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As a boomer from the working class, I was told that the stock market was for the rich. For us, we were better off saving what money we could in an FDIC account, protected since the Great Depression.
How do you explain so many boomers in the retirement and investment forum, many from the working class, who built up wealth investing stocks and bonds? It sounds more like you're looking for a scapegoat for your poor personal finance decisions.
Since they're the fiduciary agent for the CREDITOR, to whom the bankrupt CONgress owes a duty as trustee in bankruptcy, tying the bell on THAT CAT ain't gonna happen, as they say.
How do you explain so many boomers in the retirement and investment forum, many from the working class, who built up wealth investing stocks and bonds? It sounds more like you're looking for a scapegoat for your poor personal finance decisions.
You make a jest?
Since 1933, Federal Reserve Notes are worthless.
That other muggles are compelled to accept them, since lawful money isn't circulating anymore, is a tragedy.
Their worth continually drops. A copper cent from 1900 has twice the buying power of a $1.00 (2022).
A millionaire in 1910 was rich.
A millionaire in 2022 can barely afford a nice condo in Manhattan.
Prior to the creation of the FED, when there was lots recession, did we even have a consumer based economy with most people working in services?
There were no big box stores, or movie theatres. People did not really go on vacation, nor did they go to school really, and have to buy all those supplies etc etc. There were no cars, so no gas stations. People did not do house flipping. There was no Property Bros, or Martha Stewart Living.
Most people lived on farms, grew their own food, sewed their own clothes. If you wanted some metal tools, you bartered with the local blacksmith. On top of that that was a lot of open available RE especially out west. And the population was really low compared to the 20th Century.
People were more self sufficient back then. How does a recession or a depression even look like to that kind of society?
Even today we have some test subjects like the Sami, the Nenets in Siberia, and even the Amish. Now granted, all three groups have modern day trappings, and dont necessarily live all primitive. But there are some individuals that still do practice some traditional simple living. Like below in this vid.
If you told this guy the stock market is crashing, what be his reaction?
You make a jest?
Since 1933, Federal Reserve Notes are worthless.
That other muggles are compelled to accept them, since lawful money isn't circulating anymore, is a tragedy.
Their worth continually drops. A copper cent from 1900 has twice the buying power of a $1.00 (2022).
A millionaire in 1910 was rich.
A millionaire in 2022 can barely afford a nice condo in Manhattan.
Oh yeah man and most people still make $30/week, it all makes sense now you've stumbled upon the truth thanks for enlightening us.
Over the decades, I've come to form a very, very low opinion, if not complete contempt of the Federal Reserve who seems to be similar to our Senate in D.C.: completely out of touch with the majority of American people and their economy which does NOT have a chance of accumulating wealth in the economy designed by the Feds.
As a boomer from the working class, I was told that the stock market was for the rich. For us, we were better off saving what money we could in an FDIC account, protected since the Great Depression. We never dreamed of buying a home until we reached middle age. Now, thanks to the Fed, there are no safe savings vehicles, and the only chance Americans have of accumulating assets is the stock market or housing, which most cannot afford even before their shenanigans.
It is a farce to think that the Federal Reserve is anything more than a handmaiden for the banking industry and I personally think our Legislature should disband it and enact laws that make saving liquid funds possible for working people.
1. Whomever told you the stock market was/is for the rich did you a grievous disservice.....Charles Schwab blew down the pay us what we want or go away brokerage pricing ethos in 1975 (the SEC deregulated brokerage commissions on May 1, 1975.......one more example of deregulation changing things for the better).
2. Whomever told you that saving was better than investing did you an even worse disservice. Since about 1920 there have been very few time horizons in which investing in any safe savings instrument has returned more than the net of inflation, taxes and fees.
RE saving......to be sure there are a few people who save most of that they make and over time accumulate tidy nest eggs. I recall a woman in many be MA who died with about $1.1MM in the bank and she never earned more than about $45K or so per year. The rub is if she had saved similarly but invested along the way very likely her $1.3 would have been $10 or $15MM.
In virtually all cases normal/safe retail saving instruments are net losers.
3. It's too bad that people who don't pay much attention to macro-economics believe The Fed. is working against the little guy. The fact is the so called 2% inflation target the Fed. employees as a longer term target is all about creating an environment leading to low unemployment, real wage growth through productivity increases and predictably prices/short term price stability.
When inflation sets in The Fed. increases rates to help you because over time sticky high inflation would hurt the little guy far worse than the rich guy.
How do you explain so many boomers in the retirement and investment forum, many from the working class, who built up wealth investing stocks and bonds? It sounds more like you're looking for a scapegoat for your poor personal finance decisions.
I have to push back on this. As a whole, boomers aren't wealthy. In fact, their children are probably multiple times more wealthy on a given day.
Plus, money alone does not define wealth. There are other factors like life experience. For example, someone, near the end of their life, who has $1 mil but had to save every penny and couldn't travel around the world is not as wealthy as someone with less money, but is worldly.
1913 was a bad year. The Founders clearly understood the potential downside of centralized banking like the Fed. You can dream. The Fed is here to stay and not going anywhere, anymore than the federal income tax, also created in 1913.
We had one economic system for a long time from the founding, and somehow around 1900 the powers-that-be decided to change all of that. They knew they would be the winners and the common man would be the losers. There is upside to the Fed but it is modest for the middle class and wildly profitable for the upper class who don't suffer the downside like the middle class do.
The rich get richer. That is just the way of the world and was from the start. Americans have been historically blessed to get thrown a bigger bone than the peons and peasants from the rest of the world. We have true upward mobility. A penniless immigrant can still become a bilionaire if he builds a better mousetrap.
It is what it is. It is not getting any better for Joe Blow. All we can do is our best within the system. We have no power to change it, unless you have an idea I haven't thought of. Special interests and lobbying money pretty much supercede voting in that regard.
Igor you are a smart guy. I want to pre-apologize because some of this will seem condescending.
1. The US economy from about 1750-1910 sucked just about all the time. Overlapping banking crises, short term price instabilities, overlapping recessions (many very severe and long lasting (FE The Long Depression - really a depression from 1873-1879, then recessions and bank panics, then the panic of 1893-1896).
1.1. In 1907 there was a near total banking meltdown. Famously, JP Morgan using some of his own money and JD Rockefeller and others literally saved the economy from ruin buying bank stocks.
1.2. It was decided that society could not count on rich guys to save the nation every time there was a banking panic..........thus The Fed.
1.3. IMO it took decades for The Fed. to wise up and shift from a policy of bank protection as its key driver to one of overall economic health. FE it's pretty obvious to me that The Fed. made The Great Depression worse than it otherwise would have been via increasing rates and shrinking the effective money supply early in '29-'31 in efforts to protect banks. Since the end of WWII The Fed. has generally done a good job managing the economy. Exceptions being the '70s and Greenspan's failures leading up to 2008.
1.4. Would you prefer a pan-congress banking committee including Bernie Sanders, Charles Schumer etc. running macro-money policy?
It's interesting. I posted this in the Economics forum rather than the Political as a litmus test to see just how smug and mean spirited -- or open to debate and ready to explain the populace was here. On the whole, I'd say this forum is marginally better than the political.
To the respondents that chose to assume I was speaking for my self rather than the lower middle economic class, and then mildly chastise my assumed plight and ignorance, you scored lower than most.
For the record, DH and I have invested in both the stock/bond and real estate markets, so we've managed to remain in the middle-class, but only because we chose to remain childless, and live within our means.
The bottom line is that it IS historic fact that we still have recessions, and for decades the middle-class (that has historically fueled the US economy) has indeed eroded and in recent decades the number of people falling into poverty on a daily basis has been rising. The Fed continues to make decisions to worsen the situation. The article I linked to illustrates such.
So, while the majority of you sit in your comfort blaming the victims of this state of affairs, think about the fact that this situation is contributing to the general decline of our country in the world standing.
Here in the northwest, while Russia is looking west, China is looking east. Our precious real estate market is being driven up by Chinese and Indian buyers, many who buy properties sight unseen. While economically comfortable people like yourselves are telling yourselves how much better things are here, realise that we look like ripe plums on the world view. Because we've economically crippled more than half of our population, we are so busy squabbling over the economy that remains that we are not seeing the bigger picture.
I've not looked into how much of our more liquid assets, like stocks/bond are held by foreign entities. I cannot do so as easily as watching real estate sales, but I would guess that it's much the same.
Does that still give you the same smug assurance that the respondents here chose to offer my OP?
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