NY Times: Across the Country, Fear About Savings, the Job Market and Retirement

[marmar]

Across the Country, Fear About Savings, the Job Market and Retirement

By LAURA M. HOLSON
Published: October 11, 2008


A year ago, Robert Paynter was comfortably retired and looking forward to years of refurbishing old cars and boating from his dock on Lake Norman in North Carolina. Over a 17-year career at Wachovia, he amassed a pile of stock and options from the bank that he had assumed would be worth more than $600,000.

But now the options are worthless, and he watched the value of his Wachovia shares shrink to about $15,000 before he sold all of them this week after the bank succumbed to the financial crisis and its stock fell to fire-sale prices. The rest of his investments are in free fall.

“It’s like having an out-of-body experience,” said Mr. Paynter, 61. “It’s like being in a hospital bed and watching yourself dying. Whatever the bottom is going to be, I wish it would just get there. It’s the every day, watching the blood drain out of it, that’s hard to take.”

To be sure, he has enough savings to not worry about missing any meals. But Mr. Paynter is resetting his plans for retirement, and has already canceled a trip with friends to Europe next year. “Today I’m O.K.,” he said. “But a year ago I felt like I was in great shape.”

Across the country, Americans are tallying their many losses from the relentless rout in the markets. Financial message boards on the Internet are filled with confessions of fear — about hits to savings, job security and scuttled retirement plans.

“My plan was to never work again,” wrote one person who posted a comment on Bogleheads.org, a Web site for investors who follow the long-term investing advice of John Bogle, founder of the Vanguard funds. “But somebody called me yesterday to see if I was interested in a job, and I am thinking maybe I will go back to work.” .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/business/economy/12voices.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[seemslikeadream]

1. Fear About Savings, the Job Market and Retirement

it is real isn't it?

[Liberal_in_LA]

2. “People have lost faith in our government. I don’t know what happens now.”