Anyone else freaking out?

jcc64 wrote: about the total meltdown on Wall St? After listening to Bush's speech last night, I certainly am.
Anyone else feel resentful about the bailout, which will cost more than the Iraq War?
Where is this money going to coming from?
And don't you wish someone would come and take over all of your personal debt when you get in over your head? It must be nice to be in that world, or was, anyway....

ZandersMama replied: yup, im getting really freaked out, and i live in Canada. Everything that happens in the states ends up affecting us though, only slower. And the bailout, wow, i was shocked.

cameragirl21 replied: I think the bailout might be necessary, although I'm not an economics whiz in the least but I do wonder where all the money is coming from also. My mom, who is an economics whiz says that it's going to get worse in the last quarter of this year and first of next. She says our economy will heal, it's not like we're finished as a nation but it will probably take a few years. She also feels that as far as the economy goes, neither presidential candidate is going to be able to do much, she says it's like a virus in that you just have to let it run its course.

Crystalina replied:
I believe this.

I didn't see the speech but heard about it this morning. I'll have to look for it.

lisar replied: I didnt see anything on it. Someone post me a link so I can read up on it.

mammag replied: Oh yeah! I can't seem to stop watching Fox News and it's getting me stressed and frustrated! This is definitely something I am not with my President on!

He "warned" about it 17 times and nothing was done. Everyone just sat on it. There is a whole lot of people to blame in this thing and the taxpayers get to pay the price. I do think something needs to be done but you can't just throw a bunch of money at every problem.

Man, I get a headache every time I think about it!

Lisa, if you go to Michelle Malkin's , she has a lot of information on it and puts things in a way that makes it easy to understand with past history. Just do a search for Fannie and Freddie.

lisar replied:
Thanks I am reading up on it now.

moped replied: Yeah I will need to read up too

A&A'smommy replied: OMG I was listening to Dave Ramsy this morning on the Rick and Bubba show and if they would listen to him they wouldn't have to do this!!!

DVFlyer replied: I can't watch nighttime financial news anymore or I can't sleep.

DVFlyer replied: ............. although the DOW is up almost 250pts right now...

msoulz replied: Someone obviously really wants this bail out to go through, so much that we are being scared into "knowing" it has to be done. This wasn't a huge issue last week, now it's life or death. Call me ignorant, but I think the media and whoever is feeding them is toying with our emotions.

luvmykids replied: I'm not freaking out. After we went out of business two years ago we hit rock bottom financially and have nowhere to go but up. I don't say that in a flip way, I just don't feel like the economy in general can put us in a position much worse than where we've been living, and although it will get worse before it gets better, it will get better.....it always does.

jcc64 replied: I hate to say this, but I DO think it can get worse, Monica, ALOT worse, as in--people's entire life savings--poof--all gone. We may have time to recover, but what about people who are at or near retirement age- money markets are not insured, and money they had planned to live on could just be completely wiped out. People won't be able to borrow $$$ to send their kids to college, won't be able to borrow $$$ to pay for medical care, etc... It is bad, dh works for an investment company, it's bad and they've known it was coming for some time.
I don't pretend to know anything about economics, but trust me, this is a defining moment for us as a country. I don't think this is a case of crying wolf....it's real.

grandma replied:
I also think it's gonna get alot worse. Not to mention that it isn't fair. What about the millions of American families that lost their homes becuz of bad mortgage loans? Those are the same ppl that are gonna be paying for this bailout, who bailed them out, no one!
This isn't only gonna cost us, our grand children and great grand children will be paying for this.

luvmykids replied:
I don't doubt the seriousness of it, and of course I'm worried about people who really are at risk of losing everything (like my parents, who are semi-retired)....I don't claim to know much about economics either, and a good part of what is going on is over my head. I just don't freak about these things, mostly by choice Maybe that is easier for me than others though since we have no savings left, no stocks, etc....If we did I'm sure it would be a lot scarier.

I also think the American way of the last 10 or 20 years is probably over, the excess just won't be an option for the average person, but I don't think we're doomed to never recover. Many people do count on being able to borrow for college, medical, etc but excessive borrowing is part of the root problem here so I don't know that not being able to is such a bad thing. The worst I think is people who have been fiscally responsible are going to be "punished" as much as the people who caused this mess, and that is very sad.

my2girls replied: We had a Great Depression...lived through that as a country and recovered.
We had the 1980's when over 1001 banks failed in a 2 year time span and home prices dropped over night , massive foreclosers and bankrupties...we recovered.
Just recently we had WorldCom and Enron fail , billions wiped out also. We recovered somewhat , its only been a few years.
Now we have others going down, we too shall recover.

If you have your retirement monies in growth stock mutal funds , that are well rounded ( ie: not all in financial and real estate holding companies) and spread out, you'll take a little hit ( 10-20%) but you'll O.K. We have actually recovered all that we lost and then some ( our 401k went down 10% ).

We have 4 months worth of living expenses saved up in cash.
We have a 3 month supply of food in our food storage pantry.
We have always paid cash for our cars ( they are more then 5 years old but a least they are paid for).
We put 40% down on our house , got a fixed rate mortgage over 15 years. Yes the value is down on our home by 35% but we put a lot down and plan to be in this house for a least another 5 years , so we will recover.
We pay cash for everything now. No debt for 4 years now ( except the house, we owed some money on a credit card, got gazelle intense and paid it off in 3 months).
We live very frugal lives , live on one income in the big city ( have been for 14 years now) and make just over $55,000 before taxes!!
Oh and my dh only has one year of college under his belt ( I have 2).

I think this is a good thing. Maybe these companies will be better stewards with money. Hopefully there will be no more adjustable rate, no money down ,zero interest rate mortgages. Hopefully people will not buy furniture on credit just because they got a new house or buy a new car because their car is 2 years old now or even use a credit card to buy new clothes or toys for their kids. This is your wake up call everyone!!

If you are near retirement , well wait it out a few years. Who says you NEED to retire at 55 , 60 or even 65. My in-laws and parents are in their early 60's and late 70's and they are still working full time ( some even own their own businesses). You should have your house paid in full by retirement age and your cars paid off , so your living expenses shouldn't be too high. Health insurance could be expensive, but there are great policies out there that are moderatly priced. You should already know what your expenses will be if you are near retirement. Live as frugally as you can , retirement is not a time to party, you need that money to last 30 more years.

People have been living on credit for too long. College is a privilege NOT a right. I will not go into debt ( leverage my house or borrow from my 401k) to pay for my childrens college education. They can work to pay for it, get grants and/or schloarships to help pay for it and go to a community college or trade school to keep cost low!!
If you have planned carefully you don't need to borrow money for anything. The people that are scared probably haven't planned for something like this. They have car debt, credit card debt, no cash in saving ( or very little) , have refinaced several times on their house so they owe a lot more on it then its worth and spend, spend ,spend!!
Its in our History that the market has crashed several times, that real estate has fallen , that companies and banks have gone under by the hundreds ( and thousands) and its seems that people are suprised by this. This too shall pass and it will take several years to recover from this, but recover we shall.

grandma replied: "retirement is not a time to party." Really? What are we suppose to do just sit around and wait to die And personally, I don't want to work until I'm 70.

As nicely as you have planned for your future, that doesn't mean that all the thousands of ppl that have lost their jobs and houses are in your shoes. You gave some good advice, but it's not an across the board remedy to anything.

Kentuckychick replied:
I'm incredibly resentful... but the Iraq war has cost our country more than a trillion dollars...

I think those of us who are really going to be SOL are those of us who've just graduated college, have student loans to pay (that don't have fixed interest rates) and are just starting out with families and property ownership.

I'd been thinking of buying a house because financially I was in the position to afford to do so... now however, I don't want to be sitting on a piece of property that's going to continue to drop in value.

DVFlyer replied: I don't think anyone thinks we won't recover.... but it's too easy to say we will.

While unrealistic, I want someone to tell me where to put my money that's currently in my 401k. And not just say "diversify". Diversify where exactly. I want a fund name(s).

We are in a relatively good position, but that doesn't mean I want to watch my 401 drop with the only silver lining that I'm buying shares cheaper the lower it goes..... that's no solace when you're losing large % of your money and no one knows when the market will recover.

The last time the market crashed, I had friends and family who took their money out and put it in safer investments while the market worked itself out. They lost nothing. And none of these people are professional investors, but somehow they knew.

I tire of the "professionals" on TV and radio preaching about the "sound financial decisions" which are items right out of Investing 101. They are empty answers to fill air space and provide no real information.

Kentuckychick replied:
You're right... college is a priviledge. However, wouldn't it be awesome if it were a priviledge that everyone in America could afford?

In a way I resent what you said, and I know you didn't mean anything by it, but I am one of the individuals who had to borrow money to go to college. Along with my parents paying for some, my working a fulltime job, my having grants and scholarships and even having the last couple years of my college education fully paid for by grants and scholarships... I still came out owing quite a sum of money. It's not that easy.

My parents worked their butts off to send all three of us to private schools and then they helped us out some with college. They have some debt, but not an extreme amount and they did not spend frivilously. If nothing else, they spent too little on themselves over the years.

Frankly, when it came down to it, my parents were willing to go the extra mile for us and it's made a huge difference. And in the future, if I have the ability to help my children pay for college so that they can go the better school I'm all for it. It DOES make a difference. My younger brother graduated from Duke University and had a job within weeks in Washington, DC. My older brother and I have had much more difficulty finding jobs with our degrees from public universities and some of my friends who graduated from our local community college have had no luck at all.

It doesn't matter how carefully you plan... sometimes things cost more than you're expecting.

Kentuckychick replied:
Nm... I was thinking of something we talked about in class... the war hasn't cost that much... yet.

TheOaf66 replied: I know how you feel Kentuckychick

I borrowed to pay for school and refused help from my folks but since they made to much money I couldn't get grants and such until my final year. I worked full time to pay for my rent/car/insurance/etc so I wasn't one of the ones that went to school so mom and dad would pay for it. I worked my but off only to come out of college during the last recession that no one wanted a fresh graduate so here I am limping along in a job that has nothing to do with my education but I do what I have to because I have a family to support.

I have other family that run to their parents and especially my grandparents for money and I just can't do that. So we have some debt but we do what we can to keep above water.