PBS Drops Another Bombshell: #WallStreet Is Gobbling Up Two-Thirds of Your 401(k)

[JDPriestly]

34. I agree that rental properties are not an alternative.

But had we encouraged people to pay off their mortgages in their 50s rather than move up or put money into 401(K)s, the financial crisis would be a lot less difficult for people. It's one thing to be out of work and have to pay rent. Quite another to own your house and lose your job when you are in your 50s.

I do not believe in the "recovery" of the stock market. I think it is not for real.

Look at Main Street. The jobless figures and even more so the real jobless figures that you don't see because people don't report that they are looking for work indicate that business profits cannot last.

Investing overseas is OK if you are young and invest in different things early on. But that was not an option when I was young. And any overseas investment, especially in the third world, should be made with great caution. Many of those countries do not have a legal system that respects private property in the way ours does. And some countries can simply nationalize industries in various ways not necessarily directly if they want to.

I stand by the fact that Wall Street is manipulating stock values. ETFs are safer than some other things. But still when you think about Main Street you wonder how businesses can claim profits when no one has money to buy things.

The defense industries, of course, keep going and showing profits, but they rely on tax money for income. So that choice also does not have the kind of positive outlook that warrants the current market. That's my opinion.

I did a lot of reading on the stock market crash of 1929. We have gone back to the unrealistic expectations of that era. That's my opinion.