May 25, 2010
There is a retirement boom coming. Congress has spent all of the social security 'trust fund' and left the American worker with IOU's. For the past four decades, the government in concert with big business has successfully done away with defined pension benefits for the majority of American workers. Wages have not kept up with the cost of living as government replaced meaningful wage increases with easy credit for the past four decades. The government and business have spun a web of our economic fate with the rest of the world through derivatives. Most Americans retirement income depends on the health of 'market investing' through their 401k's and IRA's. Savings have been nothing but a losing proposition for the past two decades as interest rates have remained low. Banks do not need the savings of workers when they can get free money from the fed during every economic downturn. So here we are, the American work force with our 401K's and IRA's that have basically gone no-where in ten years. The congress, the SEC and other so-called watch dogs have let the traders run wild as they do their hit and run trades to take the money and run. How about taking a meaningful, look at what you are doing to the majority of the American public for a change. The markets need to be made long term investment markets once again and the trader mentality needs to be put back on the sidelines. If you are going to install 'circuit breakers' you must do it, and everything else, with the investing worker in mind, not the trading desks of Wall Street.
T.P. Tursick, Citizen