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Added By: Carlos44ec
Added on: 10/06/2008 @ 1:33:43 PM
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Economics
Economics
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Don't Worry!

"Don't worry, Lehman Brothers corporate muckey-mucks, here's a couple million in bonuses, stock options, and other kickbacks! Sorry to cut this short, I have to go beg for Federal Corporate Welfare."

This boils my blood. Let's make it ok to give billions to corporate officers to pay them for a "job well done" while they run us into a recession.

I'm not saying they're the only reason we're tanking right now, but come on- I wouldn't go out and buy my 3.5 kids a PS3 right before I begged for food stamps... jeez...
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question_mark.gifPackOne (Guest)
10/06/2008 @ 01:37:07 PM
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Does anyone like Matt know what I should do with my wife's 401k or a point me in the direction of a current article that might explain it? I feel like I need to make a decision on it.
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vignette.bmpCarlos44ec - 2079 Posts
10/06/2008 @ 01:45:26 PM
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I've been told to keep contributing at the same level or higher. Sure your other stock values are dropping, but the stocks you're buying today are on the cheap!
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fry6beeu9.jpgJeremy - Super Chocolate Bear
10/06/2008 @ 01:52:37 PM
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Matt's approach to a 401K is "You can't lose money you aren't saving." I'm going to sit down with my finance guy before I put money into my ROTH after the new year. I suspect though that this is all stuff that just needs to be ridden out. I doubt there's one fund making money hand over fist while everything else sputters. My ROTH and 401k are being handled by the same people. It hasn't been a good year. It sucks for my ROTH because you put it all it at once at the beginning of the year, and I bought this year at somewhere around $40 a share. It's probably not the worst thing in the world for a 401K because you're buying them at their current share price every month. So you're getting more shares per dollar. The market trends upward over the long term, so I'm guessing it's not something to worry too much about. Assuming the market recovers it might even end up being a good thing.
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Jeremy edited this 2 times, last at 10/06/2008 2:19:35 pm
matt.jpgMatt - 3875 Posts
10/06/2008 @ 03:22:11 PM
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Jeremy Wrote - Today @ 01:52:37 PM
Matt's approach to a 401K is "You can't lose money you aren't saving."


Where did this come from?

Actually, I know next to nothing about this kind of stuff (except that the Professor in the one investments class I took was a big proponent of Roth IRAs). That said, I agree with what Jeremy said above. Unless you are planning on retiring in the next few years, it's probably best not to worry too much about any long term investments like this. They'll go up and down, but over the long run the trend will be up.
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fry6beeu9.jpgJeremy - 9475 Posts
10/06/2008 @ 03:31:11 PM
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It was a joke, based on my assumption you don't have one.
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hoochpage.JPGSarah - So's your face
10/06/2008 @ 05:31:10 PM
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PackOne Wrote - Today @ 01:37:07 PM
Does anyone like Matt know what I should do with my wife's 401k or a point me in the direction of a current article that might explain it? I feel like I need to make a decision on it.


I feel hurt that I wasn't asked first...emoticon
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jon.jpgJon - many posts
10/06/2008 @ 05:33:53 PM
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Sarah Wrote - Today @ 05:31:10 PM
PackOne Wrote - Today @ 01:37:07 PM
Does anyone like Matt know what I should do with my wife's 401k or a point me in the direction of a current article that might explain it? I feel like I need to make a decision on it.
I feel hurt that I wasn't asked first...emoticon


He said, "does anyone like matt know..."

He's talking about you. You and Matt are alike.
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flower .jpgPackOne - Well use me, use me, 'caus you ain't that average groupie.
10/06/2008 @ 05:59:59 PM
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I only threw Matt out because of his softball t-shirt. I didn't realize he was a bum. It was a general question.
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vignette.bmpCarlos44ec - Since 1980!
10/06/2008 @ 06:04:36 PM
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Wait wait wait. In one post Matt and Sarah are said to be "alike"... then you call Matt a bum...

Please Sarah, don't hurt 'em
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hoochpage.JPGSarah - 4605 Posts
10/06/2008 @ 06:06:02 PM
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No love.
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jon.jpgJon - many posts
10/07/2008 @ 12:50:02 AM
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Carlos44ec Wrote - Yesterday @ 06:04:36 PM
Please Sarah, don't hurt 'em


hammersarah.jpg
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vignette.bmpCarlos44ec - 2079 Posts
10/07/2008 @ 07:45:27 AM
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I'm so happy someone picked up on that other than I.

Thanks Jon!
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scott.jpgScott - You're going to have to call your hardware guy. It's not a software issue.
10/07/2008 @ 04:53:03 PM
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I saw MC Hammer in concert after a TB Rays game this summer! He did the sideways dance across the infield.
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scott.jpgScott - 6225 Posts
10/07/2008 @ 04:56:51 PM
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Also, I have a ROTH IRA, and it is pretty much tanking sense I started it. Stupid economy.
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face.bmpCarlos44ec - Tag This
10/07/2008 @ 05:28:57 PM
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my 401k has a year to date of -30.3. nuff said.
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2887.gifAlex - But let history remember, that as free men, we chose to make it so!
10/07/2008 @ 05:51:37 PM
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Glad I didn't start my ROTH yet. Procrastination pays off yet again!
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hoochpage.JPGSarah - 4605 Posts
10/07/2008 @ 05:55:40 PM
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081007/ap_on_bi_ge/meltdown_retirement

The American people are always told to save for retirement. At the rate it's going, we'll have nothing left. It really hurts people who are just about to retire, hopefully they've all switched to bonds.
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Sarah messed with this at 10/07/2008 5:59:30 pm
face.bmpCarlos44ec - 2079 Posts
10/09/2008 @ 12:28:27 PM
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Don't worry, y'all, gas is 2.99 where I live. I can forget about my 401k and all of this other mess.

What's 50c x 22 gallons, 11 bucks? Heck yeah, that's a sixer and a pack of smokes!

(is it?)
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2887.gifAlex - Who controls the past now controls the future
10/10/2008 @ 01:34:49 PM
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So if you took the sum value of all the major stock markets 3 months ago you could probably calculate some rough estimate of the net worth of the world right? And if you did that with the current market values, would the net worth of the world all of the sudden have declined 10%? And if so, what does that really mean? Does it even matter? Did money just leak into outer space, or have we collectively decided to devalue our human accomplishments?
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scott.jpgScott - 6225 Posts
10/10/2008 @ 01:55:00 PM
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We are comparing our networth to the planet Aldoron. They are booming right now.
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Scott edited this 2 times, last at 10/10/2008 1:55:22 pm
jeremy.jpgJeremy - 9475 Posts
10/10/2008 @ 02:24:48 PM
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I remember growing up and trading/collecting baseball cards. Beckett magazines were pretty much the gold standard of what cards were worth. Then ebay came along and though I had been out of cards a while I remember taking a fresh copy of Beckett (Maybe my brother's?) and looking up cards on eBay. (After eBay was around a while) Cards that Beckett said were worth $20 were listed at 20 cents, and there was 50 of them available. I remember being really surprised that Beckett could ignore, and be so different, from what the "market value" of a card was. Then I thought of what it must of been like to be running a card shop before and after eBay. The same supply of cards they had a week earlier was suddenly devalued 10 to 100 fold.

"What the hell does this have to do with anything?" you might be asking yourself. Well, stocks are also only worth what someone else is willing to pay you for them. There's no inherent value in them, it all just comes down to if what price someone else thinks they can buy it at and eventually turn a profit on. Which depends on many factors some, like cards, are quantifiable, like rarity others are just things like how likable is the player/company.

Edit: In other words it's a lot to do with faith/psychology.

Edit2: I doubt this was earth shattering news to anyone, but I think people, as I do, often think about the stock market like some intermediary pool of stocks that people can buy. When in reality trading baseball cards (for money) directly with other people is a pretty apt analogy of what's going on.
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Jeremy edited this 3 times, last at 10/10/2008 2:57:17 pm
scott.jpgScott - 6225 Posts
10/10/2008 @ 02:40:57 PM
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Also, baseball cards are everywhere these days. Back even when my Dad was a young guy he could have retired on his collection of baseball cards (he misplaced the cards when his aunt cleaned her attack).
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jeremy.jpgJeremy - 9475 Posts
10/10/2008 @ 02:48:02 PM
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What the hell does this have to do with anything?
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scott.jpgScott - 6225 Posts
10/10/2008 @ 02:48:59 PM
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exactly
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jeremy.jpgJeremy - I believe virtually everything I read.
10/10/2008 @ 03:06:49 PM
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Scott Wrote - Today @ 02:40:57 PM
(he misplaced the cards when his aunt cleaned her attack).
610x.jpg
[Click to Enlarge]

So it was your aunt? How cunning. No one would have suspected an inside job. Did your dad misplace his cards when he went to contact the authorities?
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Jeremy perfected this at 10/10/2008 3:07:00 pm
scott.jpgScott - 6225 Posts
10/10/2008 @ 03:35:36 PM
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well, it was more like he had this huge collection of baseball cards growing up (not necessarily planning on doing anything with them), and when he moved out for college or the Army or something he left them behind. What most likely happened was that his aunt (he lived with his aunt growing up) or someone probably didn't realize what it was and threw them out without realizing it. It wasn't anything suspcious or anything, but the my dad estimates that they would be worth several hundred thousand dollars, simply because of the qty of cards he had as well as the types of cards he had. Just a story that I thought of when you mentioned baseball cards.
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thumbnailCAW1I0O3.gifMatt - 3875 Posts
10/10/2008 @ 11:18:42 PM
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Jeremy Wrote - Today @ 02:24:48 PM
Well, stocks are also only worth what someone else is willing to pay you for them. There's no inherent value in them, it all just comes down to if what price someone else thinks they can buy it at and eventually turn a profit on. Which depends on many factors some, like cards, are quantifiable, like rarity others are just things like how likable is the player/company.


Of course, you could say that most things are only "worth" what someone else would be willing to pay you for it, but I get where you're coming from (although I'm not sure I agree with it 100%, when it comes to stocks).

If you have a share of stock, you are entitled to certain things, most notably a percentage of the company's future profits. So I would say that it does have some inherent value, it's just that you don't know exactly what it is.
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jeremy.jpgJeremy - 9475 Posts
10/11/2008 @ 12:35:56 AM
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Well, I don't know if I would call that inherent value either, since that's just as much a craps shoot as anything else, but I know what you mean. At any rate I was talking about the actual final value of stocks, which is determined pretty much directly what others are willing to pay for it, like an auction, rather than some intermediary body putting a price tag on it, like a store. When the value drops it's like an auction whose top bidder bails. You're out opportunity cost. There's no entity in the middle shredding money to account for the lost value that "floats off into space."

This is why people want us to spend money. The very act of over inflating the value of something by having faith that is has value to other people, even though it really doesn't have a whole lot of value on it's own is a large part of our economy. Seems like a pretty foolproof system to me.
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newalex.jpgAlex - I was too weak to give in Too strong to lose
10/11/2008 @ 08:25:31 PM
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081011/ap_on_bi_ge/where_s_the_money
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