quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:

quote:

Anybody watching this

^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Yep. That is a the reason I have a self directed retirement account. The less the government is in my business the better. I read about this sometime back in the WSJ.

Before seeing this, I always just took whatever investment strategy the fund recommended based on my projected retirement date, trusting them to share my goals of growing my account as much as possible over that timeframe. Now I'm thinking I ought to be paying more attention to what they're doing with it.

Part of my retirement is also in a state employee pension...there's absolutely nothing I can do about that. Thankfully my state's AG seems to be one of the ones who is on the ball and speaking out against it...hopefully that has some impact on what the pension board people are doing with our fund.

My brother does retirement for a living and is a certified financial planner...I think I need to have him educate me about this mess.

Yep. Good idea. While you are at it ask him about strategies with RMDs.

The goverment is always messing around with our money.

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
The goverment is always messing around with our money.

This goes beyond that. The actions of Biden and his administration demonstrate a complete disregard for the citizens of this nation. They hate us so much, they want to destroy us.

^^^^^^^^^^^
True I guess I would be more incensed if it applied to me. Believe me I am getting shafted on taxes and other stuff. The PPP program is now prosecuting business owners for fraud. The goverment let tons of these fraudulent loans go through and now are only going after those that ripped off the government for millions. Student loans is another sore point.

quote:

True I guess I would be more incensed if it applied to me

Well, consider it in this light: Biden is attempting to subsidize political goals with privately owned retirement funds across the economy. How does that not affect the environment in which your investments succeed or fail? Independent investing can arguably take advantage of this by concentrating on more purely profitable investments, but those investments are still dependent on the overall economy.

It's not direct, so independent investors will notionally never notice the temperature of the water in the pot increasing.

Meanwhile in China, there are Tanks in the streets to quash the protests calling for Xi Jinping to step down and an end to the 'Zero-COVID' Lockdown policies...

Tanks on the streets spark fears of new Tiananmen Square as Chinese Communists flood cities with police to end unprecedented protests sparked by disastrous zero-Covid policy

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ne...ckdown-protests.html

Just had a long and depressing text conversation with my brother. I know next to nothing about money management (apart from spending less than I make), but here's my very uninformed layman's understanding of what he tried to explain to me:

He said this ESG crap has been going on for a long time and has pretty well permeated the market. There are large funds like Blackrock that have pushed it, and it's the reason behind why so many companies are pushing for greater diversity on their boards and championing woke causes...it raises their ESG score which will drive investment from these leftist funds. Which explains all the wokeness being publicly spouted by all these corporations...they don't really care about the cause, it's all about the money...and not money coming from consumers buying their product but rather the investment dollars.

According to my brother, all this rule change does is shelter managers from liability for investing your 401K in funds based on ESG score rather than performance. It's already been going on for so long and had such a significant effect on the market that it's going to have an impact on your investments whether you're buying highly ESG rated funds or not. He said ESG has been a significant factor in the recent downturn.

I'm a pretty simple guy. I believe in honest pay for an honest days work. I'm not interested in making a fast buck by playing money games. The only reason I have money in the market at all is because someday I'd like to retire, and that's the way it's done. It pissess me off to no end that a rich asshole can sit at a desk and jack with my financial future by manipulating the market, and the people who were supposedly elected (even if I didn't vote for them!) to represent our interests don't care enough to do anything about it. In fact they're actively working against my interests so that they can secure the support of a bunch of emotionally disturbed mental midgets who are so narcissistic that they can't even come to terms with the fact that they were born with a particular set of genitalia.

quote:

Originally posted by nhracecraft:
Meanwhile in China, there are Tanks in the streets to quash the protests calling for Xi Jinping to step down and an end to the 'Zero-COVID' Lockdown policies...

Tanks on the streets spark fears of new Tiananmen Square as Chinese Communists flood cities with police to end unprecedented protests sparked by disastrous zero-Covid policy

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ne...ckdown-protests.html

And the US media is completely ignoring it.

Now imagine if Viktor Orbán or the new Italian PM Meloni put tanks on the streets to squash a protest. It'd be front page news of The New York Times. But as long as it's Biden’s communist butt boy in China, crickets.

i have been a vanguard investor with a very meager portfolio for many years. I am about ready to change that due to their wokeness now.

Technically they are APC’s, probably packed with shock troops to spill out like ants at protests.

Tanks, AKs, Glocks...the media.

obama mentions some "uncle joe"

video at

https://twitter.com/i/status/1598514944848306176

Uncle joe, you know what happened to him

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:
Uncle joe, you know what happened to him

I know what happened to one “Uncle Joe,” but it wasn’t soon enough. He was also a long-time darling of the Left despite helping make the worst war in history possible as well as killing millions of his own people.

Not investing in Blackrock funds will not help you as much as you think. Blackrock is one of the largest shareholders of many corporations and they use those shares to inflict ESG policies, as well as use their capital to pick and choose who to invest in, in such large amounts they can affect market price.

Any company Blackrock has an investment in is potentially infected with this garbage.

Government in collusion with big money to pick winners and losers for political reasons, not business performance. All so corrupt pols can can extract their "fee" from the winners.

But you can't do it forever. Companies that are uncompetitive will lose money and die. Hopefully Blackrock collapses due to people pulling their money from Blackrock funds. But a lot of companies will get destroyed in the process.

To be fair, the Franks were around back when Brandon was growing up in the Puerto Rican community.

DEMs have turned all federal agencies into political attack weapons

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/...s-neuralink-n2616796

The Biden administration has reportedly launched a federal investigation into Elon Musk’s Neuralink for potential violations of animal welfare laws.

According to Reuters, the Department of Agriculture’s Inspector General opened the probe “at the request of a federal prosecutor” to look at how researchers treat and test animals at the medical device company.

The timing of the probe, amid the release of the Twitter Files, is raising questions for some, while others say it's hypocritical in light of how the FTX scandal is being treated.

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:
DEMs have turned all federal agencies into political attack weapons

Are republicans doing anything about all this? It seems like a few have spoken out against things DEMs have been doing, but none are taking action.

"Jill and I met with you, prayed with you, and have worked with you. We’ve seen you turn pain into purpose. Together, we’ve made some important progress: the most significant gun law passed in 30 years, but still not enough. (Applause.) Still not enough.

Even as our work continues to limit the number of bullets that can be in a cartridge, the type of weapon that can be purchased and sold, the attempt to ban assault weapons — a whole range of things that are just common sense. Just simple common sense."

https://www.whitehouse.gov/bri...ims-of-gun-violence/