DEATH OF THE 401K OLD AGE FINANCIAL PLANNER: With savings interest rates, at best, halved from what they were, and the chips down into the gutter, offering predictably unpredictable and consistently poor results in their up and down bipolar swings of irrational mood, we now see the untimely, sudden, death, of the so called “401K” old age retirement financial plans.
It now would take much more money to generate the same steady rate of old age income as the plans were originally based upon. Particularly when we consider what it takes to secure that level of old age income, in terms of types of investments, and their returns. How about a savings account, at a reputable, “secure”, bank ? Well, how does a percent or two on your money seem to you, in terms of your returns on investments ? The 401K is now obsolete and the savings you need, even though it is so extremely difficult to save anything at all in this topsy turvy economic environment of repeated recession, depression, crashes and unpredictability, are much much lager than they were in the old 401K days. Those days are behind us and will likely never return. Now how do the old age financial planning pundits and gurus claim that anyone can do it, even if they have the extremely elusive, steady, average, paying job ? It cannot be done is the only genuinely true answer. The scheme is dead. Most of the recommended investments lost money, rather than gaining money. The initial investment is dwindled, and in some cases very severely. The returns on investment wiped out, at best. Break even is a dream. Getting out alive isn’t even possible in the larger proportion of self invested, financial planner, sold into investment bondage and tumbling corporate shares. What now to replace the 401K, which is now on the fiscal coroner’s table, being examined, and pronounced, “dead”, as a doornail. Is there any real alternative, for self investing, to make adequate old age savings, in the current economic scenario ? None exists. There is only the mourning of the demise of the promised old age paradise of 401K. For many unattainable in the first place, but for others the dream that they struggled to reach to. The financial planners led them on down the garden path to the chalk marks around the victim. 401K was murdered. It is a corpse and the economic system’s demise is the killer. AFGHANISTAN AND NATO: Mr. Gates has not committed sufficient United States intelligence resources to Afghanistan to support a credible mission. Statistics are clear proof as to worsening results. It is a war being lost rather than won, by increased military aggression against an enemy that is more intelligent and treacherous every day the war continues. It is unwise for other nations to commit troops, unless the USA promises a great deal more in terms of state of the art intelligence resources. MUGABE’S 85th BIRTHDAY: Ah, President Mugabe, to survive so many years, under as much political pressure, necessitates an exceptional party. A leader of a relatively small nation can only survive nowadays by being a very adept clown, entertaining the USA and its nearest allies. Taken too seriously he would end perished long before, remaining unseen and unheard. So the party should have lots of clowns, as a symbolic gesture to how politics plays out on the world stage. The whole nation should celebrate these facts. Few of us are likely to survive as long, having as long and prosperous a life expectancy as Mr. Mugabe. We are not clown enough, or we are mice, compared to the one that roars in Africa. THE FASHION INDUSTRY HAS BECOME A DISPOSABLE FAD: Quality, and thus value, has deteriorated, with relatively costly and stylish garments not lasting as long as they used to last. So called "everyday wear" often is more wearable. The problem undermining the industry is excessive push for excessive conformity and uniformity of style changes. To be "in style" means to throw away and never wear again, rather than expanding the options of what can be worn to include more creativity in an expanding wardrobe of high quality creations. There are now too many things that are relegated to unwearable in terms of excessively rigid social conventions about what can and cannot be worn in a given situation. The restrictions becoming so complex that only the most boring, uninteresting, styles of garments, tend to predominant in a culture of ever increasing sameness. Fashion that stands out and is seen, is less and less prevalent in a society that is losing its freedom of speech and its freedoms of association as quickly as it is losing its freedoms of fashion. The two go hand in hand. Totalitarian nations tend to promote drab uniformity among their prisoners. When fashion becomes prison garb, as it has in many areas of life, including much of work and commerce, we can discern that human freedoms are already imperiled. When we look back at the more innovative eras we see that fashion freedom goes hand in hand with freedoms of expression, cultural freedom as such, and social freedom. Uniformity to changing fads is as bad as unchanging uniformity of prison garb. To adopt a style is less common now, in a world where the advertising is aimed at promoting the brevity of a disposable fad. The latter fact, rather than saving the industry is killing it. It is a thoughtless deterioration of traditional values. We must remember that fashion is ideally the most common art form, and one which allows individual participation to an extent that no other art form does. What we need is to return fashion to that status and function. PRIMARY EDUCATION IS FOR WHAT ? In Britain a report on the often lauded British system has panned it, giving it miserably low grades, as to every key and formative area. It is a report long overdue. The report is accurate. Primary education is deserving of more insults for the absolute stifling cur and boor that it is. It is more about killing natural curiosity and desire to learn, in a culture geared to producing rigid, uncritical, cannon fodder and disposable factory muscle, while destroying bright exceptions. As John Lennon once wrote "they beat you if you are clever and they despise a fool, a working class hero is something to be" and the beating continues to destroy genius and talent. Children typically, unless very ill, have the greatest desire to learn at the ages that they are at in the primary grades. By the time they finish primary school, most have had that beaten out of them. This is not a natural outcome. It is a result of traditional pedagogy, and dysfunctional modes of socialization, that have remained unexamined for far too long. The 20th century was unprecedented in its requirements for factory muscle and cannon fodder. We saw two massive world wars, calling up nearly every man. What might we expect from education in a world that insists on dunging itself about with enginery of war and always fighting about something ? SECRETARY CLINTON IS AN IDIOT: BBC reports: Hillary Clinton has warned North Korea relations with the US will not improve until it engages in dialogue with South Korea and ends its nuclear ambitions. Etc. Same old story, new secretary of state. Secretary Clinton has already indicated new regime same as the old regime and making the same persistent mistakes. She has once again attempted to bully what amounts to a struggling weakling on the world playground. Now the bullied victim must stand up for itself, or be even more embarassed than Clinton has already made it. This continued childish circus disguised as diplomacy serves no one, and cannot lead to any desired future. It only makes circus clowns of lesser nations trying to save face. When will we see an American Secretary of State chosen for skill in diplomacy, in terms of understanding human behavior and its manifestations as society and politics, rather than an idiot, further threatening world peace, and following the same unenlightened and unprogressive programming of the ideology bound past ? If I were President Obama I would fire Clinton on the spot for complete incompetence and lack of political comprehension. The same as the past twenty years of big bully on the global village block will not suffice in the new era that the global village is now entering. And yes, clowns are dangerous. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. 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