ASU2003

This is one thing with the stock market that causes development and risk taking, but is it possible to maintain it forever? The government and the fed can prop it up by lowering interest rates, lowering taxes or causing people to need to do something. The market can also go down for emotional reasons unrelated to growth or the amount of revenue that is being brought in by the company.

But, it seems that the big item still is if the company meets the price quarterly price estimate and has grown since last year.

Now, does this cause a problem? Are 401k retirement plans not going to work in the next 10-20 years? Are we seeing the effects of more people pulling money out of their retirement accounts instead of in the 80's&90s when people were only putting money into them (because the retirees back then had pensions).

I read this on-line today:
Now, there are a few issues that this has caused. There are a lot of scared 50-60 year olds in my office you have watched their 401k & IRAs go from having enough to comfortably retire on last July, to today where they would go through the money in 10-20 years. And those are the people that have saved a lot. There are a lot of people that haven't saved over $50,000 for retirement. And their home values aren't going up anymore, but at least most of them own homes.
Boomer Wealth: Beware of the Median

The other issue is population growth. Both new births and immigration (legal and illegal) cause prices to rise since there would be more demand on the current supply of an item. Except if the items are free. And that is what I think is the silent player in all of this. There is a growing cheap, frugal, and thrifty class of people. Some out of necessity, others for the thrill of getting a bargain. I think this economy would be in shambles if everyone else lived like I do, yet the quality of life would be just as good or maybe better. If the infrastructure (internet, roads, libraries, parks, beaches, TV, radio, and other things) are provided through taxes (though who pays the taxes?) and you take measures to grow your own food, collect rain water, use solar thermal heat, geo-thermal cooling/heating, and generate some electricity through renewable methods, you can live a very cheap lifestyle that isn't that much different from someone who spends a lot of money. Is this what the retirees of tomorrow will have to do? And what will having millions of people living this way do to the economy? I saw an article talking about how cable companies are fearing high speed internet because people are downloading the shows they want and canceling or reducing the cable programming they get. I don't have cable, but I can watch the Daily Show on-line, and there are a bunch of other free video entertainment websites out there. I use Linux, which is getting easier to use. I run LinuxMint which does everything most people would need for a video/mp3 playing, internet enabled, e-mail machine to do for them. The cost was $0 and it is upgraded every so often. Are we headed for Democratic communism? http://www.modernhumorist.com/mh/000...aganda/mp3.jpg Most jobs will be automated or can be easily replaced by a machine once basic AI gets developed, we can get plenty of stuff for free (more than in the previous attempts at communism), and if religion was kept separate from the state and economy, I wonder how many people would be better off if the took steps towards living a more sustainable life where it doesn't take very much money if any at all to pay for the large majority of items.

Sorry if this post is all over the place, I just thought of a bunch of things and am trying to figure out where the larger economy might be heading from my little world.