I recall vividly in 2008 telling a co-worker not to panic because the stock market was tumbling. Since she had no plans to use her 401(k) plan for at least ten years I suggested the next couple of years presented a good buying opportunity in the plan’s stock index funds. Like so many others she instead employed a buy high, sell low strategy and moved her money to a stable value fund thereby ensuring her losses.
Those who were truly hurt by the market downturn were people who panicked, or who were older or in retirement but who were overly exposed to equity investments based on their age and work/retirement status.
All this simply means that workers need to be better informed and educated about investing for retirement.
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 
Remember, Mr. Quinn that Bush tried to privatize Social Security immediately before the great recession hit us due to his tax cuts for the rich and his deregulation of financial institutions. Had he succeeded, you and I would both still be working. Finding a financial advisor is excellent advice for nearly anyone with two nickels to run together. I have had the same lady helping me for about 20 years and last year she earned nearly 13% for me in very low risk bond funds.
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Bush is history. His proposals would not have affected the generation now collecting SS. At least he tried something to fix SS as opposed to denying the problem and saying only minor tweaks will do.
The root cause of the financial crisis was the push by government for subprime mortgages, a problem caused by Barney Frank and others who saw making home ownership “affordable” by artificially making mortgages available to those who could not afford it. Sort of like making health care “affordable” by simply subsidizing premiums. Banks and brokers took advantage of the situation to be sure, but did not cause it.
And when was lowering taxes (for everyone) a bad idea? Only in the world of more spending paid for by 5% of the population.
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This is the second time that you have said that Representative Barney Frank convinced the supposedly very intelligent senior financial executives of America to artificially make mortgages available to those who could not afford it – so one senior member of The House of Representatives persuaded America’s senior financial executives to make decisions that nearly ruined their companies? – Barney must be a pretty persuasive guy?
“You can have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, or Democracy. But you cannot have both: Justice Louis Brandeis
Think about that, Mr. Quinn!
Democracy will result in the Romneys of this nation who are now paying little or no taxes with their fortunes hidden in foreign bank accounts being forced to give their fair share to support our great nation and the “least among us”. Tell me why Romney never released his income tax returns prior to one year?
With the DOW at record highs, those huge corporations and their executives are becoming even more wealthy. They are not creating jobs and expanding their businesses. Republican “trickle down” economics is not now working and never has. Raise the minimum wage. Enrich the middle class and they will spend that money because they have no choice. That will create new government revenue and more profits for the most wealthy. How can anyone argue that? Paul Ryan’s tax reductions for the very wealthy will only help them to stash more wealth overseas and escape taxes.
Paul Ryan’s tax reductions for the very wealthy gives them no incentive to excel. Tax the very wealthy, as Clinton did, and they will be driven to expand their businesses and to earn more money. That’s how they “keep score”, as Donald Trunp has said. Those ignorant of history are forced to re-live it at their own peril.
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Frank and others including Cuomo then Secretary of Housing pressured banks, Fannie Mae, etc through regulation, or its threat into promoting and granting sub prime mortgages because they had an agenda to promote home ownership.
Sounds like you are drinking the Obama cool aid when it comes to the wealthy. I don’t have millions anywhere and I pay a great deal in taxes, but I don’t have any problem with people who have earned and accumulated great wealth. And, I have yet to hear a good or any explanation of how the Romney, Zoros or Gates of the world take from the rest of us or hamper our opportunities. The goal should be to raise up not tear down.
Dick
Richard D Quinn Editor
http://www.quinnscommentary.com
Health Insurance Illuminated http://blog.horizonblue.com/
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Do you have a problem with people who have accumulated great wealth paying little or no income taxes? Do you know and understand the distribution of wealth in this nation? Do you comprehend how big business has destroyed employee pension plans and unions during the past 30-40 years? Do you understand how big business executives have destroyed our American Dream? Do you belive that 47% of Americans are “takers rather than makers”? Do you believe that the poor, the disabled, our war veterans and our seniors are moochers who “do not take responsibility for their lives”? Tell us where you stand, Mr. Quinn!
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I think if you read this blog regularly, especially the my opinion category you will see where I stand on these things.
Frankly, I would rather see the wealthy give their money to their foundations and other charitable causes as most do than to give it to politicians to spend irresponsibly as they do. What the upper few percent pay in taxes has no affect on the rest of us. It’s just good political rhetoric.
Nobody has destroyed the American dream except Americans who live their materialistic lives with no planning or foresight. Our personal decisions in life determine our lot in life, not decisions in the board room. Look at high school graduation rates, voting rates, single parent family rates and the percentage of single women having children to illustrate a few examples. People set priorities for what is important to them and then complain years later when they figure out they made some bad choices.
Having spent fifty years managing corporate benefits and negotiating union contracts I know first hand that issue. I also know the average person pays no attention to those issues, fails to plan or maximize the opportunities they have. While I disagree with the decline in the traditional pension and we will pay a heavy price for that, the fact is most Americans never did have a pension. The other side of that coin is the overly generous pensions and other benefits for government workers that have gotten many states in trouble and done immense harm to average citizens in those states in the form of higher taxes to pay those benefits and a decline in other services.
Sadly, in today’s world, a growing number of people are takers and they are encouraged by the drumbeat of entitlement. I am still amazed when I hear of the millions of over in recent years who have gone directly from unemployment to SS disability. One day you are seeking and able to work and the next you are totally disabled?
Yes, many, perhaps the vast majority of people do not take responsibility in their lives. I recall back on 9/11 when several of my friends and neighbors were killed and the families received hundreds of thousands and in some cases millions of dollars from the government. I still ask why given the family member could have been hit by a bus on the way work leaving the family in the same tragic situation. However, the point is these people with young families had no life insurance. They took the kids to DisneyWorld, but had no life insurance. You can take that type of lack of responsibility and multiply it tens of millions of times across America.
Finally my favorite topic, seniors. Seniors are people who had 65 years or more to live their lives as they saw fit. If they were poor all their lives they will be poor as seniors. Seniors have no right simply because of their age to take disproportionally from the younger generation. They are entitled to nothing special because they are older. The young family struggles as much or more than the 70 year old couple. Seniors receive special economic treatment only because they vote and politicians respond to that influence, but they vote for the most part in their own self-interest not the best interest of the entire population (think AARP). For the record I am 69 and my wife 73.
Dick
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Mr. Quinn, I’m not saying that we seniors are entitled to anything special because we are old. I worked hard all of my working life and earned a good living which is now giving me rewarding Social Security benefits. Along the way, I sacrificed taking vacations and spending more time with my family which I now regret, but the demands on my time to earn a good living were tremendous. I worked my way up from management trainee to vice president with a multi-billion dollar company over the course of 35 + years. That company’s top management did not correctly perceive the changing times and it was liquidated when I was 59 years of age. (Shades of the Republican Party today.) The Home Depot hired me for my years of knowledge and experience in building materials and I ending my working career there. Much of the work was hard physical work that I can no longer do at age 67. I took that job to get the health insurance benefits because I could not buy health insurance anywhere due to “pre-existing conditions”. (solved by “Obamacare”) So when “Bush the dumb one” tried to privatize Social Security, he threatened my future livlihood. And, when Paul Ryan threatens Medicare, he threatens my health coverage. Yes, we seniors vote and the greatest majority vote Republican because they either don’t watch national news or they watch Faux News or they are “old white people” (like me). And, yes, we vote in our own self-interest. What voter does not do that? I think that’s called “Democracy”? Paul Ryan’s latest budget proposal proves that the GOP is the party of the rich and they don’t give a damn about seniors, veterans, the disabled or “the least among us”. The AARP is a parasitic organization that really does nothing to assist seniors. They would not sell me health insurance when I was “between opportunities” at age 59. The AARP is no more representative of senior citizens than the NRA is representative of responsible American gun owners. The Republican party recenty conducted a self-autopsy to learn why they keep losing elections. Aren’t autopsies conducted on dead things? Did you hear the speakers at CPAC? If their diatribe had not been so ignorant and full of falsehoods, it would have been tragic. Obama can fix this big mess if the House Republicans will get out of the way and support “the American Dream”.
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Well at least we agree on the AARP issue.
Keep in mind that nothing proposed by any politician regarding Social Security or Medicare impacts negatively on those collecting a benefit today or in the near future for that matter. But something has to change and the Democrats are merely pushing the issue down the road and not being upfront with people as to what it will take to keep both programs solvent. They don’t even seem to read or heed the Trustee reports for both programs and the Trustees are Cabinet members to boot.
The Republican reliance on market competition is also bogus.
The fact is that to solve our problems will take the middle class to carry much of the burden because that is where the money is. Even the CBO makes that point.
I see Obama as the most dangerous president we have had in centuries because he is not a leader, he is divisive, he delights in setting up scapegoats that appeal to the masses, and most of all his life experience and resulting ideology is simply inconsistent with the long term interests of the American people. Creating a population more and more dependent on government in large and small ways (think cell phones) is the road to mediocrity. Just look around the world for examples. Isolating the US from the world scene may be appealing, but it is outright dangerous. Who will lead in the world if not the US? China, Russia, India? It’s a lousy, dirty job, and sometimes dangerous job, but one only a fool would abdicate.
Dick
Richard D Quinn Editor
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This “divisive” president certainly united blacks, latinos, asian americans, women and young people to get re-elected.
“Who will lead in the world if not the US? China, Russia, India? It’s a lousy, dirty job, and sometimes dangerous job, but one only a fool would abdicate.”
Here’s what Rand Paul proposed:
Senate Republicans are using the debate around the Fiscal Year 2014 budget to push as many of their far-right ideas as possible, including now a move to have the United States completely withdraw from the United Nations.
An amendment was filed by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) for just such a purpose, purporting to delete all spending related to the United Nations from the FY14 budget.
Specifically, the amendment calls for a reduction of $7,691,822,000 in spending 2014 and 2023. That slash goes beyond even the most draconian of cuts proposed by House Republicans since they reclaimed a majority in 2010.
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I surely don’t agree with Rand Paul and many of his views.
And look at that list of people who voted for Obama and then look at the list of promises Obama made and keeps making. He panders to groups who see more government to their benefit and who are most susceptible to rhetoric pitting one group against another and blaming others.
Sadly, what he promises does not in the long run benefit those he seeks to help. If they did, poverty would have been wiped out a long time ago. Remember the war on poverty in the 1960s? There are a limitless number of programs now directed at children, the poor, disabled, elderly, etc. and yet we clamor for more because … well apparently because what we have been doing for sixty years has not worked. Why does Newark, NJ have a 30% high school graduation rate? Why has public housing been closed or torn down because they became uninhabitable and dangerous? Why is the town where I grew up once the richest in the U.S. now the drug center of my state?
Should our goal be to assure what we have in place is working before creating more and more of the same?
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I guess then that you agree with people like Romney and Ryan when they say that all people who are not wealthy are lazy moochers because they didn’t follow “the American Dream” (disregarding the fact that both Romney and Ryan were wealthy at birth). Would you also agree that a young girl impregnated by a rapist should be forced to deliver her baby (Pro-Lifer) and then denied any public assistance so she can watch her new born baby starve to death? “The least among us” DO exist. Illegal immigrants ARE here. How do you propose that the greatest nation on earth solve these problems? Perhaps we should deport 11 million illegal immigrants, stop feeding the poor, the sick, the disabled and our wounded veterans. Thus “purifying” our nation after the massive deportations are completed and the mass graves are covered over. Then our Aryan nation could once again thrive as the wealthy become even more wealthy. Where have I hear “Aryan nation” before? The problem, Mr. Quinn is the grossly disproportionate distribution of wealth in this nation. It did not happen because descendants of slaves, brown immigrants and the less educated are lazy and not motivated to succeed. It happened because nearly every member of Congress is a multi-millionaire and it takes millions of campaign dollars to unseat them. Our Congress is perpetuating the grossly disproportionate distribution of wealth in this nation.
Let me remind you once again: “You can have wealth concentrated in the hands of a very few, or Democracy. But you cannot have both.” Justice Louis Brandeis
That logic reality cannot be argued.
It has been written that Jesus fed the hungry and healed the sick.You and many others are vilifying President Obama for trying to do just that when there is plenty of wealth in this nation to get it done. Thanks for a great blog.
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