ddeclue (1000+ posts) Wed Oct-07-09 02:44 PM
Original message
Someone needs to get 'd clue'.
I was called by a stock broker today - felt like I was trying to brush off an unwelcome advance from a suitor - it really felt icky like that...
God, they hate capitalism so much don't they?
I was referred to this stock broker as being a potential customer (I will not use the word "investor" to describe what he wanted me to be!) by a mutual friend.
Yes, all semantics to the DUmmie.
Doubt the broker gave a shit.
What I really wanted to tell this broker but didn't because I didn't want to hurt his feelings or hurt my friend's feelings was that I just don't have any faith at all in the fundamental integrity of the stock market or retirement investing in general.
:rotf:Hurt his feelings? hurt his feelings?
Trust me, I've been in this business. He would have hung up with you and you would have been the ongoing joke at the office for the rest of the day. Hurt his feelings? Not likely. Brokers have a pretty snarky sense of humor(required when it gets crazy busy) and get torn a new one by so many antsy traders who don't think a fraction of the second is quick enough for filling their orders that some nutty moonbat isn't likely to 'hurt their feelings'.
There seems to be two classes of people in the stock markets - those with inside information who are members of the elite who know people on corporate boards or who are people on corporate boards - and the rest of us who I believe are just better off taking our money to Vegas or Atlantic City, at least there you know the rules and you basically have the same information as the house.
Insider trading is illegal, even if one has inside knowledge and there are reporting requirements for anyone with or relationship to anyone who owns 10% in a company.
These elites seem to be playing the game of "heads they win - tails I lose" and like the computer "WOPR" in the 1983 movie "War Games" the only winning move for me seems to be not to play
The only stock I've ever owned was with my employer Kroger back in the 1980's through their ESOP program and then with my bank when it got bought, one of my accounts got converted to bank stock. The end result is that I've never made a dime in the markets and the bank stock (Wachovia) ended up losing 90%+ of its value last year, maybe its part of the way back now but it may take many years before it is ever back to where it was.
Ahh, so you are an idiot who knows nothing about this, but thinks your opinion means anything at all? Gotcha. Perhaps if you had thought of actually learning a little something about the companies you were invested in, you could have moved some of that cash around and made more prudent investments when the shit was looking to hit the fan, bud. Probably still would have lost, but 90%? You can't blame the market if you choose to just sit on your hands and watch.
I feel like the markets have become far too complicated for ordinary mortals to understand (and I say this an engineer and a programmer who makes his living understanding highly complex systems) and the investment instruments have become far too disconnected from the actual main street economy of making and buying and selling of things.
This tells us just what a total moron you are on the topic. You 'feel'? I guess so since you've already acknowledged you don't know a damn thing about this topic on any intellectual level.
The proliferation of discount, do it yourself brokers actually speaks otherwise to what you are saying also. The funny thing is you stand in contradiction to a Chuck Schwab who thought people were bright and motivated enough to manage their own finances when he grew his discount brokerage back in the 70's. BTW, he actually was a broker...licensed and everything and he didn't find this unbelievably complicated for the average individual with access to the right tools. I'm sure the 'elite' as you've said would love for us to be back at being rubes in regards to investing where their word is gospel in the markets.
For the last 15 years I've see speculative bubble after bubble inflate and then burst - there were technology companies that didn't deliver on fictional products, energy commodity markets that manipulated energy prices on fake unregulated energy markets, real estate prices that were inflated through artificial investment instruments designed to disconnect the risk of loaning money from the reward so that loans could be made to questionable borrowers to keep that market rising in spite of the fact that no one was making any more money than before so the aggregate demand should have remained flat.
Many companies lost on that too, brother. Arthur Anderson, Enron, Worldcom and people were prosecuted. BTW, how many government agencies had their hand in the housing market and encouraged that folly? Just wonderin'. Is there a lot of manipulation? There can be, but where DUmmies like this falter is they don't get their own government has a big hand in that manipulation and then they can make the rules to cover their own asses and many times, unlike a Ken Lay, the congressmen involved are out of touch of prosecution. I think he's barking up the wrong tree.
Now that the market has crashed it seems that the bubble is once again being re-inflated partially as the result of a government bail out of investment houses that were "too big to fail". Yet none of that investment money seems to be making its way into the actual world of MAKING THINGS and selling them to consumers.
I'll agree about the bailout monies. Like how they've taken a quote originally applied to GM and now extended it to the financial industry. Liberal manipulation of words and ideas at work again. And yes, a large part of many of the companies in question(financial or automotive) may have been an untouchable attitude. Had they broken off some portions of the company, pieces of it may have been spared. The good in all this, is you'll be hard pressed for a long while to find companies taken that for granted again. If you don't think the Proctor Gambles and GE's of the world didn't do a collective pause, then you ar efooling yourself. Companies are keen at adapting to survive and will learn from the mistakes of others if the gov. can keep their greedy little paws out of it and no nothing like this guy can stop from spazzing out.
The fact that the NYSE is flirting again with 10K only makes me wonder how close we are to the re-bursting of this re-inflated bubble of speculative hot air.
They bitch if its low and they bitch if its high.
We are also seeing people speculating in currency and gold and oil most recently as the dollar is diving, gold is going ballistic and oil is rising again - all without any apparent connection to actual consumption of gold or oil by consumers or industry. In fact one would think that with all those consumers out there selling their jewelry for cash that the supply of gold would be rising faster than the demand for it and the price of gold should be falling.
I never dealt in commodities, but I do agree to some extent about the way people freak out and create bubbles. The thing that this dummies doesn't get is people are seeking to protect their money in actual tangible assets right now. It may be the physical nature of the goods and their desirability above paper when all else fails that make them attractive in bum times. This little 'bubble' though is a huge reflection on the fella sitting in office...just sayin'. People feel unstable and unsure. I don't blame them.
Basically, I feel like the very fundamentals of our economy are now officially and formally based on bullshit and I don't know the rules and I don't have the information necessary to make an informed decision in the markets. I would be just taking what little money I do have after paying the bills and giving it to someone else in that market who DOES get the inside info that I don't get.
Idiot
I know I'm supposed to be saving for retirement and I know I'm supposed to be buying a house (I'm 43 years old) but I just can't bring myself to do it. If I do anything it will be to buy a house if I can ever get ahead enough but even that seems unreasonable if I have to save up 20% down payment and average houses are still going for $175k after their slump.
ie I'm bitching about the bubble that was created, but I want it created again so I don't have to come up with 35k down. Do they even think?
I don't know, even if I had the money to invest in a house whether that would be wise given that there is still a very stong possibility of the housing market collapsing further - if I bought now and it collapsed another 25% in prices I'd be screwed.
Doubtful! But even if it did, how are you screwed unless you are planning on selling it again in short order? I'm assuming this guy intends to make a long term investment. I'd be more worried about insurance premiums in Orlando then the market falling further.
I just wish I could trust these guys, I wish I could have told this guy I trusted him or his profession but I just couldn't do it so I had to tell him I wasn't interested.
Sounds more like you can't trust yourself, brother.
That makes me feel sad about my future and makes me feel kind of icky about our economy even though I finally have a relatively good job now after about 7 months unemployment in the last 2 years.
Aaaah, we get to the real reason you are and should be hesitant to buy a house. BTW, a 43 year old man saying icky is well icky.
How and when can we get our economy back to the fundamentals of actually making widgets here in America and selling them so that when I decide to buy stock in a company I actually can know about and trust in how they actually make money and add something positive to the universe?
Your thinking is outdated. The US is heavily service based anymore and there are a lot of services and things which sell that are intangable. Your thinking, as I said, is outdated given the current economy.
There needs to be a serious re-regulation of the stock markets and commodity markets.
Now I can tell this guy doesn't have a clue. 'Re-regulation'
So he's operating under the assumption they are not regulated now?
SEC, Series 7, 63, etc licenses, Know your customer rules, margin requirements, red herring requirments, trade settlement dates, bonding, etc?
People who buy stocks and commodities need to be forced to hold their positions for at least 180 days (two business quarters) before being allowed to sell. This will put an end to a lot of the predatory speculation in commodities like gasoline that artificially create $4.00/gallon price bubbles that hurt the 99% of us not invested in gasoline futures.
There already is a requirement similar to this idiot. But it's not based on their position, but when they get their license. I'm sure it has changed to some extent since when I was licensed, but there was a 'hold' period. IDIOT!
All publicly traded companies need to be independently audited by the government and that report should be the only allowed prospectus for investing in these companies.
Sarbanes-Oxley, idiot! Not to mention there are 10K's(that's an annual report) with notes up the kazoo that are REQUIRED. These are available at the Securities and Exchange Commission website. You are making suggestions when you don't even know the current regulatory requirments.
The government needs to get serious about prosecuting insider trading.
Martha Stewart.
Finally, publicly traded companies should be forced to provide not just health care but secure pensions not invested in the market as in the old days - this should be treated as a legitimate cost of doing business because requiring people to speculate and gamble in the markets for their retirement futures in the absence of adequate and accurate and equal information for all involved simply is an excuse to steal ordinary people's pensions and give them to the insider elites so they can buy 100 foot yachts with helicopters instead of 50 foot yachts with dingys.
yeah, those fixed expenses worked out so well for GM didn't they?
I think you'd also be hard pressed not to find a company large enough to be publicly traded that doesn't provide some manner of healthcare to their employees. It is considered part of compensation to attract good employees. And he's speaking of 401ks? How about you leave that option up to the employees, asshole? As for the absence of information, I challenge your dumb ass to go to the SEC website or bloomberg.com or yahoo financials or........etc etc etc.
