The economy in the US

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Ematic

Ematic

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Hey guys,

As you all may be aware or not the country is in a huge economic crisis. What are other peoples thoughts on the situation. I have heard speculation about investing in foreign markets, the gov will save the day, etc. Is this the end of America's golden age or do you think we can bounce back from this?

I have been thinking about investing my money in other countries. What are peoples thoughts on this?

Peace,
 
Be careful about foreign investments right now. Those markets often thrive when the US markets are slow, but somewhat steady. When things get volatile, every market gets somewhat erratic. So, choose carefully. Right now, my foreign money is taking a hit, even worse that my US stock.

Then again, I may be investing poorly, so other opinions may be helpful....
 
Pretty sure this may slant to politics...maybe.

But since the lehman brothers collapse the entire global market has had major issues.

The DOW dropped 4.42 percent yesterday - which I believe is the largest fall since September 11, 2001. NASDAQ down 3.60 percent.

And the global market plummeted as well. Though Oil dropped to 90 a barrel yesterday. Though I don't follow Oil typically.

Dow and NASDAQ gained a little - which makes me happy. Though 141.51 isn't a large increase by the DOW. Especially after the hit yesterday.

I have no idea. The market is strange now-a-days. What happens in the US effects everyone.
 
I believe it is (possible). I also think it's important, and I do think there are other areas to discuss this topic. However, you can slant this away from politics. How does this affect your film-making? Are gigs drying up? Whats going on in the personal aspects? The job-market, the housing market. I don't believe that we need to blame a politician for our problem because largely it's not any one persons fault, and we can't blame a republican or a democrat. I think this is an interesting topic, one that can avoid the political play and be more serious about what we all should do in the time of this crisis. We have huge disasters happening not only geologically, economically, and personally. So, I think it's important to have an outlet. However, some may disagree, but when it comes down to it - dvxuser is all I have sometimes. lol!
 
I don't think anything is going to bounce back personally...This one's gonna hurt. When the smoke clears a few years from now we'll be one step closer to figuring out how to get along globally, at least I hope. Financial institutions are dropping like leaves on a fall Elm and taxpayers are being burdened with it. I think it's hard to discuss without getting into a little politics but not impossible.
 
You can make a fortune investing here in the US.

I was the youngest person ever to buy a seat on the board of trade, I used to be an independent stock and commodity pit trader (traded my own account). If you want to make big money play the market both ways, I have made just as much shorting the market as I have going long...Volatility is all that matters to make $.
 
Mark Harris said:
It is if we limit our discussion to the type of mattress you can squeeze the most money in.
Click to expand...

Serta Double Puff, Pillow Top w/Back Support. I've tested it...

Oh, and by the way, I was coming in here to claim responsibility for my former job as Political Police and tell everyone to be careful. This is one hell of a slippery slope.

Now, my opinion: we are definitely in a crisis. I think we need to just step back and not make rash decisions until we can see how things will be affected. The stock market is basically people's confidence in the economy. Let's do a nationwide fake out and we'll all be rich! (For a complete guide on how to start a paragraph in a serious manner and end on an absurd joke, sent me a PM! :grin:)
 
See, I wanted to day-trade. I used to follow the market every day. Hour by hour.

Then we lost nearly a half a million after 9/11. It was at that point my family pushed things to mutual funds. I did the same. My investments now are in bonds, a Roth IRA, and a few stocks here and there. I no longer have the money to trade daily.

I might now though. Perfect buyers market.
 
I guess politics didn't occur to me when I responded to the OP's question about foreign markets. I think we can avoid political discourse if we focus on smart investing. Unfortunately, I'm not smart enough to soundly give advice on this, so I'll leave it to others.
 
i'm going to the bank tomorrow to withdraw all of my money! then i'm headed to the pawn shop to buy as many guns as i can!! every man for himself!!! do it now before it's too late!!!! ahhhh!!!!!
 
The problem is that things just got so inflated. I live in Fresno, California and I *almost* purchased a houe in 2000. Put a deposit down and everything. 3000 sqft, Brand new tract home. $149k. Barely barely didn't get financed (I was 20, not enough credit). Not 2-3 years later, same house - almost $450k. I was kickin myself. Now that house is back down to around $200k ish. Everybody and their mom is foreclosing on houses these days because they can't hack the payments along with gas and food and everything else that's gone up.

Things are ok for me because I don't overspend and get in over my head. I have $200 dollars, yes, 200 dollars in credit debt. I finally learned to stop wasting money and start saving a bit. Too many people think that when times are good, they shoul just spend and spend and buy toys and stuff, but what they should really be doing is putting enough money away to help them through the slow years.

One of the most amazing things to me these days in schools is most kids are still not taught fiscal responsibility. I wasn't. and if your parents aren't responsible with their money, there's a good chance that you won't be either. (Actually, my parents were VERY responsible, guess I was just a rebel). I think that teaching money management needs to be a class in school required just like science or math, starting early, like in middle school. I think if kids were actually taught responsibility, especially with money, it would carry over to other things in life.

Ok...just ranting..
 
Letting your money work instead of working by yourself only works if a view people do it.
Nowdays everybody and his kid brother are "investing".

Where should all that money coming from?
1. FED have to print new money.
2. You take it from someone who is actualy working (producing something or service)
3. It is only virtual money

Like the price of your house is virtual.
Have you revamped your house? New heater, roof, windows?
No. So why should it be worth more than before?
Same with other "investments"

I say:buy real gold and store it under your bed.
Several wars, inflations and chrisis in history shows that this is the only real value.

Look at history. Every kind of paper (including money bills) lost his value and was just worth that - paper.

Frank
 
I really debated on chiming in on this subject...mainly cuz I have a hard time saying a lot with few words.

I worked about ten years for Merrill Lynch before they outsourced my department to India. One of the things I did was a daily calculation of the entire global cash balance for the entire corporation worldwide, so Treasury would know how much to go get in street loans for overnight funding. If any particular domestic or foreign account ended up netting in a large credit position, it was very bad and I would have to call the owner of the account in whatever country they lived and find out why their balances were out of whack. That meant conference calls with Asia at night from home to make sure we were doing business with well funded accounts overnight. I can tell you personally, the system sucked. Account owners often had no idea what the accounts were even for. It would scare you to death if you saw what I saw everyday. Stan O'Neal had been the CEO for most of the time I worked there, and he got busted going behind the board's and shareholder's backs to negotiate the sale of Merrill Lynch to Wachovia months before I left the firm in January of this year. They also got killed in the subprime lending market (which I never understood the business sense of that whole mess). He was fired on the spot and replaced by two Co-Presidents. Meanwhile, Stan walked away with a staggering $154M in pension, stock, and holdings, and that was on top of his regular $50M annual salary. Top brass started jumping ship like it was the Titanic, and so it was, I guess.

I just hope that Bank of America fully understands how deep the red goes on Merrill's books now that they have purchased them. I can tell you from experience looking at their daily cash and cash equivalent figures, all is not what it seems to be.


Now again, PERSONALLY, I can't imagine the circumstance where I would pull my money out of domestic investments and move into foreign markets. I may move my own paltry sums to less aggressive instruments, play it safe, but I would not invest in overseas trading. I know the due diligence process for stateside financial practices and I know enough about overseas due diligence to know that when you put your money overseas, you better take a close look at the safety of your money and what they do with it, the real nature of the market you are investing in. Cuz it aint like it is here in the states. International standards of practice are not always the same as here.

Plus, now is the time the US markets need for people to keep their money here. Panic causes a run on the banks and then the banks go to hell. The US economy is in the pits right now, but I don't believe it will go full belly up. I'm just afraid of the US having to go to foreign sources (i.e. China) to borrow the money with which to bail out these big firms, and especially private sector ones.

I have zero credit debt. I have not had so much as a car payment in the last 15 years or so. In fact, there is a strong possibility that I will be selling my car. I can't afford gas, much less insurance on it and maintenance. I'm going to have to try out the feasibility of mass transit and paratransit, and then make a decision.

Oh, and I need a job, too. :beer:
 
thartley said:
I just hope that Bank of America fully understands how deep the red goes on Merrill's books now that they have purchased them. I can tell you from experience looking at their daily cash and cash equivalent figures, all is not what it seems to be.
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based on what you've seen, what effect could this deal have on bank of america?
 
Oh, and one more thing! And I am not well versed on this at all. But if these financial institutions can get into the state they are in and turn around and ask the Feds to bail them out, there really should be some regulations in place that severely limit the packages that the CEO's are allowed to walk away with.

I feel if they come to the govt expecting a bail out, then they should forfeit these unbelievable exit packages entirely. Should they negotiate a solution that does not require Fed money, then they can do whatever they decide, but when they get bailed out, I dont think they should get a penny more than the highest paid average worker who suffers the loss of their job walks away with. And that would be total package.

Even while Merrill was tanking, the bonuses that top brass was making annually was enough to make you sick.
 
My cash flow is basically non-existent as of late. I made 64 dollars last week, and I have bills that amount to little over $600 a month. (I live rent free). So if someone could explain to me how to A. make extra money on the side, or B. find a better job. I'd be grateful. Hah.

The point I'm trying to make here, is that the economy being sucky doesn't help people who are out of work. I've had a part-time job for about 6 months. I've been continually applying everywhere, and searching every day for another part-time job or full-time job and have come up with squat. A few offers, but always backed out or "found someone else".

To say that the bad economy doesn't affect people personally is wrong, because people/businesses are tighten their pocket-books which means they are going to hire less people. Which in my opinion causes a ripple effect. This means bad customer service, which means less people will shop at this business which means it will fail. This also goes along with all the outsourcing. We're a consumer nation, we make no products ourselves and we have no other jobs besides retail/customer service. Which are crap pay, people can't afford to buy a house. I'm young so my opinion might not carry much weight. It's just how I see things.

I'm not cut out for customer service work and I have a hard time smiling and being bubbly. Not because I'm not happy or because I don't want to. I just am not good at it. If we can't have good internal relationships in our country, we can't have good external relationships anywhere else. If we don't have any good paying jobs for non-college grads (which I think is a ton of people.) How can they expect us to pay our mortgages? Like I said I may be looking at this wrong, so someone could school me on this. It just seems like a vicious cycle. We abuse credit because we are either spending to much money or not making enough money. We spend to much money because we're dumb, or we don't make enough money because of massive lay-offs. I live in las vegas, we depend on consumers/tourists and they simply arn't coming, they can't even afford their house payment, why would they come here? That puts alot of people out of work here, and there have been a ton of lay-offs because of that.


[/ends pointless rambling] :embarasse
 
ugafan said:
based on what you've seen, what effect could this deal have on bank of america?
Click to expand...


You know, I have no idea to what level or degree disclosure was given. When I heard how quickly the deal was made, seemingly over the course of a weekend (?), I was shocked. This isnt the kind of deal you make on the fly like that. So unless the Powers That Be from both sides have perhaps already been in quiet talks where steady and reliable disclosure has been coughed up, I just don't know.
 
Start collecting cans. It be awhile till the economy be back to "normal" or whatever that means.

I heard of people who make about $100 bucks a day just off of recyclables. That's $500 bucks a week extra cash.

I also tried whoring myself out, only made about 4 bucks.
 
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