Where is the US economy headed?

@cicerone imposter,

Say CI. Isent the FDIC a government run agency?

1 Reply

@RABEL222,

What?

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

What?

"Say "what" again. Say "what" again! I dare you! I double-dare you, ************! Say "what" one more goddamn time!" Wink

1 Reply

@H2O MAN,

What?

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@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

The only guarantee anybody has today is the FDIC insurance banks.

Okay, let us use that as an example, ci.

Since it would be cumbersome to go back and compound each year's contribution to Social Security and find the going interest rate for every year since that year and add them all together, I assumed an average contribution of $5,000 per year over 40 years, which adds up roughly to the total amount of money I and my employers have contributed to Social Security. I also assumed an average interest rate of 5%, which I think is conservative, given the interest obtainable in the past was higher most of the time, but it is lower right now. Using an online calculator, the ending balance was $669,000.

Plugging in a slightly higher interest of 6.5%, which would not be altogether unreasonable. That would result in an ending balance of almost exactly 1 million dollars. I think 3% on Certificates of Deposit is about all you can get now, but I think rates were much higher in the late 70's and early 80's, perhaps closer to 8 or 10%, maybe more, and 5% was not uncommon just 3 or 4 years ago, I think.

My conclusion is that 1 million is not an unreasonable probability at all, but even an average of 3.8% interest yields a result of a half million dollars. Current interest on FDIC insured accounts of $500,000 would yield an income that would equal a pretty good Social Security check, and the principal would not even need to be touched.

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@okie,

okie, You assume too much! For the first thing, hindsight is 20/20. If everybody knew from all the choices they had from investments, nobody even suggested you put all your investments into one basket - bank savings accounts. Look what happened to banks during the past three years; most went belly-up, and you are one conservative who decried that move from the feds.

You always want to have your cake and eat it too! You are so damn ignorant, I'm not sure why I bother.

Can you identify for me which investment expert recommended putting all your retirement savings into bank's savings accounts 40-years ago? One.

Also, you missed this:

Quote:

Savings and loan crisis
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

The savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and 1990s (commonly referred to as the S&L crisis) was the failure of 747 savings and loan associations (S&Ls aka thrifts) in the United States. A savings and loan is a financial institution that accepts savings deposits and makes mortgage, car and other personal loans to individual members—a cooperative venture known in the United Kingdom as a Building Society. As of December 31, 1995, RTC estimated that the total US government cost for resolving the 747 failed institutions was $87.9 billion The remainder of the bailout was paid for by charges on savings and loan accounts[1]—which contributed to the large budget deficits of the early 1990s.

1 Reply

Are you too stupid to comment on this if so please hold your ignorance to yourself! I am sure that there are many among us that will try and speak in empirical facts about this and I do so encourage them to try!

I do not in any means, mean to come across in a hateful way. I just thought that if I asked it in this challenging way that I might get more responses! Some may come humbly and some may come boastfully to answer this question!

Does this person know what he is talking about?

http://www.youtube.com/user/JonathanToth#p/u/4/4RottQxxGj4

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@reasoning logic,

Except for the 9/11 references he makes lots of sense. 9/11 shouldent have been a surprise because different government agencys had the information but due to abject stupidity of these agencys they dident recognize it.

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@okie,

Quote:

I assumed an average contribution of $5,000 per year over 40 years,

That's a bit too much considering the maximum FICA contribution in 1978 was $1,071.

source

1 Reply

@parados,

parados, You're wasting your time with somebody who doesn't have a clue about reality. The average pay in 1980 was $12,513.46. Nobody was putting away $5,000/year into savings - on the "average." It remained under $20,000 until 1988, but from 1989 $21,028 to 2009 $40,712, tells us more about inflation than people's ability to sock away $5,000 into savings.

If you're trying to have an intelligent discussion about retirement savings, there are many resources out there that tells us that 43% of Americans have less then $10,000 saved. That's reality.

This is from CNNMoney:

Quote:

irement Savings
by Jim Wang
Email Print Print

CNN Money reported last week that 43% of Americans have less than $10,000 in retirement savings, which is a statistic provided by the Employee Benefit Research Institute in their Retirement Confidence Survey (2010 results). If that figure isn’t scary enough, it appears that 27% of workers have less than $1,000. Both figures are increases from 2009, when 39% had less than $10,000 and 20% had less than $1,000 a year ago.

okie talks about an imaginary world that doesn't exist.

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@reasoning logic,

Quote:

Does this person know what he is talking about?

No.

1 Reply

Since we have a growing plutocracy, we should be increasing the rates for income and estate taxes. This will help moderate or even reduce the plutocracy, as well as raise badly needed revenue to balance the budgets. Unfortunately, since Reagan, the Reps have taught the public that taxes are evil.

The Reps have ensured that our country is screwed.

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@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

okie, You assume too much! For the first thing, hindsight is 20/20. If everybody knew from all the choices they had from investments, nobody even suggested you put all your investments into one basket - bank savings accounts. Look what happened to banks during the past three years; most went belly-up, and you are one conservative who decried that move from the feds.
You always want to have your cake and eat it too! You are so damn ignorant, I'm not sure why I bother.
Can you identify for me which investment expert recommended putting all your retirement savings into bank's savings accounts 40-years ago? One.

You miss the point entirely. My point was to calculate an example to show how irresponsible and how wasteful the government has been with our money that they have forced us to pay into the system for decades. My example illustrates how much money that a small contribution can generate over a long period of years, at rates higher than the government pays you. And the fact remains that the Social Security Trust Fund has already spent the money that has been "invested" into it, so that in reality our government is not as solvent as most banks. It must rely upon its ability to borrow more and more money, as if there is a bottomless pit of money in China and other places.

Quote:

Also, you missed this:

Quote:
Savings and loan crisis
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
The savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and 1990s (commonly referred to as the S&L crisis) was the failure of 747 savings and loan associations (S&Ls aka thrifts) in the United States. A savings and loan is a financial institution that accepts savings deposits and makes mortgage, car and other personal loans to individual members—a cooperative venture known in the United Kingdom as a Building Society. As of December 31, 1995, RTC estimated that the total US government cost for resolving the 747 failed institutions was $87.9 billion The remainder of the bailout was paid for by charges on savings and loan accounts[1]—which contributed to the large budget deficits of the early 1990s.

I won't argue with that, ci. There is essentially no such thing as a sure and safe haven for American's retirement funds.

Looking back, I think the government would have been far better off to offer a much scaled down program that would have taken less money out of the economy, but could have still provided a basic safety net to the very poor. This possibly could have been done without forcing everyone to contribute as much into a system that grew way past its ability to sustain itself.

This is a side issue, but one of the things that should have been done from Day 1, was to take the entire 15% from the employee's paycheck, rather than trying to deceive us by collecting half of it from the employer and pretending that the employer is paying it without costing anybody anything. Such tactics are typical of the government, as they want to portray everything as something for nothing, so I don't know why I even bring it up. If the employer did not pay half of it to the government, they could pay the empoyee the same additional amount of money, and probably more because they spend less to do the bookeeping of the program. The result of the government's deceit is to increase the cost of managing the system, both for the employer and the government. This is only one example in one program of the mismanagement of the federal government that is so typical.

1 Reply

@okie,

Your so-called example doesn't exist in the real world; only in your imagination. So, you bragged about having a million bucks by investing $5,000/year into a savings account. That's total ignorance from ignoring facts. $5,000 from a $13,000 income shows you were able to save 38% of your income. Where did this come from? It's plain stupid!

2 Replies

@cicerone imposter,

It was only an illustration, ci, to show how much potential money the government has mismanaged. Of course the $5,000 was only an average. It might have been less some years, but much more in other years. Also, I obviously used a very conservative interest rate of 5%. I believe it exceeded 10% at various times in the late 70s or early 80s. It was certainly more than 5% for the majority of the past 40 years, I think.

Look, I agree that if some people were not forced to save money, they would have none, but is it logical to force an inefficient program onto everyone? In other words, is it logical for the government to force every citizen to make the same decision in regard to every financial decision, as directed by the federal government? If we want to actually live in a free country, the answer is of course "NO." My question is, why should retirement funds be any different? Why shouldn't we at least have some kind of hybrid system rather than one size fits all, which has turned out to be highly wasteful, inefficient, and headed for bankruptcy?

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

Your so-called example doesn't exist in the real world; only in your imagination. So, you bragged about having a million bucks by investing $5,000/year into a savings account. That's total ignorance from ignoring facts. $5,000 from a $13,000 income shows you were able to save 38% of your income. Where did this come from? It's plain stupid!

One other point, when I got out of college, my first professional job paid $9,000 per year, and it was considered very good pay by the way. My housing rent was only $65 per month where I started work, and I lived well on almost nothing. I bought a new car for less than $3,000 and it was paid off in less than 6 months.

So yes, I might have been able to save close to $5,000 in that year, although it was probably less than that. But the interest rates were higher as well. If you don't have a defeatist attitude as you do, much more is possible.

Another point, the first house my wife and I bought soon after we married, it only cost us $17,500.

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@okie,

We're not interested in your life experiences; you have learned nothing from it.

That the school you attended have failed to provide you with the necessary tools to live in the real world, they have failed you and the school.

The average joe is who we are talking about in "this" country. This average joe didn't even save $20,000 from his life's work. The average joe in this country owes more debt than what they have in savings. Live with this fact if you can.

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@okie,

Quote:

It was only an illustration, ci, to show how much potential money the government has mismanaged. Of course the $5,000 was only an average. It might have been less some years, but much more in other years. Also, I obviously used a very conservative interest rate of 5%. I believe it exceeded 10% at various times in the late 70s or early 80s. It was certainly more than 5% for the majority of the past 40 years, I think.

A conservative interest rate doesn't matter if you overstate the money invested early on by more than double. You are essentially using 15% interest by overstating early investments. It shows a complete failure to understand how compound interest works.

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@parados,

Yes I do have to agree with you! He is able to speak about some things that appear to be facts but he does not seem to acknowledge that there are many different reasons why people do what they do!
I do have to admit that he does bring up some very good points that I think should be consider! He does speak of some truths but does not completely understand what he is observing .
but then again maybe I just misunderstand some of his points.

1 Reply

Average growth rate of 5%? Seriously?

Cycloptichorn

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Where is the US economy headed?

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