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Old 08-31-2016, 04:50 PM
 
8,174 posts, read 3,368,696 times
Reputation: 6039

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Quote:
Originally Posted by jrkliny View Post
G4N,

I am sure you are well intended but you have jumped to conclusions that are not based on facts or any sort of understanding of economics. I believe Mathjak gave you excellent advice. He advised to not fixate on issues you do not understand and cannot control. Successful people ignore the complaints and negatives and instead act in a positive manner. They spend their efforts on what they can change.
Ok, sure, you're right. I should leave it all to the smart people who understand why it's ok to inflate the money supply by trillions. Hey, what's a trillion here or there?

I can just go buy a smart phone and keep myself entertained and distracted.

Don't worry, there are experts who have it all under control. And please, have some more Prozac.
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Old 08-31-2016, 04:50 PM
 
105,699 posts, read 107,682,511 times
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all i see is we are far less bad than we were in 2008 .
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Old 08-31-2016, 04:57 PM
 
7,898 posts, read 7,073,479 times
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The Fed members are highly knowledgeable people who live and breathe economics and financial policy. Somehow the internet geniuses think they are smarter. The internet experts also love to look for conspiracy theories. Somehow these Fed members are supposed to be scheming to take advantage of the public and to personally benefit. Since low interest rates don't help the banks, but high interest rates do, I fail to understand the Fed members ignorance and conspiracies.
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Old 08-31-2016, 04:59 PM
 
7,898 posts, read 7,073,479 times
Reputation: 18586
Quote:
Originally Posted by Good4Nothin View Post
.....

Don't worry, there are experts who have it all under control. And please, have some more Prozac.
I believe Mathjak is trying to be helpful. I recommend you take a look at his comments and learn from them. I am trying to be helpful by this recommendation. I do not appreciate the nasty personal attack.
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Old 08-31-2016, 05:41 PM
 
8,174 posts, read 3,368,696 times
Reputation: 6039
Quote:
Originally Posted by jrkliny View Post
The Fed members are highly knowledgeable people who live and breathe economics and financial policy. Somehow the internet geniuses think they are smarter. The internet experts also love to look for conspiracy theories. Somehow these Fed members are supposed to be scheming to take advantage of the public and to personally benefit. Since low interest rates don't help the banks, but high interest rates do, I fail to understand the Fed members ignorance and conspiracies.
I said repeatedly that I do not believe the conspiracy theories about the Fed.

What really did help the banks was the great gobs of money injected into them by the Fed.

And yes, you're right, we should be in awe of the Fed members, we should trust them with our lives. After all, they went to school for economics. In fact, I think we should just go ahead and appoint them dictator.
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Old 08-31-2016, 05:45 PM
 
8,174 posts, read 3,368,696 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jrkliny View Post
I believe Mathjak is trying to be helpful. I recommend you take a look at his comments and learn from them. I am trying to be helpful by this recommendation. I do not appreciate the nasty personal attack.
I can disagree with someone even if they are trying to be helpful.

And I guess you misunderstood -- I wasn't telling you to take Prozac. I was just paraphrasing your advice to me, and to everyone who finds the current situation scary.

And by the way, I am not really scared for myself, but for people who are younger and will be around to experience the chaos.
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Old 08-31-2016, 06:17 PM
 
Location: moved
13,570 posts, read 9,581,729 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Good4Nothin View Post
I can disagree with someone even if they are trying to be helpful.

And I guess you misunderstood -- I wasn't telling you to take Prozac. I was just paraphrasing your advice to me, and to everyone who finds the current situation scary.

And by the way, I am not really scared for myself, but for people who are younger and will be around to experience the chaos.
The world is a scary place. It always was. I'm too young to remember the Great Depression, or WW2, or even the early years of the Cold War. But my suspicion is that the world was scarier back then, than it presently is. My suspicion is that life and life's struggles were more irksome, more uncertain, more rife with threats of sudden failure.

Before the Fed, before 1913, we had incessant gyrations and panics. Certainly it's true, that the Fed screwed up in 1929 and the 1930s, failing miserably. Certainly that's ample reason to mistrust "experts" and to doubt their infallibility. But does one mistake, however grievous, imply that the whole enterprise is stupid and corrupt?

I do not believe that everything is alright, and that Good4Nothin's only legitimate problem is how to find more entertaining apps for his cell-phone. But neither do I believe that the 1950s or 1970s or 1990s were a good and decent time, of honest capitalism and wholesome civic-mindedness, whereas today is some monstrous perversion. Those who are familiar with my posting-history, will note my shrill frustration with 21st century stock-market performance thus far. Hardly do I have cause to self-congratulate on a fat cat's rich earnings. We are not on the verge of some halcyon age of prosperity and perpetual freedom from want. We have not learned how to obviate the business-cycle, or how to prevent recessions. But it merits reiteration, that our present situation, for all of its faults, is relatively good; and that in no small measure, this situation is due to unelected officials, public and private, who have had the courage to rise above politics and above public clamoring. Are they divinely wise? Of course not. Can they be trusted blindly? Of course not. But I trust Greenspan-Bernanke-Yellen, more than I trust Congress, or my Statehouse, or our crop of presidential candidates. I don't go to bed praying on my knees to an icon of Janet Yellen. But I do believe that our economy is in better shape, owing to her actions and her institution's actions, than if she never existed, or her institution never existed.

Now please answer: does that make me a socialist, or a crass plutocrat?
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Old 08-31-2016, 06:21 PM
 
Location: not normal, IL
776 posts, read 575,179 times
Reputation: 917
I do like the site, thank you. I get riskier with investing, not patting myself on the back, but I do pretty decent. A lot of that comes from ignoring the sky is falling people. However, I have had problems in the past, and so have other people I know with unethical banking and investments companies. I do highly question the ethics of these large position players, as I have seen much unethical behavior on the small scale and therefore very much believe it can and dose happen on a large scale. And in the site I do believe it said you would be better off going with the current than against it. Again I don't like going with the current but like the link said "If your only option is to swim across rapids, always swim with the current and never against it. If you also keep yourself horizontal to the water, this will also reduce the chances of being pulled under.
Read more at Survival: How to Cross Rivers, Streams, and Rapids
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Old 08-31-2016, 06:55 PM
 
8,174 posts, read 3,368,696 times
Reputation: 6039
Quote:
Originally Posted by ohio_peasant View Post
The world is a scary place. It always was. I'm too young to remember the Great Depression, or WW2, or even the early years of the Cold War. But my suspicion is that the world was scarier back then, than it presently is. My suspicion is that life and life's struggles were more irksome, more uncertain, more rife with threats of sudden failure.

Before the Fed, before 1913, we had incessant gyrations and panics. Certainly it's true, that the Fed screwed up in 1929 and the 1930s, failing miserably. Certainly that's ample reason to mistrust "experts" and to doubt their infallibility. But does one mistake, however grievous, imply that the whole enterprise is stupid and corrupt?

I do not believe that everything is alright, and that Good4Nothin's only legitimate problem is how to find more entertaining apps for his cell-phone. But neither do I believe that the 1950s or 1970s or 1990s were a good and decent time, of honest capitalism and wholesome civic-mindedness, whereas today is some monstrous perversion. Those who are familiar with my posting-history, will note my shrill frustration with 21st century stock-market performance thus far. Hardly do I have cause to self-congratulate on a fat cat's rich earnings. We are not on the verge of some halcyon age of prosperity and perpetual freedom from want. We have not learned how to obviate the business-cycle, or how to prevent recessions. But it merits reiteration, that our present situation, for all of its faults, is relatively good; and that in no small measure, this situation is due to unelected officials, public and private, who have had the courage to rise above politics and above public clamoring. Are they divinely wise? Of course not. Can they be trusted blindly? Of course not. But I trust Greenspan-Bernanke-Yellen, more than I trust Congress, or my Statehouse, or our crop of presidential candidates. I don't go to bed praying on my knees to an icon of Janet Yellen. But I do believe that our economy is in better shape, owing to her actions and her institution's actions, than if she never existed, or her institution never existed.

Now please answer: does that make me a socialist, or a crass plutocrat?
The world was always scary, that is how it is. However, I strongly disagree with you that it is less scary now than before the 1950s. We are in what I call the Age of Denial. Somehow the nuclear war we expected in the 1950s was avoided, so now we think it can be avoided forever.

After WW2 America was flying high, in many ways. Industry and technology advanced rapidly, creating jobs. The collective personality of America became positive, cheerful, optimistic. If you weren't naturally cheerful, you were supposed to act as if you were.

The collective American mind fell under the spell of scientific advancement. We felt, subconsciously at least, that there is a cure for everything.

The result of this Age of Denial is the biggest sweeping under the rug process the world has ever seen. The collective Shadow is now immense and more than ready to explode.

How many things can you think of that could quickly trigger a nuclear war? But we try not to think about it, we don't talk about it much.

And the food is literally poison, the environment is toxic. Yes, it really is that bad.

Some of us like to face reality.

No I don't sit around all day paralyzed by fear. I just go on and live my life the same as the cheery optimists. But I prefer not to be in denial, and I prefer to look at reality.

I have been suspicious of the Fed's policies since 08, and the more I learn about it the less I trust it. I don't give a crap if they are expert economists. Experts very often fall into group-think and close-mindedness. They communicate with each other and can lose perspective and common sense.

The answer to economic problems is to create as much money as you need. You can really solve every problem with money, so just make more of it. I swear that is how they think.

But you can't create money. Money is information, and it has to mean something, and stand for something. The meaning of our money is being destroyed by the Fed, and other central banks around the world.
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Old 08-31-2016, 08:35 PM
 
7,898 posts, read 7,073,479 times
Reputation: 18586
G4N, I understand how you feel. And I feel your pain. I was a pessimist almost my entire life. I was always worried and especially worried about money and my financial future. I was also worried about nuclear war. I lived in D.C. during the 60s and knew how close we were to nuclear war especially during the time of the Cuban embargo. My father was evacuated to underground bunkers and the rest of us knew we would not survive a successful attack.


For reasons that would take too long to explain, I have become more of an optimist in my later years. I love the feeling. And it is not just a feeling. Everything seems to go better when you have a positive outlook and attitude. Dale Carnegie was right and I always thought he was a joke.


I am certainly not happy with our economy but overall I see lots of positives. My money is worth more than ever thanks to improvements in production and the low rate of inflation. I have seen my portfolio go up 2 1/2 times what is was before 2008. And it continues to grow at a nice rate even though I am living off of it.


And I am not just optimistic about my situation and unconcerned about the younger generations. I am optimistic for them too. I have a daughter who is career oriented. She is still in her 20s and has surpassed were I was in my late 30s. Due to one of my hobbies, I have a whole lot of Facebook friends who are in their late 20s or early 30s. There are still a couple out of a few dozen Millennial friends who still seem lost and struggling. The vast majority made it through getting out of school with no job prospects and no careers. The economy improved and they found a direction in life including careers. Maybe the Facebook friends are not good examples. Well, I live within 2 blocks of a large university. I spend a lot of time on campus and in classes. I also participate in another sport with 35 undergraduates. I know young people very well and have a lot of optimism about the future. The young generation is way more capable and has more reasonable priorities than the leftover flower children, hippies and crazy Vietnam vets of my boomer generation. The new generations will face all sorts of new challenges and issues and they will handle them.


Back to the Fed. I really see no conspiracy or massive incompetence. The Fed members are just people trying to figure out what to do in a strange world economy. The Fed actually has very little power to do anything. They did the QEs and held the interest rates at rock bottom, trying to stimulate the economy. The Fed has been asking the Federal government to take additional steps. No one really seems to know what that means and in addition we have a deadlocked Congress and an ineffective lame duck President.


So the world is not perfect. That is nothing new. As Mathjak said, rather than dwell on all the issues that are not perfect and are not in your control, find the positives and the positive things that you can accomplish. Don't be "Wrong, Wrong, Wrong. Be Right, Right, Right and the whole world will improve.
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