well cant lobbyists buy electorate votes just like they do congressmen? or to put it a nicer way, are electorates forced to pick what their constituents vote for or can they pick who they want?
db:smokin:
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well cant lobbyists buy electorate votes just like they do congressmen? or to put it a nicer way, are electorates forced to pick what their constituents vote for or can they pick who they want?
db:smokin:
Well they can pick who they want but historically they vote along side the popular vote. Only 4 times in US history has a candidate won the electoral vote without the popular vote. In that regard whoever you vote into office on your state and local level does reflect in presidential electionsQuote:
Originally Posted by SnSstealth
Usually lobbyists buy politicians in senate and the house after they've been put into office. So your vote does still count on the local and state level. :thumbsup:
This stock market crash is very disturbing.
I personally have lost a great deal of money in the last year and a buttload of that has been in the last two weeks. I do not have the time or expetise to research individual compaines or the incliniation or discipline to monitor them myself after buying their stock. So my investments have moslty been in mutual funds in my 401k plan and my IRA accounts. And I have typically not tried to time any market trends, so I stay invested through the ups and downs. This has been a hard time to stay the course, but if that is your stretegy, you really have to stick with it.
Today is a perfect example of why you can't just jump out if you invest broadly in mutual funds with a stay-the-course strategy. On Friday, the Dow was in the middle 8000's. At this moment on Monday, it is over 500 points up, back over 9000 again. If you freaked out on Friday and told your broker to sell everything Monday morming, you missed a 500 point rally.
Often the way the market operates during these severe downturns is that after it hits a bottom, it RACES back in a rally that lasts only a few days. That is what all the volatility is about. You get swings of hundreds of points in a single day because investors are selling the market down, and then jumping back in with every uptick, not wanting to miss the rally. The rally sputters, and they all jump back out. But one of these times it will be for real, and the rally is going to take the market back up and keep it up. I do not think that is very far away. You canot afford to miss that. If you sell now and miss the rally, you have locked in your losses.
The compaines traded in the stock market do have intirnsic value. So many of them have been so beat up in this crash, that their stock is trading at bargain prices. If the market can reach the psychological turning point where investors have FAITH that these prices are bargains and the economy is really not going to completely collapse, money is going to flood back into the market. At least that is my hope and belief.
I am young enough that I can spend another 10, 15, 20 years waiting for my investments to regain their losses. The people we should all be worried about are the ones who don't have that long. Maybe they should not have been in the market in the first place, given that they need the money sooner. But you can be sure that their are a lot of boomers on the edge of retirement who just lost 20% or more of their retirement nest egg, dumped all their stock in a panic AFTER THE LOSSES, and will now miss the rally as it comes back. This might be you or maybe your parents or aunts and uncles. Those same people may have also been counting on their home equity for retirement --- sell the big house they have owned for years, take the profit, and downsize to something smaller and cheaper for retirement. With the losses in housing in that last couple of years, that strategy is a losing one too, just at the same time the stock market implodes.
You can be sure there are thousands, if not millions of people right now being told that after the losses in housing and the stock market, they cannot afford to retire like they thought they would just a year or two ago. I hope it is not you or your parents.
For those of you who have a lot of years ahead of you, like me. If you have faith that the economy is probably not going to completely collapse, like I do, then this is a good time to be looking for some buying opportunities. There are compaines whose stock is trading at bargain prices right now. Also, I have always been interested in investing in rental real estate, but the numbers just did not work out in my local area for long-term, cash-flow-based real estate investing. It looks like the prices have dropped almost enough to make it work. If I can get the financing (damn credit crisis!), I am going to start taking a close look at that again.
Nice post:thumbsup:
I am not sure if anyone has mentioned this before, but if you are close to retiring, it is wise to limit risk factors to less than 33% of your portfolio value. This money should be put into guaranteed stores of wealth, such as government issued bonds. Gold is also a viable option, but a caveat awaits in the form of storing/securing the gold. If you have a safe at home, it might just seem "safe", but it could very well be stolen or broken into. The other option, a safety deposit box is very good, but that does cost money as well. You will have to balance such decisions based on your own specific goals, desires, and situation.
Right now, i am mostly playing with financial stocks but advise anyone to stay away from them unless you have the time and expertize to monitor their swings. I repeat, this is a very volatile industry at the moment and you can lose a considerable amount of money if you are inexperienced.
Some safe picks include consumer staples, more specifically companies you can locate at a grocery store. There is no guarantee that they will hold value, but will most likely be less affected by a recession.
Lastly, do what is right for you, and try not to get pulled in by greed.
Another caveat: these are just my views and opinions, so consult a trusted professional before making any commitments.
I'd like to add this same caveat to my post above. Everyone needs to make their own decisions and seek out the advice of professionals --- not just anonymous members who post on a weed forum!Quote:
Originally Posted by GoldenBoy812
I think the market will turn around, and I do not think the economy will completely melt down. So I am going to stay invested in my mutual funds and seek out some buying opportunities in rental real estate for long-term investments. But that is just me. No one knows for sure what will happen, so we each need to be responsible for our own choices.
Ok, this is exactly what I was talking about earlier. Today the market closed with a 940-point gain on the Dow --- biggest single-day point gain in history! Holy crap!
Who knows what tomorrow will bring? Will the rally hold? Will it drop back again? I think it is likely some investors will take some profits tomorrow and slow the rise or even set it back, but who knows? If you are long-term, buy-and-hold, stay-the-course investor like me, it doesn't really matter that much. But if you are long-term, buy-and-hold, stay-the-course investor who got spooked, forgot your strategy, and sold on Friday, then you just missed out on a 10% gain that you are never going to get back.
When the market is this volatile, unless you are a professional investor who trades minute-by-minute, you cannot take advantage of these wild fluctuations, and you only hurt yourself trying. I think it is going to be crazy like this for awhile.
This huge gain we saw today is more proof of the market's current volatility. Even in a bear market (more losses than gains), steadiness is what keeps people from panicing.
A lot of analysts say this is proof that we've hit bottom and are going to start rising again, but a few people who've been in the stock market a long time (like Jim Cramer on CNBC) say it's better to ride it out until the market's had a few months to prove it's a bull again. He reasons that most bear markets have short-term bounces upward periodically allllllll the way down.
Besides, based on what I'm hearing about the economy itself (not the stock market), we're far from hitting the bottom of this crisis. This is going to be a long, hard winter.
Side not, has anyone gone grocery shopping lately? The prices are getting out of hand! For a five pound bag of potatoes, it was 4 bucks when I went today. I thought potatoes were the poor man's food...
Or it could be that it's not a clear indicator of anything.. considering it's Columbus days and many financial institutions are closed.. thus having no picture of what the bond market looks like.Quote:
Originally Posted by JakeMartinez
Truth is you can't judge anything by today. Although I'll agree that we have not hit bottom yet; but for an entirely different set of reasons than what you propose. :hippy:
I went grocery shopping last night actually. Prices have actually gone down slightly; which correlates to the drop in price of a barrel of oil, making transportation a little cheaper.Quote:
Side not, has anyone gone grocery shopping lately? The prices are getting out of hand! For a five pound bag of potatoes, it was 4 bucks when I went today. I thought potatoes were the poor man's food...
Not sure where you're doing your shopping at :wtf:
My local Wal*Mart.Quote:
Originally Posted by daihashi
Why do you think we're still on the downward spiral, then?
I think it's the fact that we haven't addressed the myriad of root causes to our crisis...we're just treating the symptoms for now. I think we might hit some serious inflation issues in the near future, what with adding 700 billion to the money supply, which (at the end of the day) will equal roughly 6.3 trillion dollars in new money based on the fractional reserve system.
I attached a chart of the U.S. money supply...see that huge spike once you get to where we are now? That's not a good thing.
Not quite, as the money appropriated has yet to be inserted into the system, as well as the nature of the bailout. Do you consider a person who has the best possible credit you have ever seen, heard, or thought about getting a loan as inflation (fractional reserve banking aside)?Quote:
Originally Posted by JakeMartinez
Here is another way of thinking about it. Think of it as the American tax payer giving a loan to wall street so that main street does not turn into a ghost town. And even if wall street cannot liquidate/ recapitalize the entire amount, the tax payer will foot the bill. That part does suck big time, but it is better than the alternative.
Interesting graph, but it is undoubtedly wrong. That illustration lacks something vital, known as the M3, which is the focal point of your debate. Not only that, your chart has too dominant of a slope this early in the game. At best, it is a rough estimate.Quote:
I attached a chart of the U.S. money supply...see that huge spike once you get to where we are now? That's not a good thing.
Ill explain later, as it has been a long day:jointsmile:
I hate life right now, everything is fucking dry:(