401K/retirement fund

You can't "take" your pension and 401K out of the stock market if you are not retirement age. We are stuck with whatever the companies we work for invest in. my husband and I have some choices about where we invest our 401K but they all involve mutual funds, stocks, bonds, etc.

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Am I missing some bigger picture? I'm serious with that question.

Last night Barrack mentioned how he's against the raising of the retirement age. Hillary didn't really speak to it, but I got the impression that she also doesn't want to see that happen. Is there some reason other than AARPs very powerful lobby? I mean, in the 60's, the average life expectancy was about 70 years, now it's close to 78. Why shouldn't retirement age be raised? We are not only living longer, but we're living healthy longer. I do realize that not all will remain healthy, but for those there is disability also.

SS is in so much trouble, it just seems to me to be a no brainer that by raising the retirement age, even by just a couple of years, some of those problems can be lessened.

That's where DH is. Forced to retire because of no work (road construction). The stimulus money went to 2 cities in my state. The rest of the state got nothing towards road construction or very little.

We didn't get last year's stimulus check because we owed taxes and they put the money towards that. Now he's getting screwed out of the $250 because he wasn't retired when this happened. Never fails.

Aaaagggggg!!!! I know, I shouldn't of done it. But I just HAD to take a peek. And what I saw was almost too depressing for mere words to describe.

So, this afternoon I logged on to my 401K, just to see how the poor thing has been faring these past coupla weeks. It started hemorrhaging pretty badly a couple of months back, lost first 1/4, and then about 1/3 of its value. But oh, my GOD..... today it's down just a few dollars shy of being only HALF it's former value. A mere shadow of its former self. Now there's not even enough money left in it to buy a decent used car.

I guess now there's only one thing left to do when we reach a point in our lives when we can no longer work, and need to retire. That would involve a gun and a single bullet. Well, mabe 2 bullets. (My aim is pretty bad.....)

Iraq War Funding Imminent, Timeline Absent

The bizarre thing is that everybody knew that months ago. Of course the president was going to �win� on this issue. No Congress is going to pull funds from an army currently in harm�s way. That Pelosi and company allowed this to be framed as a partisan issue was amazingly incompetent.

Senator rips ex Exxon CEO's retirement package

By Tom Doggett Tue Apr 18, 4:53 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Amid record oil prices and soaring gasoline costs, Exxon Mobil's $400 million retirement package to its former CEO is a shameful display of greed that should be reviewed by Congress and investigated by federal regulators, Democratic Sen. Byron Dorgan (news, bio, voting record) said on Tuesday.

Dorgan said he wants Exxon Mobil officials to appear at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing to explain how the corporation justifies giving its former boss, Lee Raymond, such a huge retirement package.

He also said the

Securities and Exchange Commission should investigate the deal that appears to shortchange shareholders.

There can be no more compelling evidence that the price gouging and market manipulation which has produced record oil prices is out of control, and is working to serve the forces of individual greed and corporate gluttony at the painful expense of millions of American consumers, Dorgan said.

Dorgan's criticism of Raymond's financial package came on the same day that U.S. crude oil prices hit a record high of more than $71 a barrel at the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Higher crude oil prices are helping to push of up gasoline costs. The Energy Department reported prices jumped 10 cents over the last week to a national average of $2.78 a gallon, up 55 cents from a year ago.

President George W. Bush said on Tuesday he was concerned about the impact high gasoline prices were having on families and businesses.

Exxon earned the wrath of many lawmakers when it reported more than $36 billion in profits last year as energy prices paid by consumers soared.

Dorgan said he will push to win passage of his legislation that would impose a windfall profits tax on big oil companies and rebate that money to consumers, unless the companies used their earnings to explore for and produce more energy.

I think a sensible public policy would insist that the big oil companies either invest those windfall profits in things that will increase our own domestic energy supplies, or we should return some of that money to consumers, Dorgan said.

Using them to drop $400 million dollars in the pocket of a big oil executive is simply unacceptable, he added.

Exxon Mobil has defended Raymond's retirement package, saying it was pegged to the rise in the company's profit and market capitalization that occurred during his tenure.

In response to your urgent ''roll call'' of Americans... (and solicitation of a donation) I can assure you that I certainly am fed up with the Obama administration and congressional Democrats. But I must inform you that I am equally fed up with the Republican party as well. What�s more, I feel great sense of betrayal because I expect Democrats to act exactly as they have, but not Republicans.

TARP and other bailouts were not a good idea just because they were begun by Bush. The further bailouts, stimulus, deficit increase, nationalization of American business, universal healthcare and other travesties against capitalism are not bad ideas simply because Obama owns them. These are wrong, no matter who is in charge. Bush threw the ball, Obama knocked it over the fence. Way to go.

Only in Washington, DC does it make sense to say, ''I�ve abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system.'' What makes our free market possible is the freedom of losers to fail and winners to succeed. No one and nothing is too big to fail. It�s how we weed out bad ideas. You might remember this next time you are tempted to run a RINO for president.

The Republican party allowed Obama to be elected by fielding such a poor presidential candidate. McCain: Heck of a guy, admirable character, but not a true Republican. By the time I voted in my state Ohio primary, any other appealing Republican candidate had dropped out. In November I was forced simply to vote the NObama ticket. I did not want a candidate who would ''reach across the aisle.'' I wanted a conservative Republican candidate. Had it not been for Sarah Palin, I might as well have stayed home.

I will not be attending the Republican ''listening tour.'' Listen to this: The dismantling of the American way of life is on Republican as well as Democrat heads. I now consider myself an Independent. In 2012, if the Republican party manages to run a strong conservative candidate I will vote for that candidate. If the party persists in ''moving to the center'' and watering down its traditionally conservative principles, it will find itself in this identical situation.

I don't want to pay any more taxes on my 401K than I have to. O wants to tax it. We already pay taxes on it when we take distribution, so that's double taxation and I want no part of it. I don't have much but I sure want to keep what I have.

A lot can happen in the next 2 days and hopefully, things will go from blue to red where needed.

On a weekend when we are all preparing to celebrate our independence, some of us can get ready to kiss that very same independence goodbye.

If Bush stays true to his "base" and the Democrats are unsuccessful in what I hope will be a very aggressive filibuster (if the candidate does turn out to be someone who is unwilling to substitute the Constitution for the Bible), we will have conservatives chipping away at our independence: controlling our lives, our deaths, defining which God is "politically correct," who people with the "wrong" orientation are "allowed" to love, etc., etc., etc.

I wonder how much "independence" we will have left to celebrate on July 4, 2006.