FIfty percent of Americans have their 401K invested in mutual funds - the stock market.

[gateley]

:(

[ingac70]

1. And I should feel sorry for gamblers?

If they can't take the risk regular savings accounts, or better yet mattresses, are a safer bet.

[Lex]

3. Seriously, that's what you think?

wow

[ingac70]

11. I don't put my money in that shit...

so why should I whine and cry for those that do? It is gambling. It's all part of the death of Reaganomics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/401(k)

[PVnRT]

13. Go to hell

I guess people who want money to retire on are filth in your eyes, eh?

[ingac70]

15. No, they gambled and lost. n/t

[thewiseguy]

43. Please shut up.

[ingac70]

51. I don't have to shut up...

I'm sorry if the truth hurts, but mutual funds, the stock market, even money market funds are risky.

[Dorian Gray]

17. Well

over the long term, you will lose out by not doing so.

Hopefully those that have investments are being careful during this time and didn't have everything in stocks. In 401K you can keep money in a money market, bonds, etfs, and other vehicles. So, hopefully most people were diversified enough to keep some measure of security in their 401K securities.

[ingac70]

23. All these baby boomers being fucked...

and I'm going to lose out in the long term by not doing so. Yeah, right. :eyes:

http://www.startribune.com/business/29776814.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aULPQL7PQLanchO7DiUX

I lost out not going to play slots in Tunica, Mississippi with my mom last month, too.

[cali]

30. go do something unspeakable to yourself.

idiot.

[ingac70]

40. No sense in being angry at me...

I understand realizing the truth is painful.

[Dorian Gray]

61. That's fine.

I have dollar cost averaged for a long time in my IRA. I sold out into safer bond funds recently, and my IRA is well worth more than my cost basis.


It took a hit, but I am comfortable keeping it invested for the next 25 years (I'm 37), and I know it will be worth more when I retire than it is today.

[avaistheone1]

56. Rule #1 of stock market investing. Don't put anything in the market you can not afford to lose.

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. So you think that having a 401K is a bad idea?

WOW....

The empathy is dripping

Really

:sarcasm:

[ingac70]

14. Yes...

I have never put any money in that shit when employers offered it.

I've made sure I've had a paid for home and cash in the bank, but no gambling in the stock market or mutual funds. A lesson needs to be learned.

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. Hope the hyperinflation will protect your cash

:sarcasm:

[ingac70]

Owning my home...

instead of "investing" was really the best move. Now while cash is still worth something I need to go buy a couple of rabbits and chickens so I can raise my own food.

[nadinbrzezinski]

39. Get a shotgun while at it

:sarcasm:

[ingac70]

41. Already covered!

[fizzgig]

50. yes, because all of us have the means to buy a home

:eyes:

[ingac70]

52. If I couldn't afford a home...

I sure as hell wouldn't be putting money in 401k.

[fizzgig]

58. what on earth does one have to do with another?

you have no idea what my story or situation is and your judgment is nauseating

[DefenseLawyer]

8. Right, mattresses, that's the key to a thriving ecomony.

That might be the dumbest thing I have ever seen. And that's saying quite a bit. Bravo.

[napi21]

9. My mattress nor a regular savings account was NOT an available option

from our employers 401K program. We can't take it out of the market because the taxes on it, even though it's not very large, would be foolish to pay.

[Naturyl]

26. Taxes are "foolish to pay?"

Whoops, you outed your mentality right there.

[napi21]

49. Paying them in a lump sum because you pull out all your

"untaxes funds" at one time IS FOOLISH! One of the reasons 401K accounts were promoted is because when the funds ARE withdrawn, you will be earning (presumably) a lower income thus a lower tax rate.

Is somebody paying you to be silly or are you just unimformed?

[Naturyl]

28. Taxes are "foolish to pay?"

Whoops, you outed your mentality right there.

[cali]

24. your post is fucking moronic to the max. Worse, it's heartless.

[ingac70]

45. It's true and you know it...

401ks are risky.

[gateley]

25. I had no ulterior motive for posting this, other than one of my best friends

saw her 401K savings almost disappear. She can hardly breathe.

She's not a gambler. She was saving for her retirement.

Are you always this compassionate?

[Naturyl]

34. Nonetheless, she was gambling.

The stock market IS gambling. I'm very sorry she did not understand this, and I wish her the best in terms of recovering.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

59. Mattresses are fine until your house burns down. n/t

[napi21]

2. Of course! I don't want to sound selfish, but MY 401K has been my

concern throughout this whole mess! I've moved everything into the safest funds available, but both of us are retired, and we didn't have a LOT in the funds to begin with! Watching them fall is frightening!

[Greyhound]

7. You just defined the problem, thanks. n/t

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. And that is, that people saved for a safe retirement?

WOW, just WOW...

[Greyhound]

44. That there are millions of us that have been down this road already

and our "countrymen" couldn't give two shits.

Your retirement is more important than mine? Your retirement is more important than the millions of factory workers that had their pensions stolen?

We have usually seen eye to eye, but on this matter you are, and have been, wrong. BTW, they tried the same strategy of giving the farm to the rich to stop the collapse in 29 - 30, and it didn't work then either, just made it a lot more comfortable for the uber-rich and harder to recover for the rest of us.

[earth mom]

57. Thank you. How many have lost their pensions already in this country & no one cared? nt

[Greyhound]

60. Tens of millions, and most of these people did nothing for decades.

I'm very sad that this is what it takes to wake the flock up, but I do believe this disaster will grant us another opportunity to live up to this country's potential and promise.

We'll have a few months of bitterness and recriminations and then we might realize that we are all in this hole together.

[Mari333]

18. I am also watching my retirement disappear

and I am alone, no husband, living very poor, with a little income that used to come from my retirement funds. maybe this is a new form of euthanasia? thats what its beginning to feel like, even on DU. just get rid of the elderly. guess I wont be eating soon. I have already cut back everywhere else.

[Duppers]

4. it's a rock and a hard place

and a game of chicken.

This will affect all of us.

[RB TexLa]

6. Are they all retiring today?

[scheming daemons]

12. No.. but a large chunk of them will be out of work in the next few months

[girl gone mad]

16. Hopefully they are diservified. n/t

[marmar]

20. I took the loss last year and yanked mine......

..... I'm glad I did.

[dmallind]

21. And most of us are dollar cost averaging by that means

So our deductions this week will be buying a nice number of shares.

Those of us who are not in immediate plans for retirement will feel no harm from this dip, and may very well gain in the long term. Those who ARE that close to returmenet should have been converting to bond and fixed income funds for quite some time by now unless they were comfortable with the risk of equities.

Since I'm 20+ years from that 401K need (about in the middle of the workforce in that regard) any loss (or gain of course) is merely notional at this time and I'll continue buying from the panicked hordes who are selling low. I am no more 15% down in real terms now than I was 20% up in real terms when the market was high in 2007.

Oh and remember that since many if not most 401K planbs have some kind of matching component as well as tax benefits, we can also lose as much as 65% without actually being any worse off even in nominal terms based on our net contributions compared to if we had not participated.

[dmallind]

42. Case in point

I changed jobs a little less than a year ago, when the market was much higher.

I have been paying in at the same rate I joined the 401K 30 days after I started employment in November.

I am 12.8% "down" based on return on the range of funds in which I am invested.

My balance in this 401K is $8074.87 (I did not yet transfer my previous 401K as I like their fund choices better).

I have paid this year $5512.42. The EOY2007 balance was $428.14

My employer has matched $2757.66

Market value is down $626.34.

So even though I am "down", and even if you assume the starting balance was all my contributions, I still have more than $2000 or 40% more than I have paid, tax free, into this plan.

So if I were NOT a gambler, I'd have about $4500 (post tax) more in mky pocket and $8000 less in my retirement plan.

In other words the market can drop another 40+% percent before I "lose" dime one.

Yeah I'm a terrible gambler......

[western mass]

22. Please tell me you're not ignorant of....

the fact that the devaluation of stocks is due to the fact that investors were swindled into buying billions of $ worth of worthless mortgage contracts?

That massive fraud perpetrated by criminals on Wall St is the sole and only reason for whatever people have lost on the market?

That this theft happened long before a bailout was even a twinkle in the Shrub's eye?

[gateley]

38. Listen. I only posted a statement I heard after one of my friends called me

hyperventilating after watching her 401K take a dive.

It wasn't a policy statement, a condemnation of anyone, a judgment of any kind. It was a statement of empathy for those who are hurting today.

Is that okay with you?

Whether I'm ignorant or not isn't the point.

[avaistheone1]

27. The stock market is all about risk - don't place your money there is you are not willing to accept

the risk.

If you don't want risk place your money in Treasuries, or in FDIC insured accounts.

[avaistheone1]

29. The stock market is all about risk - don't place your money there is you are not willing to accept

the risk.

If you don't want risk place your money in Treasuries, or in FDIC insured accounts.

[Cronus Protagonist]

36. I figure if you gamble with money, fine, just don't steal from your neighbor when you lose

It's simple.

[avaistheone1]

31. The stock market is all about risk - don't place your money there is you are not willing to accept

the risk.

If you don't want risk place your money in Treasuries, or in FDIC insured accounts.

[avaistheone1]

32. The stock market is all about risk - don't place your money there is you are not willing to accept

the risk.

If you don't want risk place your money in Treasuries, or in FDIC insured accounts.

[avaistheone1]

33. The stock market is all about risk - don't place your money there is you are not willing to accept

the risk.

If you don't want risk place your money in Treasuries, or in FDIC insured accounts.

[greguganus]

48. Please stop hitting the 'post message' button. You're giving me a headache. n/t

[avaistheone1]

55. Sorry, my computer locked up

and I kept hitting enter. Me bad.

[Myrina]

35. ANYONE, after Enron, who left their 401k in Wall Street's hands ...

... deserves what they get.

[LeftyMom]

37. What percentage of Americans actually get a 401K?

I've only had one job that even offered one.

[gateley]

47. I'll take a stab that maybe 50%?

Just because that's what I heard before I posted this. :) I honestly don't know how accurate that is.

I don't have one, either, but when I had jobs with companies who offered them, almost everybody participated.

[cottonseed]

46. I've moved everything to a money market fund about 6 months ago.

My account is pretty nice. Really open, I can move my money around with ease. It does sound like many people have 401Ks that basically they don't have much control over, their money is in mutual funds and can't be moved easily. Is this correct?

[greguganus]

54. I can move mine around every day if I want to.

No charges either. But I can only make changes once per day. The changes take effect at the close of the day. I'm 50% in guaranteed, which has a rate of 6%. Company matches 6%. The other 50% is in a mutual fund that takes into account the number of years you have left to retire, and moves the money to less aggressive funds as you get closer to retirement. I have twenty years until retirement. I'm riding this out.

[SoCalDem]

53. We personally have about $65K "at risk", so I DO have some skin in the game...BUT

did anyone really believe that we would be "allowed" to actually get to use that money when we "retired"..

It's been a shell-game, since they started the whole 401-k "plan".. Let business off the hook for pensions, so they could trade businesses like monopoly properties, without having to worry about those pesky pension obligations...and steer those sheep into "personal responsibility pensions" aka..401-ks"... keep them investing ans investing so there would be shitloads of money for the street-guys to play around with...BUT starting in about 2009-10, there would be scads of Boomers looking to start cashing out, so the money just HAD to "not be there for them"...

The incomes of most people have FALLEN during the time that 401-ks have been around, and lots of places don;t even offer them, so there are probably not as many coming along who WILL participate, as there currently are now, and the ones "in it", will be shrinking..not growing..

Rich folks probably don't use or need 401ks, so their pensions are probably just fine..

It pisses me off to think that my own money may have just evaporated, but deep down, I always thought it might..:(

People forget that the Dow only hit ONE THOUSAND , in 1973 (maybe it was 72..I'm not sure)..but for many many many decades the Dow was not the end-all-be-all that it is today..