride this out we don't need no stinkin tax monies to go there.... FACK!