So the US congress has adopted suicide bomber type mentality "I will take the entire country down just to prove that the other side is wrong"

While across the big pond, the EU is legally not recognizing the relationship between water and hydration.

And we wonder why aliens have chosen not to visit us?

That was supposed to be a funny line from Men in Black.......after this weeks headlines, I wonder. I am not laughing. :nope:

I'm very aware of how pension and retirement plans work. I have annuities/IRA in Deutsche Bank for my retirement. These are left in trust to my kids to avoid inheritance tax. I also carry a 401k savings plan at my place of employment. I do not own a pair of rose colored glasses. I don't depend on anyone to finance my retirement. Pension plans, by and large, do not exist anymore in the US. I have not worked for a company that offered a pension plan. I think unions have a pension type plan that the union pays dues to participate in. What company has any type of retirement plan were employees do not pay into the plan to pay for current retired employees if it is a pension plan? The companies without pension plans usually offer a 401k saving plan the employee contributes to. What debt am I paying other than Social Security to look after the elderly? Again, pensions are a thing of the past and have been for a long time. The day of getting the gold watch after 50 years of service to a company are gone. Depend on one self for retirement. Not others, SS or the lottery. Not good plans IMO. Is there anything else you would like to discuss concerning planing for retirement?


Loans are sold all the time. Often a week after signing the contract. Banks only like to keep loans that are signed by persons with stable income and a history of stable bill paying. Furthermore, cancel a treaty, you mean contract? How can a bank not honor a contract? The bank entered a contract. Terms can not be changed on the original contracts. It sounds like your friends were into a balloon payment loan. http://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/...#axzz1eT84WKec





No, hard work and playing your cards right saves yourself. Sitting on the internet pointing out all the ills of the world does no good for anyone. Hanging out waiting for someone to pay your way is not a viable pension/retirement plan.

Skybird,

How fitting for our conversatation:

This is why I have my 401k with Great West. I pay Great West to handle my 401K.

Sound advise IMO.

Play your cards correctly.


http://blogs.smartmoney.com/encore/2...ks-tough-love/

A simple question. Consider that all people having pension plans and savings all of a sudden become old and go to the bank on the same day, demanding the money they payed in over the past 45 years or so.

Do you think there is any bank having enough money to pay them out - all of them?

I answer it for you. No, there is no bank in the world able to do that. Because there is not sufficient cash for the demands accumulated. And by cash I mean cash that is covered by real value, not just inflationary money or chips stamped out in the Fed's stamping machine.

It is therefore assumed that future generations should come up for equal ammounts of money that you have payed in in the past - because the money you have payed in, already is gone right now while we speak. This is what the socalled generation pact is about. Or better: was about. But it is a classical snowball system. It cannot keep rolling forever.

And if you put your money under your bed in hiding, you still would lose value, because inflation and cold progression eats up parts of it every year. The situation is so worse even in haiuled Germany that the finance business is begging the politicians to allow a chnage by law: a chnage that would allow them to reduce the demanded-ba-law guaranteed minimum interest rates for life insurrances and several other financial "products". A decade ago or so thes einterest rates hit a high over here - and are now more and more killing the business because these additional paybacks need to be created by business. But they cant produce these increases anymore, forcing them to pay them by consuming their vital last-reserve iron-savings first, and then making debts themselves - lowering their credibility in the business, and making it even more costly for them to borrow money.

My mother gets her life insurrance payed out next year, a treaty of a lightly different format. My parents got info, and now hope that they get back at least the value that they have invested. But that is uncertain, to put it mildly. The paying out probably will create them a loss. And that says something, becasue lfie insurrances had been more popular in germany than in any other Wetsern country. What stocks and bonds are in England and the US to secure your private future, in Germany traditonally have been life insurrances, because they were so safe.

What I mean is this: the Deutsche Bank does not have your money right now. It hopes that business will ruinning so that at payday it can create a profit that allows them to pay your money plus interest back. Right now, your money is in nirwana. And whether it comes back from there is a question as uncertain or as safe as the question of whether or not you will keep your "safe" job over the coming years. Say, how many of your people have lost their jobs in the past three years, without it being their fault? We read your headlines over here, too. ;)

This is the whole point. Bad consumer climate means less business for banks. Fewer employees means fwewer consumers and net tax payers. Declining numbers of younger workers and increasing numbers of old pensioneers mean higher tax burden for fewer workers, and cuts. More low-wage jobs and higher taxes mean less possibilities for young ones to form families, or so save for their own future.

Will the bank have all of the money to pay out if all go to the bank on the same day? No. Will there be a run on the bank one the same day in 45 years? No. The odds that all will run on the bank in a single day are astronomical. Retirement age across the board does not fall on the same day for everyone. People don't all of a sudden become old. They become gradually old and hopefully plan on their retirement. Furthermore, when one retires one does not go to the bank and pull out all their saving. The money sits and is used as needed so the retired individual can survive the long haul and also hope on making some interest on the monies.



The system has been running on paper for decades. Nothing has changed. Only the value of the dollar has changed. In the end it is only paper. And again, the entire body of people retiring will not storm the banks demanding their money.


There is no generation pact in the US. There is a little system called Social Security. Originally the system was not to be considered the sole provider of retirement funds. It is only part of a larger picture. Pension plans and savings accounts were to be part of the retirement plan. Over the years some smart one decided a better system called 401K savings plan would be better. Many companies accepted this plan because it relieved them of the burden of pensions. Pensions went out the window. However, many companies did sponsor the 401k plan and also did some company matching to what the employee put into the account. If the employee treated the account as a savings for retirement and did not dip into the account then all should be well. The burden was now on the employee to participate in the 401k savings plans and also could go on their own with IRA accounts. There is no pact, however, I'm required to pay into Social Security every pay period. That is fine. I'm helping a older retired person. I would hope when I retire that I would receive the same. If not, no love lost, I will have saved for my own retirement. Is Social Security the best system? No sir. It is the only system we have to offer. But, one can always save on their own.


I don't put my money under the bed. That would be silly and nonproductive. As far as interest rates, the Fed here plays with the rate all the time in hopes to bolster the economy. I can not comment on the German state of economic affairs.

I'm fully aware of what Deutsche Bank operates. My money is spread across mutual funds and is based on a companies growth, etc. Making money or losing money as the stock market goes up and down only proves that paper is lost...not actual money. The market is always full of uncertainty. There is never any guarantee your money invested will make money. Nothing ventured is nothing gained. As I grow older I realize that I can't take it with me. What I can do is put money into securities, annuities, and IRA under a trust to my wife and daughters who will live off a nice dividend monthly. Inheritance tax can not be exercised on a trust and the Fed does not get any more of my hard earned money.


There is less business for banks because the once flowing credit line to anyone with a heart beat has ceased. It's that simply. The current economic situation was a conglomerate of all parties involved screwing the pooch. As far as fewer consumers and tax payers, to some extent there is. But, those collecting unemployment still make purchases and have to pay taxes on the unemployment collected. It is not a tax free ride. Federal tax is paid. Furthermore, these individuals have to pay Social Security as well. Again, unemployment benefits in the US are taxable and include Social Security payments as well. The only difference is lesser monies collected on the lower unemployment income. To finish, I would hope that young ones would take financial responsibility and not produce offspring that could not be sustained without assistance. Unfortunately, this is not the case and it burdens the system with a crappy program we affectionately call welfare. Welfare discussion is a entire different thread.

One word: Land. Forested land bought cheap and under cheap forest growth property tax rates. That's where I put my money.

Forestry goes up and down like any other sector, like any other sector cheap tax rates invite investment which eventually has to be stopped as it ruins the market otherwise.
However it might soon be a time to invest in forestry for the very very long term as that sector is closely linked with the constuction sector and as that sector is seriously tanking so people will be wanting to dump their forestry holdings before the current market dives completely.

It is the land Tribesman. The forest for the trees is just a small bonus.

I believe it was Will Rogers that advised people to buy land because the government can't make any more of it. :yeah:

Then you have not read your history books. It happened many times in the Europpean hiostory of the past 300 years alone. In America 90 years ago, in Germany 80 years, in arfgentinia 10 or 15 years ago. In Greece in the turmoil when they got rid of the dictatorship. Advise is that if they return to the Drachme´, they should close the borders and close bankls for one week. It happened in Korea, Japan during the market crash 20 years ago.

You do not get my point. My point is that a rush oin the bamks for whatever a reason, will end in chaos, and the point is that the banks right now do not have the money to sevrio9ce all their obliogations. BY FAR NOT. Even the most optmistic estimations IU read say they can service just 20% of these obligationsif they wqould become valid, and how thin the capital basis of banks really is you can see that they try to lease money from each other - and why the m istrust bringing this to a standstill has been an issue in the past two years that kept politicians and govenments and central banks rotating at 110%. It leads to no credits given to consumers and small businesses.

If the currency crashes, or the economy - and that is anything but an astronomically small chance - then all that paper stuff is not worth anything anymore. If inflation starts to speed up, you lose money, and if it starts to galop, you lose the fudnaments of your future, and if it reaches rocket speed then you spend all your savings - for half a leaf of bread.

Euro collapsing. US debts 15 trillion. US budget deficit 100% of GDP. How many trillions have been estimated to have been destroyed in the past three years of crisis? The last estimations I heared ranged from 12 to 20 trillion. But it could be even more.

Na und...? It worked for some time in the past, so it will work forever, and in all future to come, no matter what? This myth is one of the prime busters for civilisations falling. Read Jared Diamond, he wrote about right this quite extensively: civilisaiton choosing the path to doom becasue they thought that becasue the old ways have been in the past they necessarily will be there in the future. When I say that world history if filled from A to Z with examples of civilisation and regional powers illustrating this, then that is no exaggeration. Not at all. Another important one is this: when there is only one fish left in the lake, then people say: so what? I get it nevertheless, because if I don't do it, then somebody else will. These two ways of thinking have probably contributed more to the extiction of civilisations that fell due to overstretch or starvation, than any other reason.

And we still have not learned from their example.

Are you kidding? Have the past three years taught you nothing? The past decades' states and socieities ran on the basis of increasing debts. Not just the private consumer households, but the state (=political parties bribing the voters)These debts now are so high that they start to paralyse and overwhelm states - and I do not speak of Greece only . I speak of America, England, Germany, France.

The problem of changing age patterns is real, no serious researcher knowing the statistics of dmeogrpoahy denies them. We cannot avoid them - they will get us. Fewer and fewer people have to pay for more and more old. Have less and elsser to raise fam ilies and support them,. have less and lesser for secfuring their own future. That is the stuff social explosiuons are made of - revolutions, civil war. Becasue the system you trust so much in living on and on - the system of financing all on tic, and leaving the bills to pay to later generations, this system is currently in the process of imploding. Your model does not work anymore, the weight of debts is to crushing. Nations, the structural social integrity of them, collapse under these debts The states lose the ability to act, they lose degrees of freedom, they lose the freedom of choice in their decisions, they loose the diversity of options.

There is the same generaiton pact working in your place, like over here. In the banking business and all saving and pension projects they manage. Like I try to explain to you several times now. This is no wicked socialism. This is the mathematics of debt-driven banking business. And I do not mean credit cards and buying more cloathes and TVs than you can afford.

You are wrong. The Fed HAS done like that, but now has reached the lowest possible interst rate, almost nill pc. It can no longer decrease it, that option is gone. Why do you thionk it has switched on the printing machine and tries to talk the world into doing the same? All the world should accepot to m ake more debts so that more money is circulating so that more cash flows into the US to keep it floating for some time longer. Problem is this solves nothing, but multiplies the problem over time, it just buys time in which nothing can be done, and the final scale of the disaster is even bigger.

If all your money would be existent in this way, then a babk rush would not hurt any bank. But the truth is that its value currently is in a state of non-existence, seen from the future day when yoiu get it back, hopefully. Becasue the profits they now make (or lose), do get spend and given away TODAY. Currently all you have is the promise of theirs to give it back to you, with a small bonus. But they need to earn it. Your money you gave them has been spent for obligations of theirs in the present and past. Who will finance in the future the income they need to pay your share back to you one day, is written in the stars currently. Judging from today I would say that many people getting payed out in let's say 20-30 years, can assume themselves to be lucky if they survive the inflation that is inevitably coming and if the oney they get back has so much value in buying power that inflation has just killed the interest profits they once hoped for. But as I said in my earlier post, these already are shrinking and are in high danger RIGHT NOW.

It does. Who do you think pays for the many bailouts in the end? Why pays for "system-relevant" banks? In Europe we currently learn that in a club of 27 players the collapse of just one player with an economic contribution of not even 3% of the union's economy still has the potential to shake the whole house.

It is simple in itself, but just one of several reasons.

The situation is better described as a historical process unfolding over several decades. And those parties participating in it and causing it - will not stop to do so. We get this lesson shown time and time again, currently.

On this I wholeheartly agree.
But I mind you that it is not really helpful in the disadvantageous shfitnjg in the age-structure. We would need babies get born - but not in socially weak families living on welfare, where these babies later become net receivers, but in rich families where these babies become net payers. But the rich have less babies for reasons of personal comfortability, and becasue there are more poorer than richer people, with this balance also shifting to the negative. The gap between rich and poor is becomign wider and wider. Few and fewer people control more and more wealth, while more and mnore people share less and lesser of national wealth.

We are in a vortex, like a helicopter. We really are. We suck oursleves down to crash into the ground.

The state model where taxes get spend endlessly to buy voters' sympathy and to deliver an all-inclusive paradise and paying all, that with ever more debts, comes to an end, this way or the other. Either by reason and insight, or by colliding with hard, cold reality, head-on. Party's over in the West. 20 or 340 years after WWII, it was paradise. It will not be like that again, never.

More than a small bonus as last estimate. Once fully matured (another 10-15 years) I can expect to get anywhere from 10k to 30k per acre for that forest in today's prices. I retain ownership of the land and get to decide what the logging company can take as well as where they can put their access roads.

Yes, land - valuable land, since there also is worthless land - may be a good option. Gold currently is not, the prices now are too high, the niveau of its price too instable and unpredictable. It could rise even more yes. But it cpould also make a sudden very deep fall now. It would have been a good decision to have bought golds 3 or 4 years ago. Even if it falls down hard again, chances would be that you would not suffer losses over your original investements.

Problem is states. The states are desperately looking for money. And that means new and rising taxes. And maybe even the prohibition of gold again, like we have had it both in the US and in Germany not even 100 years ago. And in times of past turmoil, property taxes in Europe for landowners have become so excessive that the possession of land turned into a meaningless affair or even a doom, when things got worse.

It's a possibility I suppose but Maine has been dirt poor and very rural for quite a long time already. Raising property taxes in that part of the state would be trying to squeeze blood from a stone and they know it.

Economies when to the dogs when the gold standard ended. The gold standard ended because the aliens needed the gold for their spaceships.

Now we have no gold and no economies.

The end is nigh.

Land is just like any other asset it goes up and down in value, what is on the land goes up and down in value too.

How much would you have got for corn today last year or next year, how much has corn prices varied in the past 15 years how much will it vary in the next 15? Same for timber, plus of course is your forest guaranteed against fire and disease, is it ensured to have good growth producing good timber.
I only point out the problems with the "good" long term investment as so many people over here got their arses kicked by that "good" investment and the "nice" tax incentives that went with it.