Thank God, we're finally laying to rest the myth that "trickle down" economics works. Unfortunately, while the rest of the nation implicitly and explicitly understand this the Washington elite still seems blind. The proposed bailout is simply an extension of the "trickle down" model --"Let's help the financial firms and their rich executives" and that will keep the economy going and help the poor. What about those poor investment banking staff and mortgage loan staff who were so highly paid to increase sales of bad loans.
What absolute rubbish. So what if a few investors lose a bunch--that's the risk they took when they invested and their demands for ever greater profits made them collaborators in the meltdown. That most of us have seen our pensions erode, our savings disappear means very little to them. I could understand it if it was only the Republican gurus who were promoting the ancient out-dated- theories but the Democrats are showing total spinelessness. Where are the strong Democrats? Why have they caved to off-shore oil drilling? Why have they not demanded alternative economic solutions that would start with helping the victims.
Most of the rest of us don't have Warren Buffett's acumen. We work for companies that provide us with pensions managed by institutions (AXA-Equitable, TIAA-Cref etc...). Their sales agents provide investment advice--most of it useless. And their investment managers make the decisions about which stocks to invest in. Were they unable to see the writing on the wall or were they too paid to keep the money rolling in. I asked my account manager to re-invest my pension in much less riskier stocks and bonds after I saw my pension eroding the past year. He gave me advice--told me not to downgrade the stocks too much, to cover myself for inflation, and , BTW, would I like to consider an annuity-at a modest fee of course? How about rolling over my pension from another firm with which I had worked into one pension making it easier to manage all my pension in one place?
Most of the rest of us don't have Warren Buffett's acumen. We work for companies that provide us with pensions managed by institutions (AXA-Equitable, TIAA-Cref etc...). Their sales agents provide investment advice--most of it useless. And their investment managers make the decisions about which stocks to invest in. Were they unable to see the writing on the wall or were they too paid to keep the money rolling in. I asked my account manager to re-invest my pension in much less riskier stocks and bonds after I saw my pension eroding the past year. He gave me advice--told me not to downgrade the stocks too much, to cover myself for inflation, and , BTW, would I like to consider an annuity-at a modest fee of course? How about rolling over my pension from another firm with which I had worked into one pension making it easier to manage all my pension in one place?
No, No and again no! Government should let me take my money out of these funds. Let me put it in short-term CDs and for God's sake don't penalize me with whopping taxes becasue I took them out early. Now is the time to forgive me my taxes on these funds. My cd is safer than my pension fund. I'm not taking my funds out because I want to spend them now. I'm trying to preserve them for the future.
It's no wonder I'm an independent voter. I don;t see either party thinking about us. The leadership in both parties is just too, too rich. Sarah Palin excluded of course, but her candidacy is a joke anyway.
No comments:
Post a Comment