What's This? The Dow Jones Is Dropping?

[BITTER]

And Congress continues to go on their merry way, stay on vacation, while the future of the middle class of this country circles the drain? Unbelievable - Obama's gotta make a move and call these guys back. I'm about ready to construct a spine made of Legos and send it to him.

And you know, like clockwork, the fuckwads will give themselves raises when the time comes...

[travelbug]

It wasn't until about the 1980's that "regular joes" like us were encouraged to take charge of our own retirements by investing in 401k's and IRA's. Before that there was company pension and social security. What do you think the effect is when millions of people who didn't before start investing in the stock market? It goes up, that's what. So here we all are, dilligently investing our 10% every pay period....and every once in a while, when the market gets high enough, the uber rich do a big sell off. It happened when the Dow was up around 13K in 2008 and it just happened again. For those of us that have another 20 years to wait it out, we'll be OK. But it fucks over a lot of people who are near retirement or are currently living off their retirement assets.

And the thing that really sucks is that for investing for our retirement, what else are we going to do besides put our money in the market? My grandmother invested in CD's but back then interest rates were a lot higher, and she was able to ladder the CD's and make a good safe return. We do not have that option. If we don't invest in something that outpaces inflation, we actually lose purchasing power.

So, IMO, this latest market drop was just another selloff by the rich after us stupid average joes kept putting our money in like good little drones.

[sluce]

I don't know Travelbug. Most of the rich I know look at this as a sale and are buying.

[sputnik]

Another recession? Im confused. The prior one has ended? Last I knew America was still in one though many would like to believe differently. Isnt it more like 'the recession may get even worse'?

no, technically it wasn't a recession anymore because there was growth (albeit small) rather than contraction. that doesn't mean you didn't still feel the effects of it but technically, once an economy's growth is in the positive, it's no longer a recession.

[travelbug]

I don't know Travelbug. Most of the rich I know look at this as a sale and are buying.

I mean uber-rich, like multi-millionaires and billionaires. And why wouldn't they buy back after doing their profit-taking? Then when the middle class pumps money back into the market over the next several years via retirement savings, there will be another massive sell off.

[A*O]

People are encouraged to put money aside to fund their own retirements because the baby boomers are now at retirement age and Govts, ie, other taxpayers, simply can't afford to support them, especially as life expectancy increases. The Aussie Govt has a system whereby people can put quite large amounts of money into their so-called "Super" (401, pension plan, etc) with generous tax breaks and then use the money tax-free upon retirement. Of course the Super takes a hit when the market falls but it also gains when the market bounces back (as it always does). People get hysterical when the media tells them their Super has fallen in value by 4% or whatever, but forget that it gained 11% in the previous 2 years.

[sluce]

Same here. We get tax breaks for investing for retirement. People are told constantly to monitor how they are investing. If you will need the money soon you should not be in any high risk investments. The market has proven over and over that it will rebound and is a great investment long term. People over-react to every drop.