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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Joe NYC who wrote (217206)	2/3/2005 11:40:12 PM
From: combjelly	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 1586157

"If you know the answer, why don't you post it and save the 5 minutes it would take me to look it up?" Ok. It doubled plus a little. 1949 was a little above the peak of 1929. It wasn't the worst 30 year period, but I wanted something that avoided the Depression and WWII. Still, most people experienced increasing income and prosperiety through almost all of that period, but the market was pretty sluggish. Inflation started to be a problem in the early '70s as a result of Vietnam and Stagflation was a problem starting in the late '70s, but most people didn't feel much pain until the latter part of that period. Yet the market basically sucked throughout the whole time. The market topped 1000 around 1972, but never really exceeded it until sometime in the '80s. If it hadn't of been for Volcker, the growth during the early '80s would have been much worse. If Carter had chosen a Greenspan to head the Fed, the figures you posted would have looked a lot different. I and my generation suffered a lot more than the Boomers and the X'ers because of Volcker's policies, but they paved the way for recovery. And that is worth a lot. But to pretend that the market is always up ignores some important points. Timing, for one. For something like retirement, a vehicle like the market is stupid. Sure, the returns over some arbitrary period may be higher, but the brutal fact of the matter is that the market can go through an extended period of being flat or down. If that occurs at the beginning of when you are trying to build your nut, then you are going to be screwed, big time. Sure, if you can micro-manage and short and go long at exactly the right time you can do ok. But most people can't do that. So private accounts means that a significant number of people are going to run out of money before they die. Are they supposed to suicide or starve to death? I suspect that you are close to my age(48), but came to this country after the 1970's. So you missed the disillusionment that marks the generation Jonesers. I don't trust government very much, but I trust big businesses even less. And there is a big difference between small businesses and big ones. From my viewpoint, I have some control, however small, over government. I have exactly zero control over big business. That explains my particular brand of cynicism...