Danger! Danger!

[RANT]

In the last fifty years there have been a shift in the retirement of the workers in here in the U.S. and you should be worried.

Over the last fifty years there have been a shift from pensions to IRAs and 401(k)s where I worked back in the 80s they changed from a retirement pension to IRAs and then later on to a 401(k). Being single never traveling and not being a big spender I amassed a good retirement nest egg so I would could live in retirement without a worry.

In 2007 the company shut down and I took an early retirement, my severance and COBRA lasted in to the spring of 2008. In October under Bush W. I watched the crash of the stock market and in one week I lost a third of my life savings!

Over the Obama administration I watched my retirement savings creep back, never getting to the level where it was before the Bush stock market crash.

Now the market is crashing under another Republican, Trump.

This time I have lost about 20% of my savings so far.

The news media says don’t worry, in the long run you still do better than banks… well if you are retired there is no long term, you need your money now to live. Tens of million retirees are worrying as they watch their nest egg disappear.

My warning to all you younger generation… you are screwed!

With your college debit (when I went to college you could earn over the summer and part-time job enough to pay for college), with no pensions, with no long term employment possibilities (I worked for 28 years with the same company), and with flat pay raises you are going to be hurting in your retirement.

Stocks plunge for second session in a row after arrest of Huawei exec reignites trade worries
Market Watch
By Sue Chang and Chris Matthews
Published: Dec 6, 2018

U.S. stocks sank Thursday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average shedding more than a 1,000 points in two consecutive sessions, after the arrest of a Huawei executive reignited trade worries.

How are the benchmarks trading?
The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.38%  declined 372 points, or 1.5%, to 24,655, though the index was down by as many as 785 points at the low. The index of blue chips shed 800 points on Tuesday, as fears about heightened trade tensions sparked a selloff.

The S&P 500 index SPX, -0.24%  dropped 38 points, 1.4%, to 2,661 and the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, +0.32%  fell 44 points, or 0.6%, to 7,115.

Thursday’s losses have put the Dow and the S&P into the red for 2018 while the Nasdaq clung to gains on the year.

What are the concerns?

Investors are also facing a heavy load of economic data.

The private sector added 179,000 new jobs in November, according to payroll firm ADP, below consensus estimates of 195,000, according to FactSet.

• 231,000 Americans applied for jobless benefits in the week ending Dec. 1, according to the Labor Department, surpassing the 224,000 reading expected by economists polled by MarketWatch.
• The Labor Department also raised its estimate of third-quarter productivity growth to 2.3% from 2.2%, while unit labor costs rose 0.9%, less than the initially reported 1.2% climb.
• The Institute of Supply Management said a gauge of services sector in November climbed to 60.7%.
• The Commerce Department said factory orders fell 2.1% in November.
• At 12.15 a.m. Atlanta Fed Chief and FOMC member Raphael Bostic will give a speech on the U.S. economic outlook.

What are the strategists saying?
“There’s not much incentive to be heroic and step in here expecting some kind of rally in the next two weeks,” before we see liquidity dry up during the holiday season, Aaron Clark, portfolio manager with GW&K Investment Management told MarketWatch.

We are heading for another recession!

U.S. Economy Will Slow in 2019, May Enter Recession in 2020, Economists Forecast. Trump Administration Disagrees
Fortune
By Kevin Kelleher
November 21, 2018

The good economic news for 2019 is that the odds are still against the U.S. economy entering a recession. The bad news, according to many economists, is a series of economic forecasts that calls for growth to not only be slower in the U.S., but also globally.

2018 has been a banner year for economic growth, with the U.S. gross domestic product rising at an annual pace of 3.5% in the third quarter and at 4.2% in the second quarter, according to the Bureau of Economic Statistics. The economy has been firing on most of its cylinders, as consumers spent more, companies invested in inventories, and local governments maintained their spending, the BEA said.

As economists crunch the numbers for their 2019 forecasts, however, they are expecting a slowdown. Goldman drew some attention this week after it said U.S. GDP growth will slow to 1.8% in the third quarter of 2019 and to 1.6% during the fourth quarter. The positive impact of the tax cuts passed in late 2017 will fade while financial conditions will tighten, Goldman predicted.
[…]
Separately, a survey of fund managers by Bank of America Merrill Lynch showed that 44% of respondents expect global growth to slow in 2019. Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, wrote in a note to clients that global growth could be zero in early 2020. “Gravity can’t be defied forever,” Shepherdson said.

The NASDAQ said…

In fact, economists are the last people to see recessions coming. And by the time they identify that we are in recession, especially mild ones, they are often just about over by the time they recognize it.

The Republicans and the Trump administration are leading us over a financial cliff.

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