Scared to look up my mutual funds

[Louis]

1) Diversify

2) Don't chase the "hot money"

3) I've you're smart enough to time the market, then by now you should be rich enough to retire. If you're not rich enough to retire that's proof right there that you're not smart enough to time the market.

4) If you don't need the money near-term don't worry about it.

5) If you do need the money near-term it's too late for anybody here to help you. A winning Powerball ticket might be your only hope (and a slim one at that).

6) Be happy that you have enough money to even be thinking about investments. Tons of people on this earth don't even know where the money for tomorrow's dinner will be found. The fact that you even get to "worry" about this means that you already have too much money.

7) You can't take it with you.

8) Your kids don't need it all anyway. Let them earn their own.

[learlove]

I've done 15% into a 401K (diversified across 7-10 funds/stocks) since I was 25 back in 1999. I will continue with the 15% and if that is not enough by the time I'm 60/65 then so be it.

[Ray]

Originally Posted by Louis

3) I've you're smart enough to time the market, then by now you should be rich enough to retire. If you're not rich enough to retire that's proof right there that you're not smart enough to time the market.

4) If you don't need the money near-term don't worry about it.

5) If you do need the money near-term it's too late for anybody here to help you. A winning Powerball ticket might be your only hope (and a slim one at that).

6) Be happy that you have enough money to even be thinking about investments. Tons of people on this earth don't even know where the money for tomorrow's dinner will be found. The fact that you even get to "worry" about this means that you already have too much money.

POTM!!

I claim no expertise, only nerves. But 1Centaur's knowledgeable post is in line with my intuition. But I just have to wonder about the impact of energy prices on this whole thing. We've always assumed that oil shocks in the past were just that, shocks. Lower energy prices were right around the corner and that would right the ship. If this is the long term peak some of us have been fearing and oil just keeps going up, is the rest of the economy resilient enough to recover from that? I keep feeling like energy is the 64 zillion ton gorilla in the room, that our economy is so thorough dependent on cheap energy that we may not recover from this one, at least along the cycles we've become familiar with in our lifetimes. I don't claim special knowledge, just a gut feel / fear. If we'd gotten started on alternatives sooner, the transition might have been less painful than I fear its going to be, but the market conditions weren't right for it back when Carter was pissing everyone off but being somewhat prophetic.

I have this weird feeling that our generation of Americans / Westerners may go down in history as the most affluent in human history based on the availability of dirt cheap energy for most of our lives. Which makes me feel incredibly fortunate but also worries the hell out of me for our kids and grandkids. And possibly for us in our dotage - but that part scares me more than it bothers me (we'll probably deserve it). I honestly do hope I'm wrong by the way.

-Ray

[1centaur]

Originally Posted by RPS

Just wondering, how much of the expected capital gains increase do you think the market has priced in already anticipating "that" candidate will win?

Commentators who forget Bill Clinton's retroactive cap gains increase think we have to mid-09 at the earliest to sell. Many investors don't forget that and were planning to sell in '08, where appropriate, but the downturn has caught them out because now they can't be clever (in their minds) - they've lost more in the downturn than they'd save in taxes. That's a broad generalization, but I think represents the psychology in the aggregate. I'd expect capitulation on that front starting in September to beat the November rush that now precedes the December tax loss selling season. That allows a "free option" to see if ?????? somehow gains traction and comes right after the Democratic convention.

To Ray, I think I've got the energy thing figured out

Genuine supply shortages/demand excesses have been joined by real speculative excesses. Buying higher futures increases the spot price of oil via arbitrage, which should mean more supply comes to market to meet the higher spot price, but that supply is partly being diverted to unrecorded inventories (storage costs being low thanks to low rates) and partly not coming due to industry skepticism the price will last. Eventually that supply will come and prices will drop sharply. There is plenty of carbon energy in the world but it comes at a price. Last I heard, the industry was focused on $80 as the level above which they were not putting new projects into play. This drilled supply response could take a couple of years - I don't know enough about petroleum engineering to say. The stored supply release would come quickly if the dollar strengthened sustainably. Again, higher rates may be part of that equation.

As to whether this was a historic period for cheap prices, I HOPE that the answer is no, but the form of energy will be different. When we have wide scale production of alternatives and better technology, I hope solar, especially, will prove to be even cheaper. Not in my lifetime, unfortunately.

[Pete Serotta]

yep!!!

Originally Posted by Louis

1) Diversify

2) Don't chase the "hot money"

3) I've you're smart enough to time the market, then by now you should be rich enough to retire. If you're not rich enough to retire that's proof right there that you're not smart enough to time the market.

4) If you don't need the money near-term don't worry about it.

5) If you do need the money near-term it's too late for anybody here to help you. A winning Powerball ticket might be your only hope (and a slim one at that).

6) Be happy that you have enough money to even be thinking about investments. Tons of people on this earth don't even know where the money for tomorrow's dinner will be found. The fact that you even get to "worry" about this means that you already have too much money.

7) You can't take it with you.

8) Your kids don't need it all anyway. Let them earn their own.

[Pete Serotta]

Do it later...... not now.... The pain ver well could get worse, but the world is not going away.... .

Originally Posted by SoCalSteve

Im sooo thinking of cashing out my IRA (taking the penalty) and buying a mobile home in the area that I want to retire in with the cash out.

Good idea? Or????

Steve

[Climb01742]

Originally Posted by 1centaur

We have many fiscal problems to overcome, and taxing the rich/middle class ever more may not be the way to solve them - the pain needs to be shared to discipline the politicians, or those who don't pay will choose to spend money they don't have.

i may be one of the few americans who don't mind -- or at least accept -- paying taxes. virtually all of my income is earned vs capital gains. and i pay at the highest rate, so my "pain" is real. yet for me, it is the price of living in a society. yes, there is a HUGE amount of government waste, but we need roads, we need schools, we need police and a (much smaller) military. inefficient government is the problem, not government itself.

i'd be curious, 1centaur, about your vision of a more fair tax system. i've always been intrigued by a flat tax, or a consumption tax, but i like them for philosophical reasons, without knowing the true, long-term impact on revenues.

i have a knee-jerk distaste for two political extremes: republicans who always say "cut taxes" and democrats who always say "tax the rich". but i guess i'm more in warren buffet's camp of... why should his secretary have a higher tax rate than he does?

and can any discussion of taxes ever be truly honest if, first, we don't discuss spending cuts? everyone wants to cut taxes but no one wants to make the hard choices of what services do we cut too? i can't help but see behind every republican politician's call to cut taxes their true goal: starve the "beast". and no one of them has the honesty or guts to own up to the real consequence of that: starving some large part of america in the process.

is there a truly equitable tax system out there that does, as you quite rightly point out, share the pain but still leave us with a goal of a humanistic society?

[Richard]

Climb -- You hit it on the head...the political post of the election cycle.

Richard -- who doesn't "want" to pay taxes, but understands that it is our obligation maintain an advanced, "compassionate" (yeah, right) society.

[Spinner]

Originally Posted by mike p

About a year ago I got out of every fund and stock I owned and put into CD's. My broker tried to convince me to just get into less volatile funds but I had a feeling. I havent made much in the last year of course but I haven't lost half the value of my portfolio either.

Mike

... after my funds gained back all that was lost in 2001. yes, the gains have been small, but it has helped me sleep at night. i do hope to re-enter the stock market at some time.

what really rankles me are the politicians who talk about social security being broken while they simultaneously vote for looting the dollars not tied to current funding obligations. they always have this facial expression of bewilderment when discussing the topic.

[michael white]

I don't know, after a few traumatic ups and downs I just decided to adjust my portfolio a couple years ago at 85/15 stocks and bonds, and now I just don't think about it. If America tanks, and it might, then we've all got bigger problems than just our retirement.

I think Climb's post is eloquent and patriotic. But I don't think we can even have a conservative/progressive discussion about gov't anymore, since we haven't had any true conservatives in Washington for quite some time.

It's cool the way America swings one way politically, then the other. If anything can save us, it's that--the way we roll with the punches.

best,
mw

[Ray]

Originally Posted by michael white

I think Climb's post is eloquent and patriotic. But I don't think we can even have a conservative/progressive discussion about gov't anymore, since we haven't had any true conservatives in Washington for quite some time.

It's cool the way America swings one way politically, then the other. If anything can save us, it's that--the way we roll with the punches.

best,
mw

That's kind of funny - I don't think there have been many true progressives in Washington in a long time. We moved so far to the right that what's now considered 'liberal' would have been considered center-right 25 years ago. But I agree, the current administration is anything but 'conservative'. I think its the creative tension between the two philosophies that keeps us honest. If the left over-reaches, we swing back to the right. And when the right over-reaches, we swing back to the left. Ironically, its the relatively uninformed voters in the middle who don't pay that much attention who are responsible for the swings. But they ultimately get it sort of right. Usually.

-Ray

[michael white]

I guess it's more of a fore-aft thing now rather than left-right. Who knows?

[RPS]

Originally Posted by Ray

I have this weird feeling that our generation of Americans / Westerners may go down in history as the most affluent in human history based on the availability of dirt cheap energy for most of our lives. Which makes me feel incredibly fortunate but also worries the hell out of me for our kids and grandkids. And possibly for us in our dotage - but that part scares me more than it bothers me (we'll probably deserve it). I honestly do hope I'm wrong by the way.

-Ray

I don't agree. But in the short term we have to act on the only viable option that can help us out of this mess. New nuclear plants can solve our problems for a generation while other technologies are fully developed.

Since there is no limit to how much we can build at an economical cost (compared to oil at over $100 and natural gas at the corresponding price), within a reasonable time frame of something like 10 to 15 years we could build enough plants and distribution system to heat every home with cleaner and safer electricity rather than use fuel oil, and have enough to convert appliances to electric so that water heaters, dryers, stoves, etc.... were all clean electric. And yes, we could have enough left over to charge electric or hybrids at night.

That would leave natural gas for commercial transportation and heavy industry.

"Energy" is not running out Ray. Maybe cheap oil, but who says we are limited to oil?

[andy mac]

It ain't just the USA if that helps... or confuses the political arguments.

We moved to Sydney from the USA nearly two years and it's ugly down here too. Europe is similar.

Some friends of mine high up in investment banks say they expect the market to back where it was a few months ago, in around two and half years. Yikes.

Batten down the hatches kids!

[Climb01742]

Originally Posted by RPS

I don't agree. But in the short term we have to act on the only viable option that can help us out of this mess. New nuclear plants can solve our problems for a generation while other technologies are fully developed.

Since there is no limit to how much we can build at an economical cost (compared to oil at over $100 and natural gas at the corresponding price), within a reasonable time frame of something like 10 to 15 years we could build enough plants and distribution system to heat every home with cleaner and safer electricity rather than use fuel oil, and have enough to convert appliances to electric so that water heaters, dryers, stoves, etc.... were all clean electric. And yes, we could have enough left over to charge electric or hybrids at night.

That would leave natural gas for commercial transportation and heavy industry.

"Energy" is not running out Ray. Maybe cheap oil, but who says we are limited to oil?

i'm a dyed-in-the-wool environmentalist but i would strongly support more nuclear plants. we need a middle path, where we're neither all green or all black (oil). finding a good compromise of alternative fuels is a good way to begin finding other middle grounds on other issues.