Gambling With Your Retirement

[Guest]

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Mike wrote:

Social security benefits will have to be cut anyway - the ratio of workers to retirees is declining over time.

As I said months ago before this became the political issue of the day, all they can do on the funding side is raise payroll taxes, tax benefits, cut benefits, or raise the retirement age (or raise the cap on income for the FICA tax, which is basically raising payroll taxes in another way). Private accounts = separate issue.

The payroll tax is already high enough - plus it hits the low income earners harder than the high income earners.

Private corporations wouldn't want the government under their jurisdiction - it's incredibly difficult to fire federal employees... much less get them to be productive.

OK....large picture here...

Why is the ratio of workers to retirees going down??? Hmmm....

The reason is because prior to 1980 or so it only took one income to maintain a household....then it two two incomes to maintain a house hold....now to maintain a household you have to have two full time workers and can not have children....

Just think about it how many couples do you know in their late 20s and 30s without children. Just 20 years ago that was unheard of...something must be wrong with John's pipe cleaner or something...now it is normal not to have children...that is because wages have not kept up with inflation....

Big picture....what would you invest in now? Hmmm...since we Americans can not go overseas to shop or recreate because of our great strong dollar what do we do...hmmm...We go gamble to try to make it big...ok normally I do not recommend stocks on this board....but look at the sin stocks. WPT is doing me good right now...

Good luck

MT

 

[Guest]

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Just wanted to do that e-mail to show you guys how you can use the news you bounce around each other to make some dough...think of the problem..then the cause and say...how I can I profit from this situation....if you can do that then you walk into some great cash...

I believe the next great hard asset will be water....

Think I am crazy but in 20 years I will resend this post to you, ha ha.

MT

 

[cowboy]

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I agree with you Saraho! Here is what my feeling is wrong with US economy. We have a $10,000 year poor man trying to live and a rich man trying to sell him a $50,000 vehicle. Guess what you run up, debt, unless your smart enough to stay away. The American farmer is getting approximately $3.20 on average for his wheat. My dad sold wheat in the early 70's for over $5.00 a bushel. The thing about roll over wealth is you can pass it on to the next person. Thats basically what has been happening in this country. If taxes raise they pass it on to you! If costs go up in manufacturing do they swallow it, no they pass it on to you.Can a farmer do this, no who can he pass it to. No one! Now, how do you get the money back to the farmer before you can't eat, you subsidize him first for 50 years, and then the inevidable is going to happen and the dollar goes down to keep the farmer out there, so you can eat. Guess who is now buying farm land, the rich are! They are fleeing the stock market and buying real estate. This whole process takes the land out ofthe hand of the poor from decade to decade as there is less farmers. MT is saying it's coming butno one can say when. Then there is all of the other factorsthat effect this such as you guessed it, government!

 

[Guest]

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Cowboy,

Here here...sorry about your family situation, however.

Another training soapbox event there but: You have to figure out...how can I make money from this???

The reason we no longer (sorry for the term here folks) need farmersis NATFA...we get much of our food from South of the border...but on the other hand...have you seen the price in food prices lately...reason they south of the border currencies and stock markets are just on freaking fire...look at Brazil...WOW.

Buy silver, coffee and coco....and if you not capability of that country specific EFTs.

Interesting enough...that food, housing and energy was taking out of the inflation index that is used to measure inflation....what is your three biggest expenses??? Food, housing and energy...this was also taken out of social security increases which is immorral, inhuman and cruel.

Wow, there are actually people on this board that can get pass the CNBC talking head and see that the man behind the curtain (economy) is a short fat guy that is three miles in on a marathon and is fading fast on us...chug chug chug...stop...fall and die.

MT

 

[Show-me]

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MarketTimer wrote:

Just wanted to do that e-mail to show you guys how you can use the news you bounce around each other to make some dough...think of the problem..then the cause and say...how I can I profit from this situation....if you can do that then you walk into some great cash...

I believe the next great hard asset will be water....

Think I am crazy but in 20 years I will resend this post to you, ha ha.

MT

I have had that opinion for years. Fresh water is already a precious commodity in other countries and in our own Western States “water rights” have cause violent confrontations. Las Vegas passed a ordinance that new homes can not have traditional green lawns that require irrigation. They now have to landscape there yard to look like the desert. No watering of fairways on golf courses. Hotels are investing in water reclamation systems.

"IF ITS YELLOW LET IT MELLOW. IF ITS BROWN FLUSH IT DOWN" Meet the Fockers:l

 

[Guest]

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Show Me,

If I can use you as an example...you seem like s smart guy...you figured this out before a lot of folks have....did you make any investments in this area? Probably not. It is interesting that we say that is interesting and not...that is a way to make money.

Good luck out there.

MT

 

[Show-me]

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Don’t have the resources at this time(base is $40,000). Trying to fully fund TSP and become debt free on single income and building my own (energy efficient, because of high energy prices) house. (Not sub-contracting actually building it ourselves.) I am making small investments in silver bullion over the past year and continue to do so. I was listening the NBR on PBS and one of the guest mentioned the symbol for a gold trade stock. GLD on Yahoo. One share is 1/10 ounce. Makes it easier to trade and no handling of bullion for small investors like me. What ya think? Any suggestions.

 

[cowboy]

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I'm not worried about my family situation. What I'm telling you is in order to get the country back into shape you have to pay the hand that feeds you and the way they are currently doing that is by the way of the lower dollar. You don't need the American farmer? Get real! You think NAFTA is your answer toyour food problem!NAFTA is your Trade problem that yourcrying about.You can trade all the paper you want but you can't eat it. Three largest expenses, have you looked at insurance, Health and entertainment, wow! Now thats inflation. I bet not. The typical US american spends less of his earned income on food then any other nation and you are not eating silver. If you want to live off of Cocoa and coffee fine. But the truth is this, the US lost all or most of the livestock slaughter plants to Mexico and your actually eating American beef out of Mexico. Why? Because all the red tape in the US. Environmental, polution, conservation that you want to pass on goes into the price. These plants all go to Mexico because there is none of that! They have cheap labor too. Morell and these other plants just leave their larger plants in the US for show and a right off oftaxes to launder the money on their foreign investments.

The weak dollar is herefor awhile until, you heal the paper inflation you produced.Food is not inflated neither is energy. Housing maybe depends on where you live. I may not bea big shot trader like you MT but I bet I can be just as right as you just as often. Most people that trade stocks brag about their winners and forget about their losers they don't want you to seethe losses. I have not seen a stock guru yet that could repeat 2 years in a row.

By the way your too late in my opinion on the water idea! Not that I don't mind hearing from you. Take a look at Wind! You heard me wind! The cost of energy is not inflated, it's scarce.

 

[Guest]

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Cowboy,

Now you are scaring me. Calm down. I understand what the ecomomy has done to farmers...however like all industry in the U.S. the U.S. farmers are overpaid and it can be more cheaply replaced by outsourcingthatout like everything else. Who da though tech jobs would of been outsourced? Everything can be outsourced. Captilism is like a cancer...it eats the host.

Wind is a good idea however it will be like hydro and fuel cells loss you big dough in the long run. We need to bring nukes back to uncouple ourselves from these OPEC thugs.

Cowboy...sorry to hear about the American farmer...but you have to get in line with the American steel worker, car maker, textile worker, etc, etc...you are just another domonio that thought would never topple....believe it our not a believe a lot of gov jobs will be contracted out in the future...oh like the computer admin jobs??? Hmm should I be trying at another job....if you think a long my lines you will want to look at a job that would be hard to outsource, nurse, physical therapy, barber....everything else other then SERVICE type jobs will be gone within 20 years from the economy.

Good luck out there..

Morpheus

 

[Show-me]

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Bob Brinker on Money Talk radio show one or two weekends ago said the same thing about manufacturing job when asked point blank from a caller about where future job would be at. His replied was (paraphrased) “SERVICE, SERVICE, SERVICE. In the near future there will be almost NO manufacturing jobs in the USA due to expensive labor, taxes, materials, and benefits.”

Wait till Three Gorges Dam in China is online. It equals 18 nuc. power plants. Boy will the manufacturing pick up over there when that happens. I believe in ‘07 is when they will be fully online.

As farmers go poor poor farmers. Why do they all have new houses, new cars, new trucks, new tractors, new combines, RV’s, and take big vacations while I’m driven a 1990 truck and car and a 1997 van. Please tell me how hard they have it when they spend sooooo much time eating out at the coffee shop and complaining how bad they have it. Quit putting your land in CRP so the taxpayer can pay you to do nothing but bitch. Get in your new truck and cry to someone else poor farmers.

 

[Guest]

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Show Me,

Bob Brinker is pretty good however he all ways is behind the power curve in his calls. He saidbuy March 2003...however if you bought (I know you heard this before) around Halloween on October 2002 you would of been up for 2002.

I do not listen to the guy because he gets on my nerves...but he does a half decent job of making buy and sell calls. My sell call was 28 December. If I was a guessing man he wished he made the sell call today. However I have to agree with his service economy that you mention. You can read that every day in the paper but for some reason it does not click in our brains that hey when is my job next? I am safe, fat, dumb and happy.

Yes, once China finishes the damn and does not have to import oil anymore that is one more step to superpower status...I actually believe they are a superpower now but the big bully on the block does not want to admit he is going to have to become the beta dog and not the alfa dog. But once they can free up capital from purchasing over priced oil they are going to be a powerhouse. GDP of over 8.5% for the last four years...THANK YOU WALMART and our u.s. consumers that are up to their eyeballs in debt...they hold 35% of our debt...we do not hold any other debt...they are our bankers so that would mean...we are a rung under them now...

MT

 

[cowboy]

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Show-me wrote:

Bob Brinker on Money Talk radio show one or two weekends ago said the same thing about manufacturing job when asked point blank from a caller about where future job would be at. His replied was (paraphrased) “SERVICE, SERVICE, SERVICE. In the near future there will be almost NO manufacturing jobs in the USA due to expensive labor, taxes, materials, and benefits.”

Wait till Three Gorges Dam in China is online. It equals 18 nuc. power plants. Boy will the manufacturing pick up over there when that happens. I believe in ‘07 is when they will be fully online.

As farmers go poor poor farmers. Why do they all have new houses, new cars, new trucks, new tractors, new combines, RV’s, and take big vacations while I’m driven a 1990 truck and car and a 1997 van. Please tell me how hard they have it when they spend sooooo much time eating out at the coffee shop and complaining how bad they have it. Quit putting your land in CRP so the taxpayer can pay you to do nothing but bitch. Get in your new truck and cry to someone else poor farmers.

LOL! If you see a farmer of this type ask him what is debt is!! It is the same reason the US is loaned out to China! And as far as CRP you wanted conservation so they gave it to you. So show-me obivously you don't buy items but you stick in stocks. A farmer is no different then a manufacturer and has to have capital also. So do you know how old the average farmer is and what gender most of the land is in the US. It doesn't matter what you produce you have to have a buyer. All consumers will buy food they will not by the roll over products.

 

[Show-me]

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cowboy wrote:

LOL! If you see a farmer of this type ask him what is debt is!! It is the same reason the US is loaned out to China! And as far as CRP you wanted conservation so they gave it to you. So show-me obivously you don't buy items but you stick in stocks. A farmer is no different then a manufacturer and has to have capital also. So do you know how old the average farmer is and what gender most of the land is in the US. It doesn't matter what you produce you have to have a buyer. All consumers will buy food they will not by the roll over products.

Live within your means. Nobody twists the farmers arm to sign the loans. Maybe he/she is a poor manager. Quit trading up to newer equipment, cars, and trucks every two or three years. Pay down debt, use more cash.

 

[Guest]

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saraho wrote:

Chaplain wrote:

Better for Big Brother to take care of us :s. You know, a worker's Utopia...

Until afew of months ago, no one seriously thought this issue would come to debate for another 20-30 years, when the coming doom will beat the gate.

Let's at least give this administration credit for attempting to start discussion (3rd rail of politics?).

SS is about redistribution of wealth, albeit, for a noble purpose.

Me thinks I am becoming a libertarian, what say you?

That' just me though, and my perspective isthrough my own narrow, biased and scratchy,foggylens.These arejust opinions,so let's keep up the discussion, it's good and healthy.

No. I would not say that you are a libertarian because the individual rights of which you speak do not affect all Americans equally.

SS isa safety net for the elderly poor.

The only reason that this issue has come up is because of the massive federal deficit caused by the recent tax cut (which enormously benefitted the wealthy) and because of the costs of the Iraqi War.

Notice that we are not discussing rolling back the tax cut to reduce the deficit, since that would take money away from wealthy Americans. We are talking about taking money away from the poor elderly.

On the contrary, the USA is becoming an upper class utopia, whereredistribution ofwealthis well underway and continuing to prosper, IMHO.

 

[Guest]

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saraho wrote:

We should guarantee equal opportunity. Do we currently have equal opportunity to good health care? to good schools? to a good retirement system? Give me a break.

Governments do nothingBUT encourage people to do this or that through tax incentives.

There are government welfare programs for the rich ..and those for the poor. The welfare programs for the rich are not being touched in attempts to reduce the deficit.

 

[pyriel]

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Cowboy, I am beginning to understand where you are coming from but just like what Show me said in his post, no one twisted your family's arm to sign those loan. You mentioned that you remember your dad getting $5 per bushel/barrel (whichever is which) back then.I guess what I am trying to say here is that you can't fault companies that go overseas because they are obligated to make money for their stock holders. The name of the game here is to make money.I'm wondering what would you rather see. Keep and make the goods here in US eventhough there will be a negative cash flow. If that is the way you are looking at on how to run a business, then you will fail.Like what I said awhile ago, we moveour money constantly here in TSP because we do not want them to be in a fund that is currently tanking down.

Additionally, farmers are dime in a dozen now a day. Please don't think that I am putting them down. What I am trying to say here is that what used to take 100 farmers to produced certain amount of crop years ago would only take 10 farmers now to produce them. This is a what we call economics my friend. Farmers upgraded their machinery and made more crops but now we have too much in the market. This is why you are getting a lower price today for the crops your family are making.

Pyriel

:?As for your WW, why did you have to bring up this very heated topics.

 

[pyriel]

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MarketTimer wrote:

Show Me,

If I can use you as an example...you seem like s smart guy...you figured this out before a lot of folks have....did you make any investments in this area? Probably not. It is interesting that we say that is interesting and not...that is a way to make money.

Good luck out there.

MT

MT, Since you figure this out way back then and you seem to have the resources to fund such a venture, did you create a water business. If yes, then that is wonderful, if not, then I don't understand how you can bash show me with your remarks. I really think that you are a smart guy but does it make you feel smarter by bashing other people.

 

[Guest]

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pyriel wrote:

Pyriel :?As for your WW, why did you have to bring up this very heated topics.

do you really want to know?

 

[Guest]

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cowboy wrote:

LOL! If you see a farmer of this type ask him what is debt is!! It is the same reason the US is loaned out to China! And as far as CRP you wanted conservation so they gave it to you. So show-me obivously you don't buy items but you stick in stocks. A farmer is no different then a manufacturer and has to have capital also. So do you know how old the average farmer is and what gender most of the land is in the US. It doesn't matter what you produce you have to have a buyer. All consumers will buy food they will not by the roll over products.

Funny how you talk about something then a news item comes out about it...here ya cowboy...something else to kick your dog about (I guess that is country western humour). Or something to talk about by the cow patties...not to sure how that goes....Have a great day!

Bush Plan Would Up Defense, Cut Farm Funds

Friday, February 4, 2005

WASHINGTON - President Bush will propose a nearly 5 percent increase for next year's defense spending while calling for cuts in payments to farmers.

 

[Guest]

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pyriel wrote:

MarketTimer wrote:

Show Me,

If I can use you as an example...you seem like s smart guy...you figured this out before a lot of folks have....did you make any investments in this area? Probably not. It is interesting that we say that is interesting and not...that is a way to make money.

Good luck out there.

MT

MT, Since you figure this out way back then and you seem to have the resources to fund such a venture, did you create a water business. If yes, then that is wonderful, if not, then I don't understand how you can bash show me with your remarks. I really think that you are a smart guy but does it make you feel smarter by bashing other people.

I owned Ionices when it merged into GE late last year...went up 45% in one day...I was not bashing the guy...I was using an example that everyone can see a good investing opportunity and not do anything about it...I currently own a much of water uliitiy companies...most overseas...have some investments in companies that changed air water to drinking water and another that can change ocean water to drinking water...I am not bashing anyone...I am trying to just get the brain juices flowing...you can find great ideas just by watching the news or living your day to day life.

I gave you other ideas....I can teach to fish...I can not give ya the fish...as the saying goes...ha ha.

MT