Dow

[jcwit]

Umm....that's entirely unaccurate about new employees

Right you are AK.

[BrassMagnet]

What Federal Employees actually get:

~http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/much-federal-employees-pension-benefits-36261.html

This information is not totally accurate:

Federal Employees Retirement System

In effect for all federal employees hired on or after January 1, 1987, the federal employees retirement system has three parts. Under this system, federal employees pay into Social Security and are eligible to receive benefits from it. They also get access to a federal pension that is calculated based on their length of service and their highest income while serving. The federal employees retirement system also includes access to the Thrift Savings Plan, which is like a 401(k) account. The government automatically pays one percent of pay into the plan for every covered employee and will also match worker contributions.

The bold part is not totally true. They match only a small portion.


Military Pensions

The military pension system is roughly similar to the federal system. Under it, a service member gets annual payments that are calculated based on her length of service and her military pay. As of 2013, service members usually become eligible for a military pension after 20 years of service. This means that someone could enlist at 18, retire from the military at 38, and earn a pension while working somewhere else. Service members also have access to the Thrift Savings Plan for additional tax-deferred savings.

This is true as far as it goes, but military retired pay now is much less than it used to be. When I retired, it was 50% of final base pay for 20 years and 75% for 30 years. Right after I retired, it changed to 50% of the average of the final three years pay. Now it is 37.5% at 20 (final 3 average!) and then increases each year until it reaches 75% at 30 years.

[jcwit]

This information is not totally accurate:

Federal Employees Retirement System

In effect for all federal employees hired on or after January 1, 1987, the federal employees retirement system has three parts. Under this system, federal employees pay into Social Security and are eligible to receive benefits from it. They also get access to a federal pension that is calculated based on their length of service and their highest income while serving. The federal employees retirement system also includes access to the Thrift Savings Plan, which is like a 401(k) account. The government automatically pays one percent of pay into the plan for every covered employee and will also match worker contributions.

The bold part is not totally true. They match only a small portion.


Military Pensions

The military pension system is roughly similar to the federal system. Under it, a service member gets annual payments that are calculated based on her length of service and her military pay. As of 2013, service members usually become eligible for a military pension after 20 years of service. This means that someone could enlist at 18, retire from the military at 38, and earn a pension while working somewhere else. Service members also have access to the Thrift Savings Plan for additional tax-deferred savings.

This is true as far as it goes, but military retired pay now is much less than it used to be. When I retired, it was 50% of final base pay for 20 years and 75% for 30 years. Right after I retired, it changed to 50% of the average of the final three years pay. Now it is 37.5% at 20 (final 3 average!) and then increases each year until it reaches 75% at 30 years.

But it does prove my point that it is not like a 401K.

[BrassMagnet]

Originally Posted by BrassMagnet This information is not totally accurate:

Federal Employees Retirement System

In effect for all federal employees hired on or after January 1, 1987, the federal employees retirement system has three parts. Under this system, federal employees pay into Social Security and are eligible to receive benefits from it. They also get access to a federal pension that is calculated based on their length of service and their highest income while serving. The federal employees retirement system also includes access to the Thrift Savings Plan, which is like a 401(k) account. The government automatically pays one percent of pay into the plan for every covered employee and will also match worker contributions.

The bold part is not totally true. They match only a small portion.


Military Pensions

The military pension system is roughly similar to the federal system. Under it, a service member gets annual payments that are calculated based on her length of service and her military pay. As of 2013, service members usually become eligible for a military pension after 20 years of service. This means that someone could enlist at 18, retire from the military at 38, and earn a pension while working somewhere else. Service members also have access to the Thrift Savings Plan for additional tax-deferred savings.

This is true as far as it goes, but military retired pay now is much less than it used to be. When I retired, it was 50% of final base pay for 20 years and 75% for 30 years. Right after I retired, it changed to 50% of the average of the final three years pay. Now it is 37.5% at 20 (final 3 average!) and then increases each year until it reaches 75% at 30 years.

But it does prove my point that it is not like a 401K.

[quilbilly]

Do you see a reason for the drop to stop?

\
Mostly psychology, P&E, and some of the real value of some of the industries in the DOW once 11,000 is reached but the momentum of the drop may take a few days to slow so the Dow may blow through 11K a bit before the market stabilizes near a more realistic bottom

[BrassMagnet]

Originally Posted by BrassMagnet [/URL] This information is not totally accurate:

Federal Employees Retirement System
In effect for all federal employees hired on or after January 1, 1987, the federal employees retirement system has three parts. Under this system, federal employees pay into Social Security and are eligible to receive benefits from it. They also get access to a federal pension that is calculated based on their length of service and their highest income while serving. The federal employees retirement system also includes access to the Thrift Savings Plan, which is like a 401(k) account. The government automatically pays one percent of pay into the plan for every covered employee and will also match worker contributions.
The bold part is not totally true. They match only a small portion.

Military Pensions
The military pension system is roughly similar to the federal system. Under it, a service member gets annual payments that are calculated based on her length of service and her military pay. As of 2013, service members usually become eligible for a military pension after 20 years of service. This means that someone could enlist at 18, retire from the military at 38, and earn a pension while working somewhere else. Service members also have access to the Thrift Savings Plan for additional tax-deferred savings.
This is true as far as it goes, but military retired pay now is much less than it used to be. When I retired, it was 50% of final base pay for 20 years and 75% for 30 years. Right after I retired, it changed to 50% of the average of the final three years pay. Now it is 37.5% at 20 (final 3 average!) and then increases each year until it reaches 75% at 30 years.

But it does prove my point that it is not like a 401K.

Definitely!
It was written by someone that read the various plans without really understanding them. I say that because of the generalizations they include.
I fall under both, so this is also true: This means that someone could enlist at 18, retire from the military at 38, and earn a pension while working somewhere else.
Per this thread, I enlisted at 17 and I retired at 37:
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...1974&highlight=
The military having a TSP account came after my time, but I do have a TSP account.

[Plate plinker]

But it does prove my point that it is not like a 401K.

Your wrong. Tsp is set up just like a employer 401k . With matching up to 6% of the employee salary. It's a pretty good deal.


Military I have no idea we are not military. I suspect that is like the old civil service contracts.

[TXGunNut]

All this pension discussion is interesting but not useful to me. I'm trustee of an estate with $75K in mutual funds and about twice that in cash, distribution in 60-90 days. I'm talking to my investment guy Monday but I have no idea what to do. I made a pile of money in 2009 but this is different.

[Teddy (punchie)]

Gov and state employees are not worried they are guarantied there pensions they just raise taxes to make up for poor performance in the market. what about the rest of us?

Not so we are all on a sick weak ship.

[Teddy (punchie)]

Its all sad and live and learn.

Your not alone. Wish you had better luck with the plumper. $110.00 and hour is high. More like $30.00-$50.00 for call out and 50-75 hour. Labor hear for hot water tank 250-300 last time I asked. Be glad it you got what you did and not the newer ones, plumper I talk to last year said as high as 1100.00 just for tank.

My wife and I had a nice mom and pop drafting business drawing house plans that grossed over $160,000 our last year of 2006. We are common people and had some Insurance bonds and about 50,000 in savings that we were able to start up. Before the housing boom, we were making about half of that. we did not know that the market place was made artificially by the banks giving non qualified persons home loans. We knew nothing about that at all. Had we and the entire economy been given the true facts we would of been able to tuck more away.
Long story short, we believed the big bankers that things would get better so we did something that now tells us we were duped. We took our back up funds to keep our doors open as our business was the first to be hit. You don't build a home when you are broke. We kept putting our savings into our little business so that we would have it when things got better. Well after our funds were depleted and we had to declare bankruptcy, we are now living on a SS income of $1,155.00 a month. You want to see what we have been relegated to, stop by sometime.
The people that were the cause of the mess, all of them received bail out money. Our little two person business received a big ole ZERO!!!
I then fell on my back and caused a old military wound to become so bad that I was not able to walk or stand. "Just like Morton Salt, When It Rains It Pours"
I have in the past 7 years sold over 50 guns, reloading, casting equipment and everything else that someone else wanted. It's been hell and continues to be so.
I have several people who know me, ask me, How do you keep such an upbeat projection and I give that old saying, When Life gives you lemons, You Make Lemonade.
We will make it. Sometimes the things just keep knocking us down. Just this past week, our 15 year old Hot Water Heater gave up the ghost. The propane replacement was $585 at Home Depot and the plumber that came out did not want the job because we were a double wide. He gave us a price of $3300 for replacement. The second one said that he would help us out being that we were on SS and do it by the hour. Well at $110 a hour and 4 1/2 hours with an extra $55 in parts and you are at $554 .
That total is the exact amount of our entire months wages but what can we do?

[AK Caster]

In todays paper there are a couple articles about how you should stay the course, not panic, don't sell, etc as things always bounce back. The article touched how the DOW has fallen over 10% so far this year.
Then on another section of the page an article about when is it time to sell a stock? This went on to reference the 10% rule that stated anytime a stock lost 10% of its value it should be immediately sold.

If this isn't the biggest load of manure I don't know what is.

[Plate plinker]

Contridictions???? That is why solid companies that have a sound track record are the way to go especially if you don't like the stress of potentially losing it all.

[bangerjim]

Same advice I would give anyone seeking medical or legal advice from a forum for lead melters & casters:

Find and talk to a PROFESSIONAL fiduciary-class investment advisor for stock/bond/pension information!!!!!!!! ( not a simple stock broker!) That is what I do. They know what they are doing and work for YOU, not the "company". I have made tons of money by doing that. And will continue to do so.

[alamogunr]

If this isn't the biggest load of manure I don't know what is.

If you want to see both manure and contradictions, check MarketWatch.com or some other financial web site. While I don't agree with everything posted in this thread, I almost lose my lunch over some of the things that show up on those web sites.

[Plate plinker]

Very astute bangerjim!

[dtknowles]

Same advice I would give anyone seeking medical or legal advice from a forum for lead melters & casters:

Find and talk to a PROFESSIONAL fiduciary-class investment advisor for stock/bond/pension information!!!!!!!! ( not a simple stock broker!) That is what I do. They know what they are doing and work for YOU, not the "company". I have made tons of money by doing that. And will continue to do so.

Good advice, hire a professional and let him do his job. Remember, most articles, on the web or in the paper are written by journalists, their profession is writing not investing or whatever.

Tim

[Charley]

My financial adviser is my number one son, works for American funds. Knows what he is doing, and doesn't BS (or charge me!). Also knows if my wife and I go bust we move in with him, so his advice is sound.

[alamogunr]

My financial adviser is my number one son, works for American funds. Knows what he is doing, and doesn't BS (or charge me!). Also knows if my wife and I go bust we move in with him, so his advice is sound.

Better incentive than fees or bonuses.

[Tackleberry41]

The drop really wasn't a surprise. The news here seldom talks about stuff overseas, parrot the official line of things are fine. Its out there if you look, every indicator shows bad times coming. But also depends on who you talk to, some forums, they would dismiss any talk of market rigging as tin foil hat stuff. That its all just capitalism and everything will keep going up forever. Funny to see 'preppers' planning for the end of the world, but scoff at the markets going bad.

Metals have crashed due to lack of demand, gold/silver are held down artificially. Seems the only people actually buying US debt is the US fed. China has been dumping theirs quietly, and the fed is buying them up quietly. China looked to introduce a new global currency next month, then everybody finally figured out the numbers they put on the news are pure garbage. That nobody, even the Chinese have any real idea how bad it is. The world is awash in debt, and most seem to say more debt will fix it, just like it did in Greece. I though for sure some sanity would prevail in Greece, but nope, kick the can a bit.

Pretty much every country now is running the printing presses night and day trying to push their problems off on other people, export their inflation and debt. The US is printing full tilt, yet our money is still rising, not so much rising as everybody else is sinking. So everybody pours their money into dollars as the safe..er bet. It was why China finally devalued the RMB, it was being dragged up by the dollar, making their imports expensive for everybody else. So now the rest of Asia will follow suit, racing to the bottom, to keep things going just a little longer.

China is about to come unglued, they will deny it, news here just pretends its not happening. Mao taught them to fudge the numbers. Getting worse at every step to the top. So by the time the 'numbers' get to Beijing they are no where close to reality. But they are good to report in the news, Mao only wanted good news, so that's what he got, didn't matter if people were starving to death. They actually exported when they couldn't even grow enough to feed themselves. If the boss in Beijing says there will be 7% growth, imagine that, its exactly what it is. Didn't matter if foreign made cars were piling up at the docks with no buyers. But then again GM was reporting cars produced but unsold as sold and therefore profits. Why do you think they offering the loans they are to move inventory? Anything to get a car off a lot, who cares if they actually paid for it.

I do have a little insight into China as my ex is from there. Spent quite a bit of time there. They are not consumers in the sense we are. Yea they love to buy things, but only bling to impress people, gold, diamonds, expensive clothes and cars. Most don't have appliances, or collect things like we do. My ex and other Chinese think keeping money in a bank is for suckers. They are always after the next get rich scheme. The stupid stuff friends of hers did to try and make money boggled the mind. It was more gambling than investing. Here most stocks are not owned by private citizens, maybe indirectly, thru IRAs or whatever. In China, something like half the money in markets are regular people. Farmers who put every penny in the market borrowing to invest more. All fine when markets were going up, but they lost everything when they went down. Couldn't even sell as they were under threat of the govt, if nobody can sell, markets don't go down, bet the fed wishes they could do that here.

Then couple weeks ago we had that 'glitch' that shut down markets most of the day. Pretty dang convenient considering Chinese markets had crashed over night, and ours were on the edge. Suddenly we had a glitch, cancelled the orders, got things fixed just in time for close. Then next day Chinese threw a pile of money at markets, banned selling, and things went back up. Well stuff like that can't go on forever. Now foreign investors all pulling their money out of China, they finally realized they couldn't trust the numbers the govt were giving out. Most here probably don't know that the Shanghai market drop of over 4% was only that way as better than half of stocks quit trading when they hit a 10% daily limit.

Will the markets have another magic day monday and they go up? Maybe another convenient glitch? Answer will be mon morn when you can check Asian markets and see what they did. If they continue to tank, they will drag us down with them. Everybody is now pouring their cash into the $ which only compounds our problems.

http://www.reuters.com/finance/markets/asia

[BrassMagnet]

The drop really wasn't a surprise. The news here seldom talks about stuff overseas, parrot the official line of things are fine. Its out there if you look, every indicator shows bad times coming. But also depends on who you talk to, some forums, they would dismiss any talk of market rigging as tin foil hat stuff. That its all just capitalism and everything will keep going up forever. Funny to see 'preppers' planning for the end of the world, but scoff at the markets going bad.

Metals have crashed due to lack of demand, gold/silver are held down artificially. Seems the only people actually buying US debt is the US fed. China has been dumping theirs quietly, and the fed is buying them up quietly. China looked to introduce a new global currency next month, then everybody finally figured out the numbers they put on the news are pure garbage. That nobody, even the Chinese have any real idea how bad it is. The world is awash in debt, and most seem to say more debt will fix it, just like it did in Greece. I though for sure some sanity would prevail in Greece, but nope, kick the can a bit.

Pretty much every country now is running the printing presses night and day trying to push their problems off on other people, export their inflation and debt. The US is printing full tilt, yet our money is still rising, not so much rising as everybody else is sinking. So everybody pours their money into dollars as the safe..er bet. It was why China finally devalued the RMB, it was being dragged up by the dollar, making their imports expensive for everybody else. So now the rest of Asia will follow suit, racing to the bottom, to keep things going just a little longer.

China is about to come unglued, they will deny it, news here just pretends its not happening. Mao taught them to fudge the numbers. Getting worse at every step to the top. So by the time the 'numbers' get to Beijing they are no where close to reality. But they are good to report in the news, Mao only wanted good news, so that's what he got, didn't matter if people were starving to death. They actually exported when they couldn't even grow enough to feed themselves. If the boss in Beijing says there will be 7% growth, imagine that, its exactly what it is. Didn't matter if foreign made cars were piling up at the docks with no buyers. But then again GM was reporting cars produced but unsold as sold and therefore profits. Why do you think they offering the loans they are to move inventory? Anything to get a car off a lot, who cares if they actually paid for it.

I do have a little insight into China as my ex is from there. Spent quite a bit of time there. They are not consumers in the sense we are. Yea they love to buy things, but only bling to impress people, gold, diamonds, expensive clothes and cars. Most don't have appliances, or collect things like we do. My ex and other Chinese think keeping money in a bank is for suckers. They are always after the next get rich scheme. The stupid stuff friends of hers did to try and make money boggled the mind. It was more gambling than investing. Here most stocks are not owned by private citizens, maybe indirectly, thru IRAs or whatever. In China, something like half the money in markets are regular people. Farmers who put every penny in the market borrowing to invest more. All fine when markets were going up, but they lost everything when they went down. Couldn't even sell as they were under threat of the govt, if nobody can sell, markets don't go down, bet the fed wishes they could do that here.

Then couple weeks ago we had that 'glitch' that shut down markets most of the day. Pretty dang convenient considering Chinese markets had crashed over night, and ours were on the edge. Suddenly we had a glitch, cancelled the orders, got things fixed just in time for close. Then next day Chinese threw a pile of money at markets, banned selling, and things went back up. Well stuff like that can't go on forever. Now foreign investors all pulling their money out of China, they finally realized they couldn't trust the numbers the govt were giving out. Most here probably don't know that the Shanghai market drop of over 4% was only that way as better than half of stocks quit trading when they hit a 10% daily limit.

Will the markets have another magic day monday and they go up? Maybe another convenient glitch? Answer will be mon morn when you can check Asian markets and see what they did. If they continue to tank, they will drag us down with them. Everybody is now pouring their cash into the $ which only compounds our problems.

http://www.reuters.com/finance/markets/asia

Pretty interesting commentary. It covers most bases.