http://www.feralscholar.org/blog/index.php/2008/10/01/crisis-time-for-wall-streets-creatures-in-congress/#comments Wm. Terry L., RN: I’ve read all the articles about the causes of the current crash of the market but read little about solutions for the worker who has been forced to place money into 401k and 403b defined contribution plans. Unions have long opposed these plans because of the possibility of the current crash happening. It was only a matter of time before the hyper-inflated market would come crashing down with lack of regulation, short selling and just outright corruption and greed. Even the venerable Wall Street Journal admitted the defined contribution plans (401k type plans) for retirement resulted in an 11% decrease in worker savings.(http://www.thestreet.com/funds/belowradar/10016126.html) Today a Yale economist says the money invested in the market is just a “fallacy”. It isn’t “real” money, he says: “Robert Shiller, an economist at Yale, puts it bluntly: The notion that you lose a pile of money whenever the stock market tanks is a “fallacy.” He says the price of a stock has never been the same thing as money - it’s simply the “best guess” of what the stock is worth.
“It’s in people’s minds,” Shiller explains. “We’re just recording a measure of what people think the stock market is worth. What the people who are willing to trade today - who are very, very few people - are actually trading at. So we’re just extrapolating that and thinking, well, maybe that’s what everyone thinks it’s worth.” Shiller uses the example of an appraiser who values a house at $350,000, a week after saying it was worth $400,000. “In a sense, $50,000 just disappeared when he said that,” he said. “But it’s all in the mind.” (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081011/ap_on_bi_ge/where_s_the_money) I asked my wife if she felt the 403b deductions taken from her paycheck as a RN working in the public sector was real money. She seemed to think an earned wage with money taken out for retirement is real. But looking at her AIG quarterly statement yesterday showed she just lost 20% of her retirement. That was “real” money she lost. When I look at my PERA funds and think about all the years spent in public psychiatric hospitals as a RN, I think of the money taken from my paycheck for retirement as “real” money. I earned it. My wife earned her money. Wall Street corruption stole 20% of our retirement funds. Now that’s real. So, we can play all these mind games about the reasons the markets crashed but the real pain isn’t on Wall Street. The real pain is with the workers who worked 40 hours (plus overtime) and allowed their wages to be used by brokers to play Monopoly. That was real working hours spent to earn real wages that went into retirement plans dictated by employers who went to defined contribution plans so they could lessen their contributions. Professor Shiller can play all his intellectual bullshit games about the concept of playing the market but he’s useless in coming up with any “real” solution for all the workers who trusted the corrupted system to keep their retirement funds safe. I read about senior citizens living in their cars because of foreclosure in the AARP Bulletin and think of Henry Fonda playing his role in John Steinbeck’s “Grapes of Wrath”. He was playing a role but the seniors and all the others sent packing are real. And the beat goes on with the taxpayers rescuing Wall Street swindlers and not a damn thing happening to rescue workers or former workers. Where’s all the intellectual geniuses of economics who have a solution to help ease the real pain of workers? Quit your interviews and all the intellectual posturing and come up with real solutions. We don’t give a damn about deriatives and all the other manipulations to steal if there isn’t a solution that the people can get behind and demand it be implemented. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list [email protected] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
