Day of reckoning

[dipsydoodle]

The sharp and nerve-straining falls in share price on Wall Street last night and in Tokyo today are damaging to the wealth of many, especially those saving for a pension.

Tokyo stock exchange dealers 10 OctBut it's as well to remember that they are the symptom of the disease, not the disease itself.

The underlying illness remains in the financial system, as manifested in the record amounts banks were charging each other yesterday for lending to each other for three months.

One serious anxiety concerns the auction today to settle liabilities on insurance - or credit default swaps - on debt of the collapsed investment bank, Lehman Brothers.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/

[mrcheerful]

1. What is wrong with people? The stock market is not a sure thing never has been

if you can't afford to throw money out the window then you have no business putting money into stocks. I realize that people who put their retirement future into the stock market were hoping to have a nest egg in 20 or 30 years, but reality is stock markets are a form of gambling, you are betting that your shares of stock will be higher in 30 years then they were when you bought the stocks.

Whats even more amazing is how the republicons were able to give Joe Dim Wit the ideal that playing the market would insure they would be well off in their old age. It's like no one knew there might be a down side to the stock market game, I remember Reagans touting putting money into stock is like putting money into the bank, but I also knew Reagan was full of shit.

The republicon corporate whores convinced Joe Dim Wit that if he took his weekly pay check and "invested" ( a nicer word to replace the word gamble ) 10% into the stock market that some day Joe Dim Wit would be one of those people at the top he so hated. Sure a few did do well but most saw very little returns on their stocks, many of those thought all they had to do was buy the stocks and sit on them until they were ready to cash in. After all who hasn't heard of the stories where grand dad died and it was discovered he had millions of dollars worth of stocks?

The question they should have been asking was, do I know of anyone who had this happen in their family? Instead they went rushing to the bank and then to the nearest brokerage firm with cash in hand soon to be richer then their wildest dreams. Sorry but I for one don't care if the market crashes and everyone loses everything, they took the risk and now whine that they lost. Is this going to effect my life? Sure but guess what? I will survive and thats where the bottom line is can I survive.

Hats off to both dad and grand dad for pushing me into having to live without and make the best out of what I have. They taught me the most important lesson in life, how to survive and repair.

[dipsydoodle]

2. I assume that when you say,

"I realize that people who put their retirement future into the stock market were hoping to have a nest egg in 20 or 30 years, but reality is stock markets are a form of gambling, you are betting that your shares of stock will be higher in 30 years then they were when you bought the stocks.", you are relating to those who are able control the investment of thier savings. However - those who are in company pension schemes or even private schemes with large fundors whatever have no say in the matter. Please be aware also that I'm UK and cannot closely relate to what's done in the USA.

[mrcheerful]

3. Yeah I realize those can't choose

I was talking about the people who got conned into 401k's because they got scared into thinking Social security was going to fail. As well as folks like the SO's step parents, who got some money and put it into the stock market because a family member told them they would make tons of money. In 7 years they got less then $10,000 back on their "investment" and it took me 3 years to convince them to sell the stocks before they lost everything. Lucky for them they listened and sold off the stocks last year, which doubled their origanal investment, until the tax man got them lol.