I have been thinking about this kind stuff for a awhile, wondering how people are making it. People are living on their credit cards. I saw this first hand as i remodel a grocery store last month. It was during the evenings and over night so it could remain open. I would go up to the cashiers station and watch people as they check out. Out 10 people 3 months ago, 7 out of 10 would pay with a card and three would pay cash. Out of the seven 4 would debit and 3 would be credit. Which is not a good practice unless you pay the card off each month, which most won't do. When i finished up a few weeks ago, it was about 8 paying with a card and 2 with cash. Of the 8, 7 was using it as credit and only one debit. You can not live and by consumable things on credit, it will come back and haunt you. Any way i saw this article thought was pretty good, people are now using their 401k to stay afloat.
The Savvy Consumer: If you take the 401(k) cash, you may live to regret it
A few thousand now can come at substantial cost to your retirement
By TERESA McUSIC tmcusic@savvyconsumer.net
Although automatic features are taking fire in retirement plans these days, many in the younger half of the work force are taking the cash from their 401(k)s and running when they switch jobs, according to a new survey by Fidelity.
Forty percent of workers age 20 to 40 cash out their 401(k)/403(c) plans when they changed jobs instead of rolling it into an IRA or their new company’s retirement plan, the survey said.
More than half said they later regretted the decision, according to the study.
Here’s why: Even just $5,000 in a retirement plan with a relatively modest growth rate of 7 percent in compounding interest will grow to $53,000 in 35 years, said Lauren Brouhard, vice president of rollover business management for Fidelity.
"Even a small contribution to a 401(k) or IRA can make a big difference in retirement," she said. "Young people think they have their whole lives to save, but if you talk to a 50- or 60-year-old, they wish they had started earlier."
Cashing out a retirement plan also has considerable upfront costs. That same $5,000 in a retirement plan will likely only net you about $3,300 once the penalty (10 percent if under age 59½) and federal taxes (if you are in the 25 percent tax bracket) are taken out in an early cash-out.
While that may still sound like a lot of money to a younger worker wanting a car or house or to pay off a student loan, the costs to their retirement savings are higher, Brouhard said.
Such practice is likely to increase as more workers enroll in 401(k) plans, said Jack VanderHei, research director at the Employee Benefits Research Institute.
More new employees, especially lower-income workers, are enrolling in their company’s retirement plans because of a relatively new automatic feature where employees actually must "opt out" of the plan to not be enrolled, VanderHei said.
"Now there’s a whole segment of the population only in these plans because their employer put them in," he said. "When they change jobs, they are much more likely to grab the money."
What’s happening
Enrollment in company retirement plans is surging two years after the Pension Protection Act removed barriers that prevented companies from automatically enrolling new employees in the plans.
A study by the Vanguard Center for Retirement Research of 50 Vanguard plans found that 86 percent of new hires enrolled in plans when it was automatic, double the number of employees who enrolled when the plans were voluntary.
More companies are adding the feature since the law was passed, and some are even expanding it to all employees, not just new hires, to be automatically enrolled, according to EBRI.
Once in, employees need to educate themselves about the plans, including knowing better options than cashing out when they need money, said Steve Blankenship, a certified financial planner with Heritage Financial Planning in Grapevine.
"Cashing out is a more common practice than it ought to be," he said. "It’s often a symptom of not having a properly funded emergency fund."
What’s recommended
Most planners recommend having four to six months worth of spending in a money-market and checking account to cover emergencies from a job loss, death or other difficult financial period. Using your retirement fund to get you through tough times should only be a last resort, Blankenship said.
Getting a loan from your retirement account may be even worse than cashing it out, however, he warned. Employees with 401(k)s can take out a loan of $50,000, or 50 percent of the amount you’ve invested, whichever is smaller, without penalty.
The loans are attractive because of their low interest rates, usually just 1 or 2 percent above prime.
"But there are hidden dangers in 401(k) loans," he said. "For example, the usual payout schedule is five years, but if you leave the company or get cash out, your loan becomes due almost immediately — within 30 to 60 days."
In addition, a borrower must still pay that 10 percent penalty if under age, along with federal taxes to the IRS, Blankenship said.
"A loan on your 401(k) has a better interest rate than most credit cards, but it’s a dangerous place to go," he said. "If you end up defaulting on a credit card, nobody’s going to take your house, but nothing can stop the IRS from getting what’s owed."
Other options
Other options to cashing out a 401(k) are keeping the plan with the former employer, rolling it into an IRA or putting it in the plan of your next employer, Brouhard said.
Rollover IRAs are easy to find through your bank, brokerage house or insurance company, Blankenship said.
"Everyone has gotten into this business," he said. "There’s no shortage of options."
Often rollover IRAs don’t even require paperwork, Brouhard said.
"It’s quite easy to initiate a transaction," she said. Most companies have toll-free numbers, and the transaction can be done over the phone with a customer-service representative, she said.
But it’s worthwhile to do some homework on the rollover fund before you commit to one company, Blankenship said.
The cost of cashing out $3,300About what’s left of $5,000 in a retirement plan after the penalty (10 percent if under age 59 1/2 ) and federal taxes (if you are in the 25 percent tax bracket) are taken out.
Young people think they have their whole lives to save, but if you talk to a 50- or 60-year-old, they wish they had started earlier."Lauren Brouhard, vice president of rollover business management for Fidelity
Found a article related to the post yesterday about Muslim and trying to change where ever they live to the laws and culture they want it can backfire
Mosques increasingly not welcome in Europe
LONDON — Europeans are increasingly lashing out at the construction of mosques in their cities as terrorism fears and continued immigration feed anti-Muslim sentiment across the continent.
The latest dispute is in Switzerland, which is planning a nationwide referendum to ban minarets on mosques. This month, Italy's interior minister vowed to close a controversial mosque in Milan.
Some analysts call the mosque conflicts the manifestation of a growing fear that Muslims aren't assimilating, don't accept Western values and pose a threat to security. "It's a visible symbol of anti-Muslim feelings in Europe," says Danièle Joly, director of the Center for Research in Ethnic Relations at the University of Warwick in England. "It's part of an Islamophobia. Europeans feel threatened."
The disputes reflect unease with the estimated 18 million Muslims who constitute the continent's second-biggest religion, living amid Western Europe's predominantly Christian population of 400 million, Joly says.
Anti-Muslim sentiment
The clashes also represent a turnaround from the 1980s and '90s, when construction of large mosques was accepted and even celebrated in many cities. "I think the tide has turned," Joly says.
Indicative of the change:
• Supporters of the Swiss referendum collected enough signatures two weeks ago to call for a constitutional ban on minarets, the towers used to call worshipers to prayer. No date has been set for the vote.
• Italy's Interior Minister Roberto Maroni announced this month that he wants to close a Milan mosque because crowds attending Friday prayers spill onto the street and irritate neighbors. In April, the city of Bologna scrapped plans for a new mosque, saying Muslim leaders failed to meet certain requirements, including making public its source of funding.
• In Austria, the southern province of Carinthia passed a law in February that effectively bans the construction of mosques by requiring them to fit within the overall look and harmony of villages and towns.
• Far-right leaders from 15 European cities met in Antwerp, Belgium, in January and called for a ban on new mosques and a halt to "the Islamization" of European cities. The group said mosques act as catalysts for taking over neighborhoods and imposing Islamic ways of life on Europeans.
"We already have more than 6,000 mosques in Europe, which are not only a place to worship but also a symbol of radicalization, some financed by extreme groups in Saudi Arabia or Iran," Filip Dewinter, leader of a Flemish separatist party in Belgium, told Radio Netherlands Worldwide at the conference.
Dewinter criticized a mosque being built in Rotterdam, Netherlands: "Its minarets are six floors high. These kinds of symbols have to stop."
Although the group in Antwerp represented minority political parties from Belgium, Austria and Germany, its cause resonates elsewhere.
Construction of a mosque in Cologne, Germany, drew protests from residents last year and sparked a political debate in Berlin over concerns that it could overshadow the city's great Gothic cathedral.
In London, plans for a "mega-mosque" for 12,000 worshipers next to the site of the 2012 Olympics drew 250,000-plus opposing signatures.
Current controversies over mosques represent an anti-Muslim attitude that initially sprang up after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States and the transit bombings in Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005, Joly says. Aggravating those views are pressures from the influx of immigrants and growing population of Muslims throughout Europe.
Other events have fueled worries that many Muslims don't accept Western values: widespread protests by Muslims after a Danish newspaper published cartoons of the prophet Mohammed in 2006, and the 2004 murder of a Dutch filmmaker, Theo van Gogh, by a Muslim extremist in retaliation for a film about abuse of Muslim women.
Restrictions could backfire
Sakib Halilovic, an imam in Zurich, says Switzerland's referendum to ban minarets "plays into the hands" of Muslim extremists by denying them a place to worship or limit what the mosque can look like.
"It will boost radical positions within the Muslim society in Switzerland," Halilovic told the Swiss Broadcasting Corp. last week.
Some moderate Muslims say those against building more mosques sometimes have legitimate concerns.
"Truthfully speaking, we don't need so many mosques," says Irfan al-Alawi, international director of the Center for Islamic Pluralism in London. "We have 1,600 mosques (in Britain) and a (Muslim) population of 1.6 million. It's become a business rather than a worship place."
Al-Alawi, who opposes the London mega-mosque, says disagreements within a mosque can cause some members to branch off and want their own new building that is unnecessary.
The mosques often don't fit in with neighborhoods or outnumber churches or other religious houses of worship, he says.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-07-16-mosques_N.htm
I don't know what some people think about or maybe it is they don't think. But the next article is about a North Carolina school superintendent, that does not understand or care about our heritage or culture here in America. I'm all for States Rights and each state should be able to run it's own State. But this person is not thinking correctly.
Dissatisfied with teaching in Spanish 85 percent of the time, a North Carolina superintendent is pushing for a proposal that includes a plan for a school where Spanish is the predominant language.Superintendent Peter Gorman pitched his proposal to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board today, with provisions to combine two of its dual-language programs and turn Collinswood Elementary into a Spanish-speaking school. Nora Carr, chief communications officer for Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District, told WND the facility will help to preserve Hispanic culture."We find that a lot of kids who go there have parents who might be English-speaking immigrants, and they might be very successful," she said. "They fear that their kids might be losing some of the culture or not getting the fluency in the language because they speak English at home."Carr said one of the top executives with AT&T is Hispanic and sends his children to the school."Obviously they are very fluent, well-educated in English, legal citizens," she said. "They're sending their kids there because they want them to have exposure to their native language."Collinswood Dual Language Academy already provides a K-5 "language immersion program." The school began with a total Spanish curriculum. According to a brochure to promote the Spanish services, "In this dual language program, kindergarteners spend 85% of the instructional day learning the curriculum in Spanish and 15% of the day learning in English."Carr said the program places equal emphasis on fluency in English and Spanish, but according to a program brochure, Collinswood teachers provide instruction in Spanish while introducing English words. Texts are provided in Spanish as well.When students reach the first grade, they spend more than half the day learning in Spanish only. Homework is allowed to be completed in either language.However, the dual language program could place even more emphasis on Spanish and stretch the curriculum into the eighth grade if Gorman's plan is approved.Collinswood enrolls more than 510 students, and the population is 53 percent Hispanic, 29 percent black and 17 percent white. The school estimates 66 percent of the student population is eligible to receive low-income free or reduced-price school lunches.With nearly 117,000 students, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District is the nation's 23rd largest public school district. It sparked public controversy last year when a student named Jose Velasquez recited the Pledge of Allegiance in English at his Garinger High School graduation, the Charlotte Observer reported. Immediately afterward, CMS organizers requested that he repeat the pledge in Spanish.Based on U.S. Census 2000 figures, the Hispanic population increased 571 percent in Mecklenburg County from 1990 to 2000. Likewise, Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools experienced a 822 percent jump in Hispanic enrollments from 1995 to 2000.According to the City of Charlotte's Mayor's Immigration Study, much of the growth is "due to the high birth rate of Hispanics and illegal immigrants in Mecklenburg County. … However, the full impact of illegal or legal immigration for the school system cannot be determined, as Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools, like schools across the country, do not ask for citizenship status when students are enrolled for the academic year."CMS claims the cost per student is $8,198. The study multiplies that number by the 13,000 students in the Limited English Proficiency program and estimates that $106 million is spent on illegal immigrants in the district. In 2006, CMS received $6 million in state funding for the LEP program."Certainly we have kids who are first-generation immigrants and are learning English, and kids who were born here and don't know English at all who come from all kinds of backgrounds and cultures," Carr said.When asked if the Spanish program will cost more than typical public schools, Carr responded, "Traditionally magnet programs cost a little bit more, though we're actually combining programs to save money, so this is actually going to be a cost savings for us. Their teachers get paid the same amount as a teacher at a regular elementary school. There may be some additional curriculum costs."While Gorman has been discussing budget cutbacks for hiring teachers, and many instructors complain that they are forced to pay for school supplies, the district's media division enjoys a budget of $3.57 million and employs 29 people. Some critics say the division is more focused on spinning the image of the district rather than keeping the public informed. CMS even has its own TV department with 36 shows.Carr said plans for the Spanish program are in preliminary stages at this point, and the board will make its final decision in the fall."It's all up for discussion; nothing is firm yet," she said. "It's simply a proposal, and there are a variety of options that we're looking at. We'll be taking those out to a series of community seven forums through August to get input from parents, the community and the general public."
I usually don't spend a lot of time at world Net Daily, because it gets me to mad, has a lot of good info there.
Here is another article from a blogger (who i'm not familar with) how you should heed, hopeful things will turn around but you need to be prepared for it if it does not. So in the future i will post some articles on common sense things that will help you over some of the bumps in the road. It is a little long, but worth the read.
A Complete And Systemic Breakdown
Posted: July 16 2008
Second largest bank failure in US history has been duly noted, with a repeat bailout like Bear Stearns, paying down debts still the better plan, PPT supplies another miracle rally for the Dow, but we fear they only delay the inevitable, Fannie and Freddie collateral now Toxic Waste, liquidity drains now wide open, watch for the downward spiral
What you are witnessing is the acceleration of a complete systemic breakdown of the US and world financial systems and economies. It is happening right before your eyes. It is in your face. The Scylla and Charibdis of real estate finance, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which are currently in possession of, or have insured, over 5 trillion dollars worth of mortgages, a good portion of which are nothing but toxic waste, have imploded and will now be nationalized in the most egregious example of moral hazard in the history of the world. As this socialism for the rich transpires, IndyMac Bank has gone up in smoke. This is the second largest bank failure in US history and the largest such failure in over 23 years. Adding insult to injury, 10% to 20% of the FDIC's insurance reserves have just gone up in smoke along with IndyMac just as the hundreds, and what may eventually turn out to be thousands, of bank failures that are anticipated get started in earnest. What does that leave for future failures if only one bank failure wipes out a fifth of the FDIC's reserves? Next up on the chopping block may be Downey, First Federal, Wachovia and Washington Mutual, which are not small fry by any means. Mattresses and freezers may soon be the savings vehicles of choice for those who can't afford a home safety vault as Depression Era mentality becomes the psychology du jour.
If you keep more than $100,000 in any bank account, or if you keep anything of value in a safe deposit box at any type of bank whatsoever, you are simply an idiot. You should use any cash you now have to pay off debt, including credit cards, car loans and mortgages. Then your cash becomes someone else's problem. Trying to keep loans open so you can pay them with inflated dollars doesn't work when your dollars get vaporized by losses suffered by profligate banks or you lose your job due to the implosion of our economy, which, by the way, is a lock. Better to take money earning one or two percent and apply them to debts bearing much higher rates. Keep your emergency cash at home. The excess should be invested in gold and silver of which you take physical possession. Swiss government bonds denominated in Swiss francs are cheap to buy and can cover your larger blocks of cash if you are sufficiently affluent.
We have told you repeatedly that the Illuminists care only about the suppression of precious metals and the viability of the bond market, which is their source of power, and the current proposed bailout of the twin titans of complete and utter financial death and destruction is the penultimate proof of our assertion. These titans of disaster will not be reformed, but instead our government plans to give them equity injections in the form of preferred stock to be "owned" by you the taxpayers through your Treasury Department and/or loans through the Fed's discount window to be supported by US treasuries as collateral. This is supposedly a temporary arrangement of 18 months, but come on, so were the Fed's various facilities for the bailout of the bankster fraudsters, which will be extended indefinitely or at least until the system implodes. The government is not fooling anyone with such foolish drivel and poppycock, as demonstrated by default swaps on US government debt, which more than doubled from 9 to 20 basis points after the announcements by Hanky Panky and Buck-Busting Ben, something which has never happened before in our entire financial history. Yields on treasuries increased even as people were fleeing the stock markets to buy those treasuries, with the Dow tumbling to as low as 10,827.71 on Tuesday before getting yet another miracle rally from the PPT. Normally, flight to treasuries drives yields down, but not this time. Hanky Panky Paulson says these supposedly temporary forms of relief have been set up in advance so he can have a bazooka instead of a squirt gun, thereby giving the market assurance against the collapse of Fannie and Freddie by heading off market panic, but the only bazooka we see is the one being pointed at the US taxpayer who will be taxed and inflated into oblivion as a result. This is nothing less than doomsday for the US middle class, the final rip-off and destruction of both their retirement plans and real estate through hyperinflation, dollar destruction, and the eventual destruction of the real estate markets when the twin titans of financial devastation finally implode and the taxpayers are left holding the bill. If they didn't think they needed this relief in earnest, it would not have been forthcoming! They are only delaying the inevitable.
Who are the winners and the losers in this scenario? It should be pretty clear that Scylla's and Charbdis's stockholders are the losers, and that eventually their stock will be diluted to mere pennies per share by gargantuan government equity injections as losses mount geometrically, basically rendering Fannie and Freddie stock either worthless or nearly so. The big winners are obviously the bondholders of Fannie and Freddie debt, who get a nice bailout like the bondholders of Bear Stearns when they should be taking huge losses for under-pricing what should have been obvious and monumental risk in an organization leveraged at anywhere from 60 to 1 to 200 to 1, which is the type of leverage normally reserved for suicidal madmen and psychopaths. And who are the bondholders? Gee, what a coincidence, as it turns out they are central banks around the world, including those in the US, China and Japan, which each own hundreds of billions in both of the twin titans of financial murder and mayhem. As we said, all the Illuminists care about is the support and viability of the bond markets. The stock markets along with 300 million US citizens can drop off into a bottomless pit and into the fires of hell for all they care.
Aren't you just brimming with excitement at the thought of becoming an unwilling "preferred" shareholder in a toxic waste, real estate Ponzi-scheme leveraged at 200 to 1?! And how will the equity injections be funded for this preferred stock purchase, and where will the collateral for the Fed loans come from? Why, they will come from "brandy new" treasuries created out of thin air by the US Treasury that will then be handed over to the Fed. In the case of the equity injections, these treasuries will be immediately monetized in order to boost Fannie's and Freddie's capital positions, leading to further and immediate aggravation of what is now already hyperinflation and further undermining the dollar. And what will happen to all the treasuries that were created out of nothing to serve as collateral for the Fed's loans to Scylla and Charibdis? These treasuries will be monetized to cover losses as they accrue, losses which will occur rapidly and geometrically as our economy and real estate markets implode. Another possibility is that these treasuries might be exchanged for toxic waste held by the various bankster fraudsters through the Fed's Term Securities Lending Facility for primary dealers and/or its Term Securities Auction Facility for investment banks and brokerage houses. Now wouldn't that be the ultimate in slime-ball financing if the Fed used Fannie's and Freddie's collateral as if these treasuries were part of the Fed's general collateral? Hey Congress, better jump on that one - and we mean pronto!
You must not allow these reprobates and sociopaths to steer our country in this direction. Fannie and Freddie, like the Wall Street bankster fraudsters, must be allowed to fail, and their various shareholders and bondholders must suffer the consequences. Otherwise, we have only been pretending to have markets that are run on capitalist principles. What Paulson and Bernanke are proposing is the next step toward an evil, corporatist, fascist system of government which consists primarily of governmental partnerships with elitist transnational conglomerates where moral hazard is the market mantra, a system which would have made Hitler and Mussolini green with envy. The Illuminati want to consolidate their power by bailing those they want to survive, and by allowing those they want to destroy to fail. The failures which they allow to happen will be absorbed by surviving elitist companies, consolidating their power into fewer and fewer entities for easier and tighter control over resources and production. The Illuminati also want a far greater grant and centralization of regulatory power in the Fed, or in any successor organization, which they might create if they decide to kill off the Fed with all the toxic waste from Fannie, Freddie and the Wall Street fraudsters. Any such replacement organization will be a super entity that makes the Fed look like a paragon of virtue, and the excuse given for its creation will be a cessation to all the corruption, turmoil and abuse of which the owners of the Fed, or of the new super entity, have themselves been the main cause. This is the Hegelian Dialectic on steroids. Create the problem and suggest the solution. And if the solution suggested is not desired by the people, stuff it down their throats anyway but whatever cunning and deceit is necessary in true Machiavellian fashion.Everyone should listen to Jimmy Roger’s latest lambasting of the US government and the Fed regarding the Fannie-Freddie bailout and the bank failures. He is the only source of truth in the fane-stream media. He is like a breath of fresh air in an arena full of nothing but hot air, and we commend him for boldly speaking the truth. How much longer he will be allowed to make such television commentaries is hard to say, but the longer the better.
Well, all this excitement has sent gold and silver to much higher levels as we predicted, and now the cartel is back to their old tricks as they clutch their chests and reach for their nitroglycerine pills. Up go gold and silver as the dollar crashes, and just like clockwork, the yen goes ballistic and oil nosedives. The liquidity drains are now wide open as the yen has been strengthened since early last Friday by 3 yen per dollar and by 3.5 yen per euro. Protective derivatives such as stock index puts, yen calls and oil shorts that we have recommended are now doing their stuff again to keep the specs from having to liquidate their metals to meet margin calls on carry trade positions. Oil has been blasted big time as the Illuminist banks have been forced to give up some of their speculative gains to hit precious metals, which is JOB ONE at the Fed and for the cartel. It would be interesting to see whether any of these banks acquired a greater short position in oil just before the takedown. Monday's sell-off is now giving the dollar some support as is cheaper oil, and the markets are rallying on Tuesday due to the two big drops in oil prices over the past two days as well as huge boosts from the PPT and "massaged" balance sheets that were better than expected for Wells Fargo. This won't last, and the dollar is headed for 67-68 after breaking 72 over the past two days. Support at 72 cannot go on in the face of 1.8% monthly PPI (21.6% annualized), 1.1% CPI (13.2% annualized), nationalizations of Fannie and Freddie and bank failures such as IndyMac, which is just the beginning. Get ready for some more wild action as the undisputed King of Currencies reigns supreme while economies implode around the world and threats of war and conflict continue to abound.
All world stock markets are now in Bear Market Territory. The FTSE 100 finally caved in, and now all major stock exchanges are off by more than 20% from their highs. This is just the beginning of woes. Like the dollar, stocks worldwide will continue their downward spirals, abbreviated by bear rallies that will be little more than dead cat bounces.
Well that is it for the week
eeyore
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