Video:60 Minutes - Those Who Are 401(k) Screwed & Even Unemployed; Wall Street Racket

[Trader666]

You're right.... they're probably smarter than average.

Here's another one which found one in five adults in the U.S. thinks the sun revolves around the earth.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/30/science/30profile.html

Quote from Roman Candle:

Tested 450 college students, I don’t see how this can represent half the population.

 

[CaptainObvious]

Quote from Illum:

Great points about taking responsibility for one's own investments but these people trusted Wall Street for a reason. The same way if they became ill they would trust a highly rated doctor. If they got in trouble they would trust a highly rated lawyer. You do not operate on your own heart, defend yourself in court, etc. The problem here is that Wall Street professionals can not be trusted as other professional people can. People didn't know that, they do now. It was never presented to the public as gambling, it was presented as sound.

And there you have it. When people seek medical advice from a doctor, they are actually talking to a doctor. When they seek legal advice they get it from someone with a law degree. BUT, the jokers that peddle mutual funds and other retirement vehicles don't know squat about the markets, trading, or investing in general. They're fucking salesmen!! Problem is these salesmen pass themselves off as experts and people being people bought the scam hook, line, and sinker.

 

[duffman]

The big problem here seems to be that people are forced to rely upon themselves to manage their retirement funds which is beyond their grasp. So many times they don't fund enough and take too much risk. Since IRAs have basically replaced pensions this economy will show just how bad things can get when people fend for themselves. I shudder to think that Bush wanted people to be able to invest their social security money themselves.

 

[orange_trad]

I especially liked the honest-salesman-went-broke in the clip. Yeah, salesmen are well known for their honesty and character, they never push dodgy products onto customers knowingly, they always look after the customers' interest and not their own commish, etc.

I also never heard any complaints about the mutual fund scam on Wall Street or the four-o-onek scheme before the 2nd half of 2008. Where were the hard-hitting journalists back then, when this actually could have been rectified? Oh, wait a minute, noone would have given a shit back then. I see...

I am also surprised to hear that people are stunned by the stock market going down big time. Is 2001-2003 really that far away, that it is in no way the responsibility of a reasonable man to remember that stock markets can go down? Or is greed such a noble trait that people who put their money in funds are entirely without fault here? Why didn't they buy individual shares (solid companies) that they believe in? Like buy-and-hold investing was meant to be done? I tell you why they invested in mutual funds: they were too lazy to do some work themselves. The truth is, most of these dodos (especially the ones yelling 'thief!' the loudest) have spent about 5 min per year with their finances. And now that it went down, its someone else's fault.

And it is especially funny to hear people bitching, like they lost their dreams, etc. when in fact, even at this point most of them have more in the account than they ever put in. And now the big scam of mutual funds and 401(k)s is exposed. Yeah, the idea of a tax-sheltered retirement account that you can do anything with except spend it on flat-screen TVs until you retire, is truly terrible.

Don't get me wrong, I feel for the people who lost money, most people have in past months, and it always sucks to lose money, but let's get some reason back around here, please!

 

[Vinny1]

Here is a phrase stockbrokers used to say amongst themselves about their clients at one brokerage firm I worked at for 3 months back in 1995...

We take our experience and your money and turn it into your experience and our money.

 

[Big Money]

Excellent points orange trad and cutten,

Just because someone is at the top of the food chain (Paulson, etc.) doesn’t mean they know what they are talking about and should be trusted at face value with everything they say. I am sure most of us had worked in some companies prior to trading full time and remember how few bosses of any level are what I would consider competent. The bottom line is do your own due diligence. As they say, the fool is lucky to even have money in the first place and is soon parted with it.

Why people expect competent and objective advice from a salesman who benefits from them doing business, any business, and has their best interest in mind always is beyond me. Sure, some are very good but they are in the tiny minority (10% sounds like a good guess). And guess what, that 10% give or take is the same percentage who are great in their field no matter what that field is. But lets face it, most are too lazy and don’t care enough to find out how to separate the lemmings from the pros. Oh, I forgot, by not taking responsibility themselves that makes it so much easier to blame everyone else for when things go sideways.

When I still was in the working world I was asked all the time, what they should invest their retirement funds in (at a bank no less). After explaining I wasn’t a licensed financial advisor and could not technically advise them, I would tell them a little about their choices and what they meant and what I did with some of my funds and why (yes, the choices were very weak IMHO). Essentially all wouldn’t even know what an index fund is or what small cap, large cap, etc meant in the most general terms. And of course this question would come up only when it was time to make the forced yearly health care and investment decisions and would be forgotten until next year. Five minutes is not far off from what the majority spend on this topic in my limited experience.

As many people are learning, their house is not an asset. Case in point, a friend of mine who hasn’t been able to sell his house in 4 years still thinks his house is an asset. People always learn the hard way (if at all) and always will. Of course most cannot even define what an asset is or is not. My definition of an asset is something that puts money into your pocket and a liability is something that takes money from your pocket. Keep it simple stupid.

Let face it, the average person is pretty out of it. Look at all those people they interviewed in NYC who thought Palin was Obama’s running mate. That could have been repeated almost anywhere in America probably.

Good trading all

BM

 

[ByLoSellHi]

 

[Chood]

Quote from ByLoSellHi:

You're not missing anything except that the news story of the next decade will be how many seniors and retirees will be eating pet food because . . .

I disagree, but only because the putative pet foot eaters will outnumber in votes the right-tilted, anti tax spouting, Rush loving crowd whose ever increasing federal tax tabs will more than pay for the dietary needs of the majority. The right tilted rich can afford to serve as food bank for the public, and they only have themselves to blame for having to.

 

[RobtF]

.....The right tilted rich can afford to serve as food bank for the public, and they only have themselves to blame for having to

You're not advocating cannibalism are you? Well who knows?

 

[Chood]

Quote from RobtF:

.....The right tilted rich can afford to serve as food bank for the public, and they only have themselves to blame for having to

You're not advocating cannibalism are you? Well who knows?

You know, you may be right, because from what I have seen, some of these crazies love dough so much they might just offer up an actual pound of flesh if it would knock down their tax tabs a bit. But you gotta be sure it's their flesh they're offering up: they're a tricky crowd, you know. No substitutes!