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Strategies & Market Trends : Heinz Blasnik- Views You Can Use -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: GraceZ who wrote (857)	5/7/2003 4:38:23 PM
From: Wyätt Gwyön	Respond to of 4905

Don't you wish you had something actually worth doing? ROFL, that is the most presumptuous thing i have ever heard! you have no idea what you are talking about. btw, i do something very worthwhile these days: protect my money and make more of it. it pays better than any job i could get, is more intellectually challenging, and carries the side benefit that i am able to capitalize on the idiocy of conformists.

To: GraceZ who wrote (857)	5/7/2003 4:41:54 PM
From: Wyätt Gwyön	Respond to of 4905

Been debunking this BS as long as I've been on these boards i have yet to see you debunk anything. why don't you start with my next-to-last post, where i easily lay to waste your theory of bearishness being mainstream.

To: GraceZ who wrote (857)	5/7/2003 4:47:15 PM
From: Wyätt Gwyön	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4905

The most dangerous thing is a society that thinks retiring at 30 is a good thing, something worth aspiring to. my goal in my 20s was to save enough money at my day job so that i could manage my money for a living. i started doing that in my early 30s and i have a LOT of fun at it. it's strange that you would try to denigrate this as being meaningless. what's that about?

To: GraceZ who wrote (857)	5/7/2003 5:46:10 PM
From: re3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4905

<<<Don't you wish you had something actually worth doing? what do you think is actually worth doing (except for the fact that most need a paycheque and then some) ? what career would you suggest to most people out there where they can maintain their integrity ? the provincial govt here seems to go after those front line professionals that the public really needs and relies on...so you get nurses thinkin' of selling real estate and doctors thinkin' of packing it in and buying a little shop in the country. besides, i gotta figure, a person who retires at that age might be playin' the market still and hopefully successfully, or clippin' a lot of coupons from bonds...either way, the gov't is a partner in all of that, gets some taxes collected and that's a good thing.

To: GraceZ who wrote (857)	5/7/2003 8:51:26 PM
From: EL KABONG!!!	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 4905

Hi Grace, the same people I deal with day and day out as clients. Universally they are negative on the economy, the market and their employment prospects. Even the ones who are doing quite well, they are sure that it will end any minute. I get a lot of angry responses when I even suggest that things may not be as bad as they think. I guess you and I must talk to the same people <g> though I do it on a peer basis and not as professional. The people I know and talk to are most worried about (in order of importance) their jobs disappearing, their higher share of medical insurance costs, their jobs disappearing, their dwindling retirement accounts, their jobs disappearing and rising costs of the things they purchase. Oh, and I forgot; their jobs disappearing... When we talk, there's not much that they can do regarding their employment. If the company folds up, if there's a big layoff, if the jobs move to Asia (or Mexico or wherever) what can they do? The only answer I have is to prepare now for the possibility of a new career somewhere else by being better educated than the next applicant. In other words, go back to school and hone your marketable skills. Mostly what we talk about though is their retirement plans (or lack thereof) and the dwindling sums in their 401(k)s or whatever else they have. Most of these folks have very few choices available in a qualified plan. There are perhaps as low as 2 or 3 equities funds, perhaps 1 bond fund, maybe 1 muni fund, 1 or 2 money market funds, and 1 or 2 blended funds (a blend of equities, bonds, munis and cash/cash equivalents) available to them. A quick glance at fund performance figures supplied by their employers shows that the stock funds have typically lost well over 50% of their value since the March, 2000 market highs. The bond funds are returning relatively feeble yields and the money market yields are less than anticipated inflation figures. On top of that, they read elsewhere that bond funds are so crowded now, that any future increase in interest rates will sock the capital values of the underlying existing bonds. So what do they do? Hell yes, they're negative on the economy, and negative on their future prospects for a decent retirement. From my point of view, they're like the proverbial frozen-deer-in-the-headlights syndrome, damned if they choose stocks, damned if they choose bonds, and simply screwed if they choose money markets. So they do nothing, and leave their money exactly where it is now (whether bond or equity funds) and don't even change the allocation for future contributions. My advice is to always pay down debt first, starting with the heaviest interest credit cards, right on down through consumer loans such as for cars or appliances. We generally talk about paying off the mortgage (as a final option) because they can realize say a 5% "gain" on their mortgage payment by not having one (assumes an approximate 7% mortgage rate and a routine tax deduction for interest), and 5% is one heckuva lot more return than they're currently offered under bonds or money markets. But the bottom line is that they have to increase their after-tax savings (presuming that they have already maxed out their pre-tax contributions to any qualified plan, and have already maxed out any employer matching funding). While most of them are willing to do so, very few feel that they have the ability to so without altering their current lifestyle. And that's where the conversation usually ends... KJC