Page 87 of 703 FirstFirst ... 3777858687888997137187587 ... LastLast
Results 1,033 to 1,044 of 8435

Thread: coolhand's Account Talk

  1. #1033

    Join Date
    Oct 2004
    Location
    Orlando, FL
    Posts
    6,793
    Blog Entries
    1229

    Default Re: coolhand's Account Talk

    The pressure just keeps building...


    Early retirement claims increase dramatically

    Instead of working longer as the economy worsens, more Americans are calling it quits before age 66. The ramifications could be profound for the retirees, families, government and social institutions.

    By Mike Dorning
    May 24, 2009

    http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...0,885521.story

    Reporting from Washington -- Instead of seeing older workers staying on the job longer as the economy has worsened, the Social Security system is reporting a major surge in early retirement claims that could have implications for the financial security of millions of baby boomers.

    Since the current federal fiscal year began Oct. 1, claims have been running 25% ahead of last year, compared with the 15% increase that had been projected as the post-World War II generation reaches eligibility for early retirement, according to Stephen C. Goss, chief actuary for the Social Security Administration.

    Many of the additional retirements are probably laid-off workers who are claiming Social Security early, despite reduced benefits, because they are under immediate financial pressure, Goss and other analysts believe.

    The numbers upend expectations that older Americans who sustained financial losses in the recession would work longer to rebuild their nest eggs. In a December poll sponsored by CareerBuilder, 60% of workers older than 60 said they planned to postpone retirement.

    Goss said it remained unclear whether the uptick in retirements would accelerate or abate in the months ahead. But another wave of older workers may opt for early retirement when they exhaust unemployment benefits late this year or early in 2010, he noted.

    The ramifications of the trend are profound for the new retirees, their families, the government and other social institutions that may be called upon to help support them.

    On top of savings ravaged by the stock market decline and the loss of home equity, many retirees now must make do with Social Security benefits reduced by as much as 25% if they retire at age 62 instead of 66.

    "When the recession ends and the economy bounces back, there may be a band of people for whom things will never be the same again. They'll still be paying the price for 10, 20, 30 years down the road," said Cristina Martin Firvida, director of economic security for AARP, the nation's largest membership organization for people 50 and older.

    For Herman Hilton, 66, of Jacksonville, Fla., a lean 6-foot-2 electrician with a bushy gray beard, the decision to lay down his pliers and screwdriver was born of frustration.

    For at least the last 10 years, as he wired new buildings, he was looking toward retiring as soon as he hit 66 and qualified for full benefits. And last fall, like millions of other older workers, Hilton put his "golden years" plan on hold when his 401(k) lost more than a third of its value.

    Then last month, his life took another unwelcome turn: Hilton's foreman pulled him aside to tell him that he was being laid off. For several weeks, Hilton collected unemployment insurance. But he soon decided to call it quits and file for Social Security.

    "I can live on what I have," Hilton said. "But it's not what I planned on. I won't have the comfort factor of as much of a safety cushion."

    That cushion is important. As Americans live longer, the elderly are increasingly at risk of outlasting their financial assets. That's a serious problem for them and their families, who are often called upon to provide assistance.

    Because benefits are reduced for people who retire early, the surge in retirements should not have any long-term effect on the solvency of the Social Security system, although it will probably add to the near-term budget deficits confronting the Obama administration, Social Security's Goss said.

    The full consequences of retirement decisions made in hard times will become apparent when people who retired early begin to exhaust their savings.

    "As they get into their 70s and 80s, it will be increasingly inadequate," said Alicia H. Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.

    The most severe effect will probably fall on the unemployed widows of workers who retire early, Munnell said. Survivors' benefits also take a deeper cut when people retire early -- reduced as much as 30% for retirement at 62. Because women tend to live longer than men, that leaves them more vulnerable to running out of money as expenses for assisted living and other costs rise in advanced old age.

    Significant numbers of workers have long chosen to retire early. In 2007, the most recent year for which statistics are available, 42% of men and 48% of women began collecting Social Security retirement benefits at age 62, the first year of eligibility.

    The current recession, the worst since the Depression, is striking when older workers are by historical standards unusually vulnerable. Though older workers in previous recessions were less likely than their younger counterparts to be laid off, that advantage has eroded in recent years, said Munnell, who analyzed more than two decades of Labor Department data on layoffs.

    Fewer workers are now protected by union contracts that require newer employees to be laid off first. And older workers now typically have less of a seniority advantage in a workforce that more frequently switches jobs.

    Once they lose their jobs, older workers have a harder time finding new ones. On average, it takes laid-off workers 55 and older nearly a month longer than their younger counterparts to find new employment, and the gulf has been growing recently, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

    Goss said it was theoretically possible that people who claimed retirement benefits during the recession would resume working once the economy improves.

    Yet experience suggests that retired workers are unlikely to return to work in large numbers, particularly not to full-time jobs that would allow them to make up their earnings losses while they were out of the workforce, said Paul N. Van de Water, a former senior policy official at the Social Security Administration and now a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington think tank.

    "It's partly a question of intent," Van de Water said. "It's partly a question of your skills not being kept up to date."

  2.  
  3. #1034

    Join Date
    Oct 2004
    Location
    Orlando, FL
    Posts
    6,793
    Blog Entries
    1229

    Default Re: coolhand's Account Talk

    (See attachment for chart)

    Today's chart illustrates how a plunge in earnings has impacted the current valuation of the stock market as measured by the price to earnings ratio (PE ratio). Generally speaking, when the PE ratio is high, stocks are considered to be expensive. When the PE ratio is low, stocks are considered to be inexpensive. From 1936 into the late 1980s, the PE ratio tended to peak in the low 20s (red line) and trough somewhere around seven (green line). The price investors were willing to pay for a dollar of earnings increased during the dot-com boom (late 1990s) and the dot-com bust (early 2000s). As a result of the current plunge in earnings and the recent 2.5 month stock market rally, the PE ratio has spiked to the low 120s – a record high.

  4.  
  5. #1035

    Join Date
    Oct 2004
    Location
    Orlando, FL
    Posts
    6,793
    Blog Entries
    1229


  6.  
  7. #1036

    Default Re: coolhand's Account Talk

    Thanks for the article coolhand.

    Interesting historical perspective. They put us at about the 1938 point of the Great Depression and use the dot-com bubble to cover the worst 5-6 years from 1929 though. They essentially are using the .com bubble as the low. In essence they are being extremely opimistic imo.

    To me it looks more like the mid 1930 to mid 1931 period.
    http://stockcharts.com/charts/histor...a19201940.html

    I don't believe the bottom is in.

    Take care

  8.  
  9. #1037

    Join Date
    Oct 2004
    Location
    Orlando, FL
    Posts
    6,793
    Blog Entries
    1229

    Default Re: coolhand's Account Talk

    Quote Originally Posted by mojo View Post
    Thanks for the article coolhand.

    Interesting historical perspective. They put us at about the 1938 point of the Great Depression and use the dot-com bubble to cover the worst 5-6 years from 1929 though. They essentially are using the .com bubble as the low. In essence they are being extremely opimistic imo.

    To me it looks more like the mid 1930 to mid 1931 period.
    http://stockcharts.com/charts/histor...a19201940.html

    I don't believe the bottom is in.

    Take care
    I agree,

    I don't necessarily agree with everything I post, but I do find other perspectives interesting. The low is not in as far as I'm concerned. Too many issues still unresolved.

  10.  
  11. #1038

    Default Re: coolhand's Account Talk

    Gang crime...... THE NEXT BIG THING

    Califoria to release low level prisoner due to buget short fall Yea))))


    Approximately 1 million gang members belonging to more than 20,000 gangs were criminally active within all 50 states and the District of Columbia as of September 2008.

    According to NDTS data, 58 percent of state and local law enforcement agencies reported that criminal gangs were active in their jurisdictions in 2008 compared with 45 percent of state and local agencies in 2004.


    Criminal gangs commit as much as 80 percent of the crime in many communities, according to law enforcement officials throughout the nation. Typical gang-related crimes include alien smuggling, armed robbery, assault, auto theft, drug trafficking, extortion, fraud, home invasions, identity theft, murder, and weapons trafficking


    Go here to see more http://www.usdoj.gov/ndic/pubs32/321...face.htm#Scope

  12.  
  13. #1039

    Join Date
    Oct 2004
    Location
    Orlando, FL
    Posts
    6,793
    Blog Entries
    1229

    Default Re: coolhand's Account Talk

    Quote Originally Posted by Pschiffdicpal View Post
    Gang crime...... THE NEXT BIG THING

    Califoria to release low level prisoner due to buget short fall Yea))))


    Approximately 1 million gang members belonging to more than 20,000 gangs were criminally active within all 50 states and the District of Columbia as of September 2008.

    According to NDTS data, 58 percent of state and local law enforcement agencies reported that criminal gangs were active in their jurisdictions in 2008 compared with 45 percent of state and local agencies in 2004.


    Criminal gangs commit as much as 80 percent of the crime in many communities, according to law enforcement officials throughout the nation. Typical gang-related crimes include alien smuggling, armed robbery, assault, auto theft, drug trafficking, extortion, fraud, home invasions, identity theft, murder, and weapons trafficking


    Go here to see more http://www.usdoj.gov/ndic/pubs32/321...face.htm#Scope
    I am so glad I left California several years ago. Over the years I received numerous briefs on gang activity by law enforcement and I remember them saying there were something like 115 known gangs in the San Diego area, 5 of which were considered hard core.

    In the Linda Vista area where I lived, we weren't too far from a Vietnamese community and the police responded many times to gun fire in that area. They had their own gang problem.

    American's finest city...looks good on TV, but until you live there...

  14.  
  15. #1040

    Default Re: coolhand's Account Talk

    The Right to keep & bear arms has never been more Required/need.

  16.  
  17. #1041

    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Greenville NC
    Posts
    517
    Blog Entries
    4

    Default Re: coolhand's Account Talk

    Quote Originally Posted by coolhand View Post
    I am so glad I left California several years ago. Over the years I received numerous briefs on gang activity by law enforcement and I remember them saying there were something like 115 known gangs in the San Diego area, 5 of which were considered hard core.

    In the Linda Vista area where I lived, we weren't too far from a Vietnamese community and the police responded many times to gun fire in that area. They had their own gang problem.

    American's finest city...looks good on TV, but until you live there...
    Home grown terrorist, don't shoot; that's taking the law into your own hands and we can't have vigilante's toting guns and shooting terrorist. Why does the law carry a gun? It's to protect them not you from the criminal. So why is it called the criminal justice system? Just as it implies justice for the criminal, it's not called the innocent justice system. We have hard working lawmen trying to do the job they were sworn to do and judges deciding what the punishment will be contrary to the law. In a civilized society like ours with progressive minds we have to house and feed the criminals and be sympathetic to the fact they were abused and came from a dysfunctional family while begging them not to rape or kill your spouse and kids pretty please, you know just how we fight our wars. We are the cause of all problems in the world foreign and domestic.

  18.  
  19. #1042

    Default Re: coolhand's Account Talk

    " The Right to keep & bear arms has never been more Required/need. "

    Maybe, but in most places we can't brandish, and we can't use deadly force to protect property, and it's questionable how bad the personal threat has to be in order to draw the firearm given the duty to retreat. The bad guys seem to have too many cards in our system.

  20.  
  21. #1043

    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Greenville NC
    Posts
    517
    Blog Entries
    4

    Default Re: coolhand's Account Talk

    I agree one hundred % coolhand.

  22.  
  23. #1044

    Join Date
    Oct 2004
    Location
    Orlando, FL
    Posts
    6,793
    Blog Entries
    1229

    Default Re: coolhand's Account Talk

    I have to laugh. The major news networks are saying that the housing market appears to be at a bottom, largely based on recent data showing existing home sales rising.

    They are saying this while the bond market appears to be in a possible crisis. If you haven't noticed, mortgage rates have turned higher in short order.

    That'll kill the sales momentum if it continues, and I suspect it will.


  24.  
Page 87 of 703 FirstFirst ... 3777858687888997137187587 ... LastLast

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  
S&P500 (C Fund) (delayed)
coolhand's Account Talk
(Stockcharts.com Real-time)
DWCPF (S Fund) (delayed)
coolhand's Account Talk
(Stockcharts.com Real-time)
EFA (I Fund) (delayed)
coolhand's Account Talk
(Stockcharts.com Real-time)
BND (F Fund) (delayed)
coolhand's Account Talk
(Stockcharts.com Real-time)

Yahoo Finance Realtime TSP Fund Tracking Index Quotes