Our financial system is crumbling this week.

[Popeye_Card]

sans caffeine

Who knew? It actually makes me dumber.

[phins]

I would love to do that had I not spent all of my life savings on hookers and blow last weekend.

This is a better investment plan than the one my coworker had. He bought a ton of Lehman stock last week thinking the government would bail them out.

Good lord, that is dumb. You don't invest based on the news.

Yep, back in '01 a friend of mine did this with Enron stock when it hit about a dollar a share. He chose....poorly.

Why didn't he look at the cash flow statements of these companies and see that the sale of stock, and interest financing were the only things keeping these companies from going into the red solely based on sales. Once the stock purchasing dries up, the financing on credit abilities become less, and the stock price plummets. Without a sufficient influx of cash coming into the operation, you see bankruptcy come next.

Why gamble with your retirement anyway? Foolish. Steady, money market investing is a sound strategy for someone in their 40's, and a more aggressive small company growth fund added in for diversification for those in their 20's is just fine.

Gambling is for Vegas, not your retirement.

[Hudler]

I am going to start dealing cocaine and hooking on the side to see how much extra cash this provides.

Dealing coke to your johns is brilliant synergy. Sound synergistic business models are the wave of the future. Maybe include a blog or porn site.

Somehow you need to work "On Demand" into the title of your services. Given, by it's very nature, the hooking business is on demand. But to this point, they haven't made good use of those buzzwords.

Also, they need to be able to send you a text to order your services.

You have to think outside the box.

[ghostrunner]

I would love to do that had I not spent all of my life savings on hookers and blow last weekend.

This is a better investment plan than the one my coworker had. He bought a ton of Lehman stock last week thinking the government would bail them out.

Good lord, that is dumb. You don't invest based on the news.

Yep, back in '01 a friend of mine did this with Enron stock when it hit about a dollar a share. He chose....poorly.

Why didn't he look at the cash flow statements of these companies and see that the sale of stock, and interest financing were the only things keeping these companies from going into the red solely based on sales. Once the stock purchasing dries up, the financing on credit abilities become less, and the stock price plummets. Without a sufficient influx of cash coming into the operation, you see bankruptcy come next.

Why gamble with your retirement anyway? Foolish. Steady, money market investing is a sound strategy for someone in their 40's, and a more aggressive small company growth fund added in for diversification for those in their 20's is just fine.

Gambling is for Vegas, not your retirement.

I feel like I just read ad copy.

[planet planet]

I am pretty disillusioned with the way events have unfolded. Although I'm glad the gov't. didn't bail out Lehman, I'm not sure Freed Roger was far off, capitalism for the poor, socialism for the rich. Fuld and similar CEOs walk away with $20+ million bonuses. These Wall Street firms sneered at gov't intervention and regulation and yet they're the first ones in line for a bailout.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

So say you are a youngster with some spare change to invest. What do you do? Jump in because the stock market is low? Stay out, it's going to get worse. Look for some other investments? Help me out here folks.

Index Funds

[Freed Roger]

I am pretty disillusioned with the way events have unfolded. Although I'm glad the gov't. didn't bail out Lehman, I'm not sure Freed Roger was far off, capitalism for the poor, socialism for the rich. Fuld and similar CEOs walk away with $20+ million bonuses. These Wall Street firms sneered at gov't intervention and regulation and yet they're the first ones in line for a bailout.

There is a good discussion on this - On Point show http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2008/ ... the-brink/

I've listened to this program before, and the interviewer, Tom Ashbrook usually plays the neutral interviewer amongst the guests. but he was fired up on the topic. The panel of economists paint a dire picture of what happened and where our economy is heading. Even the guy from the American Enterprise Institute (a rah- rah Free Markets cure everything think tank) had nothing positive to say. Though he wouldn't admit that the markets need more regulation, even he admitted they need better regulation.

They were saying things like (paraphrased, but not by much):
"the American investor had the wool pulled over our eyes".
"why did we pay all these guys millions of dollars, and they all turn out to be not so smart"
"snake oil salesmen"
"capitalism run amuck"
"markets do fail"
"consumerism doesn't cure everything"
"We Americans will pay for this with our hide"

...Some of our funny comments about bartering and beaver pelts don't sound so far off after listening.

About the only positive thing they had to say about the state of US economy, is that since its so big and we've got so many other nations money invested in US, they are married to US. One panelist kept saying, the US is still the Big Bet- which means, a) our stock market is just a glorified crap shoot. and b) so many other countries have money on our crapshoot. So they need the game to continue on. At least thats the hope.

Maybe when Bush is done in a few months his post-presidential duty can be to go around kiss French, Saudi and Chinese arse - begging for more capital investments in the US.

yeah, I know some people are going to rush to Bush defense - reminding me how he can't control such things as a cyclical economy. that's the way the cookie crumbles. Thats true to an extent... Meh

Control no, but influence yes. The president sets the tone. When he put his cronies in charge of regulating agencies and they set about deregulating and privatizing - Wall Street pays attention and decides "anything goes." Thus an era of scamming and greed disquised as Free Markets.. We saw similar results of Reagan deregulations, the Junk Bond era fueling merger mania, and the collapse of S&Ls. Just like Vegas losers, peope have short memories for this type of stuff.

[Freed Roger]

[arnie.k]

i wish you guys well.

seriously, i worry for my american friends, acquaintances and colleagues, and i count many posters on this board in that group.

[Hungary Jack]

i wish you guys well.

seriously, i worry for my american friends, acquaintances and colleagues, and i count many posters on this board in that group.

Don't worry, the fundamentals of the US economy are strong, so we'll all be fine