With freepers whining about people not working all their lives, why invest in the stock market?

[Deja Q]

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/16/feehery.budget.questions/index.html

I mean, if we're to be working slaves until we die, why support what appears to be a pyramid scheme?

He also bleats about public sector pay being higher than private sector pay. Could this be because corporations have been driving down wages the last few decades?

I wonder if this Feehery chap has every mewled over the economy having gone downhill...?

[ColbertWatcher]

1. How is investing in the stock market work?

I understand the whole work, make some money, invest that money.

But, how is the act of investing in and of itself work?

Why do the GOPers worship "investing" but pooh-pooh actual work.

[onethatcares]

2. basically, there are folks that

just don't understand which end of a hammer to use properly. Those are the ones that have to go to the gym everyday to get a workout. They're also the ones that can't stand to sweat or be the least uncomfortable, so they take the fruits of others labors and "invest".

[ColbertWatcher]

3. Ah.

[Deja Q]

6. Agreed.

The guy in the article would probably take products built from slave labor and invest the profits in another company that does the same. Their own 1% clique, perhaps...

[Deja Q]

5. I was mixing two separate points...

The article I linked to has some bozo saying how people should work until they die, retirement is bad, blah blah blah... I was reflecting on the current system at large, which no doubt he takes prime advantage of.

[ColbertWatcher]

15. I'm just asking.

It seems the GOP seem to want to push this idea that investing is the same as work.

[Iris]

4. Public sector pay is higher than private? Sure.

In the 90s, my husband made $21,000 working a state job that consisted of re-doing work that the state had already paid consultants more than twice as much to do.

And then there's the public school system - turning away qualified candidates in DROVES.

[Deja Q]

7. I wholly agree - what that guy is saying is the ultimate fiction.

And consultants/outsourcing (and possibly offshoring) has proven time and again there is no loyalty or care. It's just "cheaper".

[Iris]

8. and I can't see where paying twice to have the same work done is cheaper

but, hey, I don't have a degree in finance, so maybe I'm missing something!

[Deja Q]

9. LOL, true... the finance people think things like this:

1. Immediate profits mean more to the company than investment, which is a potential gamble.
2. See money now? Use it now. Don't hoard.
3. Let the government take out as little money as possible as the money is needed now; not after April 15.


Mind you, that's what I recall from 1991 in college...

#2 makes sense; our economy depends on the flow of money. Greedy thieves are what's putting it into jeopardy.

[old mark]

11. I worked in the private sector as well as for State government.

My last State job in 2007 paid as much as I was making in a "real world" job in 1980.

This is just another RW myth they need to justify their own hate and insanity.

They start these lies, then end up beliveing their own bullshit.

mark

[sarge43]

12. Under/over military and GS pay per annum

GS-15, Step 10: 127,604.00
GS-1, Step 1: 17,540.00

O-10 (Four star): 206,413.20
E-1 (Basic): 16,794.00

Considering that the Chair, JCS is running an operation that makes Disney and GM combined look like a mom and pop store, I'd say the tax payer is getting a reasonable return on the money.

[quaker bill]

10. Classic and common stupidity

You hear it over and over, but no one thinks it through. The conservative line finds a major problem with the economy to be that working people, (government employees, union employees, minimum wage workers, pensioners) get too much money, have too generous benefits, and pay too little taxes.

Now if you add it all out, the argument could be summed up as "the economy would be alot better if the workers were all a good bit poorer, had fewer benefits, did not ever retire, and the rich paid less taxes".

This is what the right wing social engineers have been attempting to do, drive down wages and benefits for the workers and increase the take of the investor class. Income disparity statistics suggest they have been fairly successful at it. However the economy, quite predictably, has suffered rather than improved. Given the poor results observed, they now suggest the right answer to be pushing their logic much harder and expanding income disparity much farther into the extremes, (lets cut benefits of the retired and wages of the employed, because "we can't afford" it).

This is economic stupidity writ large and to the extent of utter self destruction.

As economic policy, giving easy money to the investor class has done little but create asset bubbles. Since Reagan took office, we have had one asset bubble after another. The flawed concept was the notion that giving the investor class a greater share of the national wealth would cause them to build businesses and "create jobs". The flaw lies in the fact that making businesses is actually hard work that only pays off after many years of effort, if at all. Asset bubbles pay off promptly and generously with very little work (as long as you aren't the last guy in, in which case you are screwed).

A person would seem a fool to pour large sums of money into creating a business that might have a 5 percent return over several years, when they can make 20 percent in a stock deal over the next month or two. The incentive is to become "traders" as opposed to being entrepenuers. It is in fact the investor class that needs to work a good bit harder for their money. The incentives need to be switched. The incentive needs to be that if they truly want to get rich, the only rational path is to build a business that provides well paying jobs with good benefits.

On the opposite end, wages need to be a good bit higher everywhere. A CEO can only get a 300 million dollar bonus one way, by paying the workers who built the product 300 million dollars less for their work than he was able to sell their work for (profit through suppressed wages). The economy would be far better off if the CEO got a measly 30 million dollar bonus and the other 270 million went to wages and benefits of the workers, because they would spend it buying products that keep the rest of us employed.

[GoesTo11]

13. Investing in the stock market is why I'm going to have to work my whole life

401k to nowhere.

In fact, turn this article on its head.

If Goldman Sachs and AIG and hedge funds etc. are going to take all the profits out of the stock market, who would want to invest anything, and why work more than the minimum?

[KharmaTrain]

14. Diversification...

TO those who rode the stock market ponies and got wiped out...such is life. While some will call the markets a pozni scheme, I prefer to think of them as a gambling casino. Those who know the "tricks" can game the system (as we're seeing) or those who trusted others (like a Madoff) who promised pie in the sky got wiped out. They gambled for the 15-20% annual interest...and for many years, their statements were saying that's what they were earning. It was quite a rude awakening when they really learned. But then, anyone investing strictly in the markets are asking to get screwed.

The shame is the large number of people who bought into 401-ks and weren't able to invest in more secure, yet lower yielding, investments. Many of these folks were assured that these plans would provide far more money than Social Security (who many of us in the 70s and 80s were told wouldn't be around by the time we retired). The crime are those brokerage houses that played with this money with little regard to anything but making the bank or holding company more commissions and leverage. I hope and expect that we'll see some of these fund managers frog marched as the causes of the market crash and fraud are exposed.

Feehery's your usual rushpublican hack...and a poor one at that. Their contradictions about markets and taxation is loaded with pretzl logic or more specifically, voodoo. His future relies on the markets continuing to tank and to pretend the boooshie years didn't exist.

[quaker bill]

16. The political motive behind 401K

was obvious at the time and only more so today. The point was to move the risk from management under defined benefit pensions, to labor under 401K schemes. The political point being that if we all are "investors" then we will vote more like them. So much for that.

What it has done though is to tie everyone's retirement to the success of the market and financial institutions.

Of course the best thing for the rich players about 401Ks is that they are restricted to the stock and bond market, cannot be withdrawn without harsh penalties, and can only be adjusted within a limited range on occasion. To the true market predators this appears the same as a fattened and slow moving calf appears to a wolf. You got fleeced because they always intended to fleece you and penned you in with no escape.

The only fortunate thing is that they never got their hands on our social security taxes, not for a lack of trying though.

[L0oniX]

17. Maybe they are whining about the street corner people who they won't hire.

In some cities over 30% of minorities can't find work and it's mostly because the assholes who complain about those who won't work won't hire them. Even though you might have a HS sheep skin these repuke assholes won't hire you because they are bigots and racists. The only thing left for the street corner people is to sell drugs. What else are you going to do if no one will hire you? The game is fixed and they know it.