Re: How Low Can It Go?
 

[quote=saden1;534677][B]That was a rhetorical question[/B], [URL="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/03/06/report-expected-job-losses/"]we actually do[/URL].



An economy built on consumption cannot withstand for long high unemployment. Once an economy collapses there is no quick fix, it takes years to start a successful business to re-employ the unemployment. Of course that all depends on investor confidence and the credit market, no one likes losing money and no one can start a successful business without being able to borrow.


The economy is organic, it can sustain damage, it can heal by itself, but I suspect applying an ointment, even if it's a [I]placebo[/I], is better than going all natural.[/quote]

and mine was an answer in jest from a long lost commercial reference.

Re: How Low Can It Go?
 

[quote=saden1;534629]No, I'm just Tom Daschle's chauffeur.


[B]FYI, liberals embrace their liberalism with pride now[/B]. Much like the gays we done come out of the closet and flipped the script on all ya'll.[/quote]

No kidding. Could you enlighten me as to why liberals feel the need to paste dozens of bumper stickers all over their cars spewing their beliefs? It's a huge pet peeve of mine.

Re: How Low Can It Go?
 

[quote=Buster;534690]Can we please acknowledge that the economy was going great until the Democrats took over Congress?

You should. It's a fact.[/quote]

No actually I won't. For 3 reasons:
1) Pres. Bush was still President, and could have and should have stood up to the Congress like Reagan did to the Speaker of the House (ONeal I think but I know they hated each other)
2) When it was a Rep. Congress and Rep Pres, they were still spending like drunken sailors who just got back from a 6 month tour of duty.
3) Like most "FACTS" presented as you have there is usually a whole lot of spin based off of some level of truth/fact.

Re: How Low Can It Go?
 

i knew people were getting in houses they couldn't afford 5 years ago... i'm sure i'm not the only one, and i'm sure someone actually connected the dots to the bad investments before it exploded too.

the housing bubble was actually made worse by bush/congress wanting to lower interest rates and taxes that fueled rampant home buying on bad financing.

no one did anything to stop it, and thats on bush/congress/the bank lobbyists that all took part in letting it happen.

Re: How Low Can It Go?
 

[quote=Buster;534690]Can we please acknowledge that the economy was going great until the Democrats took over Congress?

You should. It's a fact.[/quote]

I'm a republican, but you can't deny that the 2004 (during a republican congress) [URL="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/03/business/03sec.html"]Net-Capital rule change [/URL] played a huge role in where we are now. This allowed the Big 5 investment banks like Bear-Stearn to leverage 40-1 with no oversight. Granted Christopher Cox was an idiot, but this SEC rule change happened with a republican congress on Bush's watch. They really thought "voluntary regulation" would work. Ooops.

Re: How Low Can It Go?
 

[quote=GMScud;534700]No kidding. Could you enlighten me as to why liberals feel the need to paste dozens of bumper stickers all over their cars spewing their beliefs? It's a huge pet peeve of mine.[/quote]

I am afraid [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_perception"]we only notice what we want to notice[/URL]. I to am haunted by fishes and angry white males stickers.

Re: How Low Can It Go?
 

[quote=CRedskinsRule;534691]and mine was an answer in jest from a long lost commercial reference.[/quote]

We're even.

Re: How Low Can It Go?
 

[quote=That Guy;534703]i knew people were getting in houses they couldn't afford 5 years ago... i'm sure i'm not the only one, and i'm sure someone actually connected the dots to the bad investments before it exploded too.

the housing bubble was actually made worse by bush/congress wanting to lower interest rates and taxes that fueled rampant home buying on bad financing.

no one did anything to stop it, and thats on bush/congress/the bank lobbyists that all took part in letting it happen.[/quote]

Sorry Bush tried to get more regulation on home lending but Barney Frank and company had other ideas. The banks where forced by the goverment to give loans that where bad from the start. The reality is that it was a combination of all that got us in this mess and all should take equal blame.

Re: How Low Can It Go?
 

[quote=over the mountain;534689]yeah, the say at times like these the rich get richer, the poorer get poorer.

Im losing aprrox. 4k every 3 mos on my 401k. given that i am hesitant to throw any of my non-401k savings into the market. i really just dont know what to do right now.

should i take my savings and invest in some cheap but well known producing stock?

should i buy a new home (tax & penalty free as 1st time home buyer) by clearing out my 401k just so i dont continue to lose 3-4k every quarter?

im feel kinda screwed right now. i could have bought a house with no money down like every one else and have the fed bail me out b/c i dont know how to live within my means. But no, i played it smart, saved up enough to put 10-25% down so i wouldnt over-extend myself. now my 401k has been chopped in half and i am not in a good position to buy a home . . all these people who had no business thinking they could afford a home but did anyway may very well get "bailed out" . . . while i saved up only to have my life savings cut in half and still dropping.

i say the dow doesnt drop below 5800, no way it can go lower than that i hope.

go skins!![/quote]
If your young you have time for your 401 to come back but I would have someone review what its invested in to make sure they are not so bad that they will never come back. You can choose some investments that give a guaranty on your money.

Re: How Low Can It Go?
 

[quote=saden1;534710]We're even.[/quote]

:( BUT I wanna win!!!!!

Re: How Low Can It Go?
 

Evary time now I turn on the News they are talking about another one of Obama's new plans for America. I starting to think this ssaying could be my new slogan for him "Jack of all trades and the master of none".

Re: How Low Can It Go?
 

A MoveOn.org Political Action ad plays the partisan blame game with the economic crisis, charging that John McCain’s friend and former economic adviser Phil Gramm “stripped safeguards that would have protected us.” The claim is bogus. Gramm’s legislation had broad bipartisan support and was signed into law by President Clinton. Moreover, the bill had nothing to do with causing the crisis, and economists – not to mention President Clinton – praise it for having softened the crisis.

A McCain-Palin ad, in turn, blames Democrats for the mess. The ad says that the crisis “didn’t have to happen,” because legislation McCain cosponsored would have tightened regulations on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But, the ad says, Obama "was notably silent" while Democrats killed the bill. That’s oversimplified. Republicans, who controlled the Senate at the time, did not bring the bill forward for a vote. And it’s unclear how much the legislation would have helped, as McCain signed on just two months before the housing bubble popped.

In fact, there’s ample blame to go around. Experts have cited everyone from home buyers to Wall Street, mortgage brokers to Alan Greenspan.
taken from factcheck.org. plenty of blame to go around. lets get past that, and hope Pres. Obama, or someone, makes it right

Re: How Low Can It Go?
 

[quote=dmek25;534803]A MoveOn.org Political Action ad plays the partisan blame game with the economic crisis, charging that John McCain’s friend and former economic adviser Phil Gramm “stripped safeguards that would have protected us.” The claim is bogus. Gramm’s legislation had broad bipartisan support and was signed into law by President Clinton. Moreover, the bill had nothing to do with causing the crisis, and economists – not to mention President Clinton – praise it for having softened the crisis.

A McCain-Palin ad, in turn, blames Democrats for the mess. The ad says that the crisis “didn’t have to happen,” because legislation McCain cosponsored would have tightened regulations on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But, the ad says, Obama "was notably silent" while Democrats killed the bill. That’s oversimplified. Republicans, who controlled the Senate at the time, did not bring the bill forward for a vote. And it’s unclear how much the legislation would have helped, as McCain signed on just two months before the housing bubble popped.

In fact, there’s ample blame to go around. Experts have cited everyone from home buyers to Wall Street, mortgage brokers to Alan Greenspan.
taken from factcheck.org. plenty of blame to go around. lets get past that, and hope Pres. Obama, or someone, makes it right[/quote]

Good post.

Re: How Low Can It Go?
 

[quote=over the mountain;534689]yeah, the say at times like these the rich get richer, the poorer get poorer.

Im losing aprrox. 4k every 3 mos on my 401k. given that i am hesitant to throw any of my non-401k savings into the market. i really just dont know what to do right now.

should i take my savings and invest in some cheap but well known producing stock?

should i buy a new home (tax & penalty free as 1st time home buyer) by clearing out my 401k just so i dont continue to lose 3-4k every quarter?

im feel kinda screwed right now. i could have bought a house with no money down like every one else and have the fed bail me out b/c i dont know how to live within my means. But no, i played it smart, saved up enough to put 10-25% down so i wouldnt over-extend myself. now my 401k has been chopped in half and i am not in a good position to buy a home . . all these people who had no business thinking they could afford a home but did anyway may very well get "bailed out" . . . while i saved up only to have my life savings cut in half and still dropping.

i say the dow doesnt drop below 5800, no way it can go lower than that i hope.

go skins!![/quote]

i just started a foliofn account... you can use it for retirement accounts or disposable cash, but its like a super low fee mutual fund where you choose your own stocks (or you can leave retirement money as straight cash in there)... they have pre-made investment strategies that including bear market funds (which are short sale stocks that go up when the market goes down, and go down when the market goes up)...

the fact that you can trade in and out of positions without having to take tax hits or rollover paperwork or whatever is nice though.

of course, trading inside your retirement account without research or whatnot isn't necessarily a good idea, but being able to pick individual stocks instead of mutual funds has saved me some money during the downturn.

Re: How Low Can It Go?
 

[quote=dmek25;534803]A MoveOn.org Political Action ad plays the partisan blame game with the economic crisis, charging that John McCain’s friend and former economic adviser Phil Gramm “stripped safeguards that would have protected us.” The claim is bogus. Gramm’s legislation had broad bipartisan support and was signed into law by President Clinton. Moreover, the bill had nothing to do with causing the crisis, and economists – not to mention President Clinton – praise it for having softened the crisis.

A McCain-Palin ad, in turn, blames Democrats for the mess. The ad says that the crisis “didn’t have to happen,” because legislation McCain cosponsored would have tightened regulations on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But, the ad says, Obama "was notably silent" while Democrats killed the bill. That’s oversimplified. Republicans, who controlled the Senate at the time, did not bring the bill forward for a vote. And it’s unclear how much the legislation would have helped, as McCain signed on just two months before the housing bubble popped.

In fact, there’s ample blame to go around. Experts have cited everyone from home buyers to Wall Street, mortgage brokers to Alan Greenspan.
taken from factcheck.org. plenty of blame to go around. lets get past that, and hope Pres. Obama, or someone, makes it right[/quote]

Hey we agree on something. Whats done is done and pointing fingers will not help but we are all pretty guilty of doing that and its too much fun to stop now. Its not like we will post something here that will have any affect on anything.

Re: How Low Can It Go?
 

[quote=Buster;534690]Can we please acknowledge that the economy was going great until the Democrats took over Congress?

You should. It's a fact.[/quote]

So is it Obama or the Dems? Make up your mind.

The housing market started slipping, financial service companies over-leveraged themselves, Lehman went under, credit swaps, AIG ect ect.

Re: How Low Can It Go?
 

[quote=dmek25;534803]A MoveOn.org Political Action ad plays the partisan blame game with the economic crisis, charging that John McCain’s friend and former economic adviser Phil Gramm “stripped safeguards that would have protected us.” The claim is bogus. Gramm’s legislation had broad bipartisan support and was signed into law by President Clinton. Moreover, the bill had nothing to do with causing the crisis, and economists – not to mention President Clinton – praise it for having softened the crisis.

A McCain-Palin ad, in turn, blames Democrats for the mess. The ad says that the crisis “didn’t have to happen,” because legislation McCain cosponsored would have tightened regulations on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But, the ad says, Obama "was notably silent" while Democrats killed the bill. That’s oversimplified. Republicans, who controlled the Senate at the time, did not bring the bill forward for a vote. And it’s unclear how much the legislation would have helped, as McCain signed on just two months before the housing bubble popped.

In fact, there’s ample blame to go around. Experts have cited everyone from home buyers to Wall Street, mortgage brokers to Alan Greenspan.
taken from factcheck.org. plenty of blame to go around. lets get past that, and hope Pres. Obama, or someone, makes it right[/quote]


Best post in this thread!

Re: How Low Can It Go?
 

[quote=724Skinsfan;534929]Best post in this thread![/quote]


[url=http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/who_caused_the_economic_crisis.html]FactCheck.org: Who Caused the Economic Crisis?[/url]

Re: How Low Can It Go?
 

thanks for posting the link 70. some reason i couldn't get it to work

Re: How Low Can It Go?
 

[quote=70Chip;534930][URL="http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/who_caused_the_economic_crisis.html"]FactCheck.org: Who Caused the Economic Crisis?[/URL][/quote]

{Ahem} Best post/link in this thread! I really wonder how many people in the country truly realize that the blame is widespread amongst individuals, groups, organizations and companies? My guess is less than 1%. Home team mentality is a blight on the advancement of civilization. Sports entertainment excluded, of course.

Re: How Low Can It Go?
 

While I agree that their is no one person to blame I also fell that Obama is only hurting the economy at this point and everyday it seems he has a new spending program.

Re: How Low Can It Go?
 

Let me preface this by saying I don't smoke.
I walked into Royal Farms for my morning coffee, and one guy was thinking about getting cigarettes but decided not to get them. Turns out that the new 70 cent federal tax was being charged to help fund SCHIP, the state children health insurance program.
I guess I bring it up to say, I am willing to bet that cigarette consumption goes down, thus tax revenue will not meet projections, and what politician is going to
a) reduce the cigarette tax
b) reduce SCHIP
The answer is none, at least none that want to be re-elected and not demonized, so it will stay and need federal funding not accounted for in Stimulus program and keep a depressed economy even moreso.

Re: How Low Can It Go?
 

[quote=CRedskinsRule;535365]Let me preface this by saying I don't smoke.
I walked into Royal Farms for my morning coffee, and one guy was thinking about getting cigarettes but decided not to get them. Turns out that the new 70 cent federal tax was being charged to help fund SCHIP, the state children health insurance program.
I guess I bring it up to say, I am willing to bet that cigarette consumption goes down, thus tax revenue will not meet projections, and what politician is going to
a) reduce the cigarette tax
b) reduce SCHIP
The answer is none, at least none that want to be re-elected and not demonized, so it will stay and need federal funding not accounted for in Stimulus program and keep a depressed economy even moreso.[/quote]
I can see the the new federal goverment comercials on this. Light one up for the children of illegal imigrants or "save a child one puff at a time".

Re: How Low Can It Go?
 

Did Obama introduce any new programs today? The stock market is dropping like he did.

Re: How Low Can It Go?
 

maybe he should just stick to fixing all of W's screw ups. lord knows that would take at least one term

Re: How Low Can It Go?
 

If it's not too late to get in on this, I'll take 4740, 1/3 of what it was in 2007.

Re: How Low Can It Go?
 

Big rally in Wall Street today. The Dow is back above 6900. The updated numbers are in Post #1.

Re: How Low Can It Go?
 

Yeah, Citi said they're posting profits so far this year.

In the markets, perception becomes reality. There's so much doom and gloom out there that it's causing people to contract spending and sell equities at a rate faster than the fundamentals would suggest. In reality, things are bad, but not that bad.

The markets will have more down days in the weeks and months to come as people continue to fret. But eventually some positive economic data will come in, like the Q1 earnings for the Fortune 500 companies, GDP, inflation, jobs, etc. When that data starts coming in positive the psychological rebound will be huge. When you go from so much doom and gloom to actually seeing some positive indicators show up in black & white reports, the tendency is to get exhuberant. This market will bounce back really hard when that happens.

Re: How Low Can It Go?
 

i think this is probably just a blip up and not a sign of things to come.

it'll recover eventually... I did get a 12% one day return though (thanks gamestop and best buy).

Re: How Low Can It Go?
 

[quote=That Guy;535713]i think this is probably just a blip up and not a sign of things to come.

it'll recover eventually... I did get a 12% one day return though (thanks gamestop and best buy).[/quote]

So do you and everyone else take profits tomorrow and send it way back down?

Re: How Low Can It Go?
 

[quote=70Chip;535734]So do you and everyone else take profits tomorrow and send it way back down?[/quote]

it'd be the safer move, maybe go back into bear market stocks (short sales), but i'll let it ride, since i only have this year's roth contribution in that account... if it were a million i'd probably treat it differently, since that'd be over a year's living expenses in one day ;)

Re: How Low Can It Go?
 

[quote=70Chip;535649]Big rally in Wall Street today. The Dow is back above 6900. The updated numbers are in Post #1.[/quote]

That can't be! :nono: Obama's spending bill was being voted on by the senate when the rally happened. There is no way that the market could have gone up! Click on a link from Fox News if you don't believe me! :spank:

Re: How Low Can It Go?
 

God damn it, why the hell isn't short selling illegal?

[yt]ZWVmlxhk-tU[/yt]

Re: How Low Can It Go?
 

[quote=saden1;535926]God damn it, why the hell isn't short selling illegal?

[/quote]

Because over the long haul it has no impact.

Re: How Low Can It Go?
 

[quote=Schneed10;535930]Because over the long haul it has no impact.[/quote]

This is true, it is also true that you can use that line for anything and everything whose short term impact you want to marginalize. This not a good enough reason not to do anything.

Re: How Low Can It Go?
 

[quote=saden1;535982]This is true, it is also true that you can use that line for anything and everything whose short term impact you want to marginalize. [B]This not a good enough reason not to do anything[/B].[/quote]

I'd vehemently disagree. You shouldn't be investing in the stock market for the short term at all. If you are, you might as well head to Vegas.

If you're investing in the stock market wisely then you're doing it with money you don't need for a long time, and you're letting it sit for a long time.

If you're not doing the above, then you're somewhat retarded (daytraders excluded, because they understand short-term risks and are willing to accept the consequences).

Re: How Low Can It Go?
 

[quote=Schneed10;535988]I'd vehemently disagree. You shouldn't be investing in the stock market for the short term at all. If you are, you might as well head to Vegas.

If you're investing in the stock market wisely then you're doing it with money you don't need for a long time, and you're letting it sit for a long time.

If you're not doing the above, then you're somewhat retarded (daytraders excluded, because they understand short-term risks and are willing to accept the consequences).[/quote]

It's not about me (the average Joe), it's about people (hedge fund managers) purposefully betting against a company, playing shell games, knocking the company down and then cashing it in. They are in fact gaming the system.

Re: How Low Can It Go?
 

I'd also point out that gaming companies in their time of need for cash can in fact put them out of business. We "have" the [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uptick_rule"]Uptick rule[/URL] for that reason, unfortunately it isn't good enough.

Re: How Low Can It Go?
 

short selling and buying on margins aren't generally the best of things, but corrupt hedge fund management (like kramer disucsses, which is the norm) and the financial industry and congress/lobbyists/etc all pushing each other for less regulation are bigger issues.

and a unjustified negative perception CAN kill a good (smaller) business without a huge cash reserve.

Re: How Low Can It Go?
 

[quote=Miller101;535913]That can't be! :nono: Obama's spending bill was being voted on by the senate when the rally happened. There is no way that the market could have gone up! Click on a link from Fox News if you don't believe me! :spank:[/quote]

Anyone trying to parlay a single day on Wall Street into a political argument is playing a fool's game. That's why this thread has been largely civil. No one knows what the hell is going to happen next, so everyone is loathe to take credit for an upswing because they don't want to have to own tomorrow's downswing.