was it not one of W's great hopes to privatize social security and put it in the market, to give people "more choice". or was it a hope to give his friends in the investment banking firms ( like his own family)
more forced customers. wouldn't you want all your social security future in this market. social security could be made viable for the future by readjusting the tax structures on the highest incomes to that which existed prior to the first big bail out, W's plan to untax the richest that he put thru early in his first term

Yes, I would have better performance in a safe.

Those retiring in the next few years will take a hit. Others will make it back. It's a roller coaster ride and you can't just look at the lows and ignore the highs, like the obscene profits pension fund managers have made on oil speculating. Most of the two trillion lost was profit not employee contributions.

Playing the market has it's risks. The past few weeks they rolled snake eyes. If people wanted a safe bet they should of invested in Bonds.

Remember 1929? This is why the SSA was established, so that wall street and financial industry wouldn't put peoples investment retirements at risk. When all these reiterement investments accounts, 401k, Roth, etc., were pushed and forced on the workers my first thoughts were of 1929 and ending up with no retirement at all. The only reason these accounts were established was to bailout an already faltering financial industry and wall street without government intervention. This was right after government repealed the federal laws and regulations controling the financial industry. The workers became the cash cow to feed money into an already bad situation. It was all a gamble and now everyone loses. Even our once secure Social Security system has been destroyed because government took that individual retirement fund from us too. The only choices left to the people now is they are back on their own means and methods to save. No retirement accounts left and retiring is not an option anymore. And those that have retired will become the wards of the state and public ridicule as they become homeless wanderers with no money or income. Remember 1929? The only difference now is CEO's are not accountable.

Anonymous is right. People (banks, corporations, CEOs) are perfectly happy to benefit from the market, but no one wants to share in the losses. A market economy requires both the incentive for profit and the risk of loss. The people who lose are those who panic and pull their money out when the market tanks. As Warren Buffet has said “Look at market fluctuations as your friend rather than your enemy; profit from folly rather than participate in it.” When prices tumble, its a good time to buy. . .

Hey, does anyone share my view that the News Media (Newspapers, CNN, Fox News, Local News TV, Time, etc.)helps to proliferate the economic fear that we're all feeling? I was listening to CNN this morning and all I heard was dismal, discouraging and hopeless reports. Nothing positive, no silver linings, nothing. People know that the economic situation is bad, but I'm of the opinion that as soon as the people hear increasingly dismal reports, their fear, anger and feelings of hopelessness increase exponentially. Can we band together and do something about this?

This is really hard. I know my husband and I have lost a third of our 401K. But, we still have more in it than we have put into it, and we're hoping to ride this out. I just wish we could start going up now.

I'm just thankful that during this time of crisis, we have competent, wise leadership in the Whitehouse.

doh!

Some of us realize that bear markets are a normal and necessary part of investing. I saw this drop coming almost a year ago and moved my account into secure funds.

Bear markets happen about every 7 years or so, and usually last about a year. We're getting close to the bottom of this one and I'll get back in then because despite all the hand-wringing stocks are a good long-term investment, even if you have to endure short-term losses.

I'd still take a private account that at least has a chance of doing better than the 0% return I'll get out of social security. A basic FDIC insured savings account or low-return CD is better than Social Security as an investment.

People do stupid, short-term thinking things in a panic. That's why they call it panic, people don't act rationally. Unfortunately it looks like Obama will win and liberals will control the government during this panic, which means it's a golden opportunity for them to add millions more to their supporters of government dependency.

When people talk about social security being insolvent now and in the future they fail to realize that the federal government has stolen, robbed, used money from social security forever. This rotten federal government should be held accountable for every dime it has trasferred out of social security for other departments and be made to pay every red cent back with a high interest. This is what most of you don't know, but believe me it has been going on for 30 to 40 years and not one dime has been put back. Also these 401ks are a joke and need to be abolished. Another way for thieves in the financial markets to steal from the american worker. Lets stop them soon, and replace with several financial secure alternatives. I am sick of the theives at wall street and investment banks having their gruby hands on the workers money. Get in touch with your lazy, crooked state represenatives and see if we can't change this.

I work at a financial institution and see the exact same panic Dell | 8:39 a.m. mentioned. Finances can be hard to understand so I can see it scaring a lot of these people. But some are losing hundreds of guaranteed dollars by doing these hasty things. If you've got money in an IRA or IRA CD your sitting pretty. I feel bad for the 401K's but am thinking its time for me to start mine, now that the market is getting soo low it has nowhere to go but up.

One of the failures of this premise is suggesting that there is good news in the financial crisis. There might be, maybe for people wanting to buy stock and hope it goes up in a few years. To do this you need cash. I don't think it's necessarily the medias' fault. We just don't like to hear truth, or bad news anymore. Truth must be, these days, what we want to hear going in. That's why talk radio is successful. We are disengaged, sitting in the choir and if we don't like the message from the preacher we go to a different choir. We have lost a lot of our strength and resilience and willpower as a nation and society. The media is telling us stuff we don't like to hear. Maybe we need to deal with it instead of looking for the clicker in the couch cushions.

My mother has been teaching school in Utah for 31 years and is hoping to retire in the next couple years. While helping her make something on the computer for school last weekend, I asked her how her and my dad's retirement funds have done in the last fdw months. She said they have lost "thousands and thousands" of dollars. I looked over from the computer monitor to see that she was in tears. As a young person (23), retirement savings are still a pretty abstract idea to me, but I have been worrying about my parents. It's looking doubtful that she'll be able to retire anytime soon now.

We need a total house cleaning. Top to bottom, every incumbent, no matter the party affiliation should be voted out of office and sent packing.

With the stench of incompetence and corruption clinging to everyone and everything only a complete de-lousing can begin to bring about the necessary changes.

Dog catcher to president they've all got to go. We may hit a few good people but that's the breaks; being in the wrong place at the wrong time; guilt by association.

I've never been so disgusted in my entire life.

Next time you rush to judgment on what's best for the American taxpayer, colluding and compromising the Constitution, make note that your intrusions into the financial markets this time around did not work. If there is a credit crisis fueled by a housing crisis, the match that started this inferno was your stupidity in assuming that low-income individuals who could not afford your version of "affordable housing" in the first place was a valid idea. You hoodwinked this generation of Americans for a long time -- you concealed your deceit and fought off criticism from many quarters when the warning voices were sounded. It could all have been avoided, but your persistence in making the great American dream of home ownership a reality was deeply flawed. Now you are faced with a crisis in confidence and trust. Because of the rampant fraud among the banks, they are now afraid to do business with one another. Because you lied to us all along, no one is willing to believe anything you say. President Bush, your once-full bank account of political capital is now bankrupt, and nothing you can say at this late date will restore the trillions lost in the exchange.

Memo to Bush & Congress: Did you see masses of poor leaving West Valley for Alpine?

Most these loans were taken out by middle class people wishing to make a bet on real estate. Then, there were the middle class people who brought BMW's or 32 foot boats using seconds.

Why do conservatives always blame the poor while they see corporations as blameless?

All I hear is "Bush's Failed Economic Plans" from the Liberal Cooks.

Name one thing that the Dem Congress has done? ONE? Name one thing that B.O is going to do?

This economic crisis is linked to Clinton and the Dems just as much if not more than Bush.

It is a sad day in America when we put a man in power not because of his record or his "plan for America' but because people hated Bush. It is not democracy we live in (People voting for B.O. because they hate Bush is not a vote for someone). America better wake up or in four years, after B.O. and the Dems have thier "new, new deal" there won't be anything left.

My perdictions for 2012 with Obama in full retreat:

Dow: 7,532
Gas: $6.50 a gallon
Unemployment: 11%

Welcome to America under Obama.

what was the budget surplus in 2000

"START" dumping your hate and responsibility for the housing meltdown on the political fecklessness of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Finance Committee Chairman Barney Frank. Financier George Soros and mortgage investors Herb and Marion Sandler were depicted as benefiting from the subprime boom and its subsequent collapse. The Sandlers were given especially brutal treatment over their $24 billion sale of subprime mortgages to Wachovia Bank, which helped precipitate that institution's collapse. A caption underneath the couple's name indicated they were "people who should be shot."