Saturday, October 04, 2008
Saturday | Oct. 4 | Got news, or a question?
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19 comments:
Jim says: "Proceed with caution; this is a free-for-all comment zone. I try to correct or clarify incorrect information. But I can't catch everything. Please keep your posts focused on Gannett and media-related subjects. Note that I occasionally review comments in advance, to reject inappropriate ones. And I ignore hostile posters, and recommend you do, too."
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I've just signed on. Good morning. What's up?
ReplyDeleteRE: "Uncharted Waters"
ReplyDeleteThis is just free advice, so take it for what it's worth. We're not in "Uncharted Waters"-Economically (See the Depressions of the 1830s, 1870s & 1930s. We have been in these waters before, just not in the adult lifetime of anyone born after 1925. The Category 6 Economic-Financial Storms occur every 50-to-80 years. They are brutal and unforgiving. They are, unfortunately a natural process of purging debt excesses built up over Decades. No single President, no single political party is responsible. We all (individual, businesses, banks, government officials) are responsible for being somewhat short-sighted in our Savings, Investment and Borrowing habits.
Good-Times tend to hide "mistakes" and abuses (see state Budgets of California, Michigan, Florida, New york, New Jersey). These times bring to light poor management, excessive pay-versus-REAL performance, excessive borrowing for consuption, etc.
We must focus on doing what is best for our families & friends during the diffocult & sometimes painful period ahead. Accept the fact that we WILL have to adapt to being less wealthy. And try to work together to survive this period of massive government expansion with an eye on reducing government's intrusion into our lives & businesses when the crises subsides (2013-2017) preserve the concept of individual liberty over State Intervention....I mean really, Have any of you really seen a success (non-corrupt) government solution to a problem....LOL. Even the APOLLO Missions had kick-back....LOL.
Good luck and best wishes to all of you.
GOOGLE: Panic of 1873; Kondratiev Wave.
I checked my 401(k) this morning, year-to-date I'm down 30%. Lord willing and I stay employed, that doesn't bother me too much.
ReplyDeleteBackground: I've not taken home any raises for the last six years. Every raise I've gotten had been turned into my 401(k), so now I'm putting in 19%. My net is about $600 a week, and I'm sole supporter of our family of six. I average around $3000 in savings. I'm 38. I supervise 14 employees.
Here's why I'm not worried: I'm 38. If the average crummy market lasts 4 years, I'll see these dips often, before (if?) I retire. Right now, my contribution is buying shares at depressed prices, so that when we see 14,000 again, my gain will be much, much more than my current paper losses.
I am concerned about losing my job. My skill set doesn't translate well into any other field, and this job is the only thing I have ever done.
Benefits with Gannett are better than many. And jobs of any stripe are hard to find.
My wish is that the board of directors gives up on propping up the stock price. We need to suspend the dividend TEMPORARILY and use that cash to cut debt and acquire the properties or technologies that will position us to grow. Yes, we may see the price dip under $10/share. We may have to fight investment groups who want results this quarter, not two years down the road.
I've stuck with this job because I believe it is honorable. Telling the stories people need and want to hear, helping local businesses grow through advertising. We can continue to do that in the future, if we think about the future. As I know my investment will pay off eventually, we need to make investments that will pay off as well for big G.
God bless you 8:47- don't know how you support a family of 6 on $600 a week - I can only assume you don't live in the Northeast or CA. I would still have a backup plan if I were you and start developing another set of skills - especially with a fam to support. I wish you well.
ReplyDeleteDEAR 8:47 I wish I could have helped you. I self-direct 401K and have been shorting global stock markets from October 1st, 2007. I'm up 31% over ONE YEAR. I'm not happy about it. Take care.
ReplyDeleteRE: stock at Less Than $10.00; Try $5.00 (or break-up value AFTER DEBT)
ReplyDeletePeople don't understand the full impact of the contraction in short-term credit -Planet-Wide. EXAMPLE: one of newspaper companies biggest advertisers CARS: the contraction of short-term credit reduces: 1) origination of car loans for BUYERS, 2) bank financing for CAR DEALERS is gone!!>>can't by new models, 3) Manufacturers GET NO ORDERS....lay-off people shut plants. GM just took the last 3.5 Billion of its short-term revolving cridt line (VISA CARD) because it wanted to get it while it still could.
Gannett stock could go the way of Journal Register & GateHouse quickly. If you don't believe that ask former & current employees of Bears-Sterns, Lehman, Washington Mutual, Thornburg Mortgage, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Ford Motor Company, if the y thought 2 years ago their compies would NOT EXIST or have stock values 70%-to-99% below where they were in 2005.
Put down the Kool-Aid, 8:25 a.m.
ReplyDeleteYou asked "....I mean really, Have any of you really seen a success (non-corrupt) government solution to a problem....LOL."
Easy: Social Security, Medicare, the SEC .... LOL, and I could go on and on.
Government is not evil.
Your thinking goes off track in that you see business as having the rights of the people under the Constitution. A business has no moral or human values. Its sole purpose is to make profit, a fabricated value that is not a direct component of democracy.
Without laws and enforcement of the penalties of laws, which is the key purpose of government, we live in an anarchy, where greed breeds uncontrolled and people predate on each other.
When and where we see these extreme cycles of government failure to control greed, the numbers of innocent people who die prematurely and unnecessarily grow proportionally. Those people are real, living souls that a democracy is designed to protect.
It sounds to me as if you prefer fascism. That's not America.
Dear 10.47
ReplyDeleteI'm not saying government is evil. It just builds up unsustainable excesses over long periods of time. Social Security & Medicare have worked, but by simple mathematics their 30 year unfunded liabilities of $53 Trillion (3.8 times the current GDP) mean either needs based reforms or printing more money.
All you have to do is go on the Federal Reserve website (www.frs.org) the Bank for International Settlements website (www.bis.org) and study the data streams. Simple arithmetic. Most government official mean well, they just don't understand the law of unintended consequences. We are moving into a period where the old tried and true methods of fiscal & monetary policy stimulus will not work.
A little caffiene or cocaine can give you a productivity boost once or twice or a few times; but we're at the point where John Belushi was at the Chateau Marmont back in 1982.
10.47 I forgot...politically, I just believe in the supremacy of the individual over the state (whether that state be communist, socialist, corporate controlled); I gues I'm a throw back, A Jeffersonian Libertarian.
ReplyDeleteHell, the Boston tea-party was over a 3% tax on tea...LOL.
Is Gannett not running less-than-lucrative Classifieds sections some days now? Look at the streamer atop today's Burlington Free Press.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.newseum.org/media/dfp/jpg4/lg/VT_BFP.jpg
That's a Republican/libertarian myth that SSA has an unfunded liability. It was fully funded.
ReplyDeleteGeorge Bush stole the baby boomer's excess that the Clinton administration held in trust, only for W to blow it in Iraq, where he lost literally truckloads of cash and gave away billions more to Halliburton and other offshore, unAmerican companies with principals, CEOs and major investors in high political positions.
Theft of our taxpayer money is a sign of our legislative watchdogs conspiring or being asleep at the switch, but it's not a sign of a problem with the concept or structure of Social Security and Medicare, or the structure of the federal government our founding fathers set up. It's merely evidence that we -- every one of us -- must hold them accountable to refill those coffers.
I say it's time to tax the hell out of the rich, who have been the beneficiaries since 2001 of the "reshuffling" (political robbery) of the finite U.S. cash in circulation, and to refuse to give another dime of contract work to any company that doesn't pay U.S. taxes and tariffs, which we must resume if we're going to stop getting screwed in the international market.
4:12
ReplyDeleteAMEN!!!!
Being that others started this Social Security rant, I'll chime in with a look at if from another angle.
ReplyDeleteThe awful, awful problem with Social Security is that it gave trillions to Congress and the President to play with.
What would you do if I said this to you: Here's $10,000. You can't invest it, even in savings account. The only thing you can do with it is to keep yourself and your friends happy.
Oh, yes. In 30 years, you or your successor has to give me back 20,000.
What would you do with that $10,000 right now?
That's the way Social Security and Medicare has worked for years. By law those trust funds HAVE to buy treasury bonds. Those bonds means the cash flows to the current Congress, which promises to pay the money back sometime in the future.
Before you say the money should remain in a lock box, think about what actually happens with the money. It can't just sit there, it has to be used.
We need to say Social Security and Medicare are the debts the current generation owes the previous generation and be done with the whole thing.
Oh yes, I believe in government. Millions have clean water, good schools, clean air and thousands and thousands of other benefits because of the government.
But if Washington has the money, it will spend it and more and its power will just grow and grow.
Good Sunday morning to you all.
4:12 & 5:04
ReplyDeletePlease read the ECONOMIC REPORT OF THE PRESDINT (for years 1978-through-2007). Each year in the first 20 pages Democrat & Republican Presidents alike state that WITHOUT any fund or benefit changes the effective Combined tax rate of a child born today will excess 80% of Gross Income. Also go to the CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE. They have many non-partisan analyses of this.
I'm simply looking at the numbers and the trend line. The first Baby Boomer started collecting her Social Security Check this past February. Plus for the last two fiscal years Medicare/Medicad taxes HAVE NOT covered expenditures: that deficit is being fund from the general Treasury...which at the moment is tapped out.
As to screwing the international market; the United States BORROWS 1,800,000,000.00 PER DAY from foreigners. If you think the stock market and your 401K are bad now, watch what happens when they STOP lending and worse yet start asking for the money we borrowed Back.
Social Security was set up to be a pay as you go system. In other words, current workers are supposed to be contributing enough to support former workers. Doesn't work now since there aren't enough workers contributing to support the growing number of retirees. Demographers pointed this out years ago, but seems nobody listened.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the APP meeting from this week, it had to do with unveiling the results of a large-scale reader survey. That's why corporate was here. They shared the results first among themselves, then passed it on to the Metro editors at Friday morning's meeting.
ReplyDeleteAs far as people questioning if the reporters here checked their credentials at the door to the newsroom, that's not true. Plenty of questions are being asked, most are being answered and the ones that aren't answered probably don't have an answer (ie: "Are there more layoffs coming").
If you want to know what's going on, ask the person sitting next to you or your boss. Don't just log on to this site and toss etherial complaints into the wind.
It does no good.
does anyone have a (preferably documented) answer to the question raised friday -- can those bastards roll our frozen pensions into our 401ks?
ReplyDelete(and here's an even worse thougth:
if they roll it, would it all go into gannett stock?)
wouldnt take much for me to leave, but i'm hoping for a good-bye present.
8:30 AM
ReplyDeleteHere's a group that might be able to answer the question.
http://www.pensionrights.org/
to 8:30 AM
ReplyDelete"does anyone have a (preferably documented) answer to the question raised friday -- can those bastards roll our frozen pensions into our 401ks?"
While I don't know if this is possible, I suspect it is extremely unlikely. After all, they only have to make future contributions to the frozen pension fund to match the rate of increase in the consumer price index. Presumably they can invest the existing pension funds at a rate of return higher than the increase in the consumer price index. Why would they give up the potential profit from the difference?