Connecticut's supreme court just approved same sex marriage.
Now we have 4 gay marriage states with others trying to approve the same thing.
The stock market loses 5,000 points in 1 year, trillions of retirement dollars wiped out, millions could/will lose their jobs. Soup lines?
And we wonder why the lord no longer blesses our country with divine protection.
WAKE UP! It doesn't take a rocket/economics scientist to figure out what is wrong.
But I am concerned where the next terrorists attack will occur?

So why the big bailout??? It doesn't look like it helped at all. One of the dumbest things ever passed and what a huge waste of valuble tax money!

The next terrorist attack will more like come from your neighborhood or possibly your neighbor. 56,000 people last year were killed by guns in the USA (Terror)
5000 were killed in the world trade center. Since then 50,000 X 7 yrs= 350,000 live lost in hate crimes in America since 2001 Sept. Name me one terror campaign that can match those numbers? There is no Divine protection for the wicked or unrighteous.Terror lives next door.

Couldn't have said it better myself, the money was never really there and the financial industry must be regulated and controlled so there is some reality basis of value. The only safe investment is a guaranteed investment, but no one wants to guarantee on a system of betting. That would make them responsible and liable to cover investors money. The SSA was a guaranteed retirement savings account for americans but even that has been compromised, in a big way. The 5+ trillion the government has borrowed from from the SSA will never be retruned as government can't be sued to recover it. Its a voluntary repayment plan the government instituts and only if they have the money. Well we know how much the government has, zilch. They had to borrow the money for the consumer stimulus refunds and the bail out of wall street and insurance companies. It has never been disclosed or made public where they got this money from. So even that is all pretend economics and money. All this bailout and stimuli funding is make believe and the american people are paying the bill. Its a viscous cycle that needs repair by legislation and regulation.

Wow, this article is really ridiculous. Do you think that i really want to read how my money that i never really had is lost, and that I shouldn't have looked at that as money that I had. Worst economic article of the year.

I'm not worried... If terrorists decide to strike again, the military will be there to protect us. And after all, gay people are allowed in the military.

Here comes the spin cycle. We should be dry and more confused in a half hour.

Dont forget the softener.

So....why invest. You never get it...at least in a mattress it's there. This country stinks.

It's been a long time... since I heard someone wondering "why the lord no longer blesses our country with divine protection" -- and I get around a lot. They are far more worried about who will get booted off Dancing with the Stars, what they're gonna wear for Halloween, etc.

While some of the problems you mention are real, most are not. The market has never (yet) lost 5000 in one year, millions lose - and gain - jobs every year, families individually hit the "soup line" all the time -- mostly due to lack of preparation for the inevitable speed bumps of life.

Much of this reality was explained in the article, so may we suggest you READ IT and expect we will do the same, BEFORE you spread your fears and despair?

The Lord blesses us with His protection individually even when society as a whole is missing out....

Example...After telling the County that my house isn't worth more than I paid for it, they tell me it has "potential" value when they raise the assessed value to collect more tax. When I ask if I can pay the increase from the "potential"..you know what the answer was! I then told them that I knew of no one else who could bank "potential". Seems I was mistaken!

It is always surprising to me that the concepts expressed in this article are so novel to so many. Especially when the fundamentals are familiar to anyone who has tried to negociate a price for anything.

The value of EVERYTHING is always a matter of agreement between the parties trading the thing. The ephemeral nature of this idea may make it hard to grasp, but at its base, each of us deals with it all the time.

Didn't that whole "bailout" thing seem fishy to you? It sure did to me. They come running to the press with this "We NEED to pass this NOW to save the economy" attitude. Then the very next day I hear on the news that I shouldn't expect the bailout to start working any time soon. All that was is robbing the poor to give to the rich. Why didn't they use that money as a stimulus package like before? I could sure have used a couple of grand or whatever it worked out to be. Who knows maybe I would have used it to pay down my mortgage, or put it in a bank to save.

If the USA "stinks," tell us what country is better?

Did we really believe we could buy a house and a few years later it was worth twice as much? Did we really believe we could buy stocks and get rich without doing any work?

The markets over inflated with value that was never there. Now it has over corrected the other way. Eventually, the real value of our homes and stocks will return, but with this big of fluctuations, it will take years.

This is all a result of deregulation thanks to the Bush administration, supported all the way by the maverick McCain. We need sanity back in the markets by regulating our economy to avoid the wild market fluctuations which hurt us all.

The economic system is a house of cards. When one card fails, it undermines other, more stable cards. When panic sets in, the whole thing comes tumbling down, even the originally solid financial institutions. The bailout was required to keep the whole thing from unravelling. It is pathetic that original no voters, changed their vote once they got their pork project included. They held us hostage for their pet projects.

We need a steady hand at the helm, not a maverick.

Ignorance is bliss!! When can I go back to the matrix, can someone please plug me in again.

This country stinks? Are you serious? This article is ridiculous. Technically, your 20 dollar bills aren't worth anything more that what someone says it's worth. Think about it! The fed keeps printing more of it and the value goes down. This has been happening in a big way in the past two years and nobody says a thing. Why? Because they don't understand it. Same thing with the stock market. Learn how to invest. Hey Nona! Buy low, sell high, and be thankful you live in the greatest country in the history of the earth!

This story is really lame. Since 1929 the U.S. stock market has grown on average at 12% per year. When you invest in a stock, you are buying a share of the company. Sorry to burst everyone's doom and gloom bubble, but RIGHT NOW IS THE TIME TO INVEST! Warren Buffet (you may have heard of him) is buying like crazy. This 'sky is falling' stuff isn't doing your readers and favors.

Because if it's in a mattress, it's losing about 3% of its value a year in inflation anyway. You need to do something with it just to keep purchasing power intact. For most people, investments are generally about the long-term, so even after short-term losses (late 80's, dot-com burst, post-Sept. 11), we'll make an economic comeback. But, it will definitely be tougher for people who were planning on drawing out that money soon (retirees, etc.)

Even now, as low as things are, it's set the market back about 5 years, which is much shorter than most people hold their investments. The market overall is 10X higher than it was just 30 years ago. What you could buy with cash in a mattress from 30 years ago would be over 70% less now than then. So, in this very crude example, that's about a 1,070% difference in value--in favor of investing.

My 401k has grown from three sources: MY OWN MONEY contributions, MY EMPLOYER's MATCHING contributions, and investment growth. Only the latter is not REAL money. The other two ARE real money.

When a person's 401k's value drops below the amount accumulated from their contributions, REAL MONEY is being lost!

THAT's the rub with this 401k devaluation process that many of us are suffering through.

So DON'T say 401k's are full of fake money!

So I've been contributing about $10,000 per year to my 401(K) for ten years. It's now worth $42,000. Who has my $58,000 in principal? I understand the lost earnings.

It's truly devaluation when the corpus is affected.

RE: Joseph Atwater. Bad Math. You posted, "56,000 people last year were killed by guns in the USA (Terror)." The FBI's Uniform Crime Report indicates that typically in the US fewer than 15,000 homicides occur each year (this includes guns, knives, bats, etc.) You posted, 5,000 died in the 9/11 WTC attack. The WTC was actually less than 3,000.

Thank you Deseret News, for your continued efforts to instigate panic.

You mentioned in your article that some of that $ may have been "stolen". The "Great God"- Federal Reserve, through it's IRS, has stolen trillions of dollars from every man, woman, child and unborn in this country. Anyone who understands the sacred money "System" and has experienced inflation, an IRS seizure, foreclosure, credit denial, etc., has had "money" stolen from them!

Challenge anyone to open their wallet and show you a dollar and watch them show you a Federal Reserve Note. It's not a dollar, but a debt credit instrument, and it's actual worth is a mere two cents compared to a "real dollar". We've convinced ourselves that we're wealthy if we've got alot of this fiat "money" in our possesion, but can't explain how the good old boys just got "bailed out" and increased our debt to the tune of over $30,000 for each man, woman, child, unborn for the next several decades!

Thank heaven, as per your deceptive article, this theft is just in our imagination! I can't wait to wake up and find I've just been dreaming!

The previous owner of the stock that I purchased through my 401K program;

My mutual fund manager who took a commission;

The previous owner from whom I purchased my home;

There is very real and actual dollars that I earned by blood sweat and tears that went to other people. I am just feeling great that I saw this coming and changed my allocations when I did and sold out of the stock market. It is almost time to start buying stuff again. Looks like all of those 3rd party consiracy theorists may be right after all. The "theory's" are starting to be proven. A little more time will tell......

You have forgotten about your Health Benifits becoming a Personal Savimngs Account and run on the Stock Market
I think this was a Bush Plan
How many of you were fallling for that?
Bush was just telling you everything was fine and then the crash
Bush needs to just sit down and be quiet
He knows nothing till it crashes

How about NAFTA? How about big company mergers? How about loans of any kind other than fixed? How about invading foreign countries based on lies? What about people being able to buy everything from homes to pricy cars and trucks, and other toys without being qualified? What about putting retirement funds, including company 401k's in a false market run by thieves? And finally what about this insane notion that companies are too big to fail? These questions and others need to be addressed my friends(A McDuff explanation). Vote these incumbents out of office, they have failed ALL of us. Out with the waste water.

Reality

The seeds of this destruction of money where sown about a hundred years ago, with the creation of the Federal Reserve Banking Cartel. This group of men & women control the interest rates and the amount of Money (Federal Reserve Notes) that are created. They have created ~2.2 trillion dollars in the last 45 days out of nothing. The effects of this new money will start to be seen in the next 18 months though inflation and more then likely hyper inflation. No amount of regulation will be able to fix this; the fox guards the hen house. We must liberate ourselves from this finical tyranny by pressing our leaders to change the laws that allow this Cartel to exist. This will allow banks to be created that issue sound money based on a gold standard and do not use fractional reserve standards on demand deposits. For now there is nowhere to turn except for hard assets such as gold, silver, platinum etc, that have in the pass maintained their value as the value of the dollar decreases, thus maintaining the value of your hard earned savings.

Keep putting money into your 401k. If you want to buy low and sell high, you actually need to buy when it's low. That is now. I fell bad for people who are retiring now because they need to start selling now. For those not close to retirement it should be looked at as a great opportunity. If you keep contributing to your 401k now it will sky rocket once the market returns to better days (and it will) This can be a good thing.

I totally agree!! The very next day after the so-called bailout the market took huge plunges all week! So what was the big rush if it wasn't going to help right away,something fishy I agree. And I would have like to have it used in a bigger stimulus package for us individuals to help us pay our bills, or afford more food, etc. rather then have it go to these banks and CEO's to cushion their pockets and leaving us with nothing! Like I said the dumbest thing ever passed!

When will these misinformed Democrats wake up...
This nightmare started with Barney Frank, his partner, Bill Clinton and the other politicians (Democrats and Republicans) in the 1990's...

Bush has tried for years to get congress to wake up...
Time to vote all of them out of office. Need term limits.

Money only represents wealth. Produced goods are wealth. For years, we have sharply curtailed production and imported much of our needs by using a giant "credit card." Now we must produce.

You may drive around in your town
Ina brand new shiny car
Your face in the wind your haircut's in
And your friends think you're bizarre
You may find a cushy job and I hope that you go far
But if you really want to taste some cool success
You better learn to play guitar

Pushing paper is a big business in this country. Creates a lot of insecurity. I have been surprised to hear from people who lived through the great depression, that it was no big deal. They lived on farms and out in the country.

Who was in office when the bill was passed into law making it easy to get a home mortgage because "everyone deserved to own their own home?" Here is a hint: It was before Bush and the man was a Democrat. Still need another hint? His wife ran for the Office of President of the U.S. That's right folks. The mortgage meltdown is the byproduct of Bill Clinton's policy.

divine protection? | 12:46 a.m.: "But I am concerned where the next terrorists attack will occur?"

At the White House when B. Hussein Osama is elected president.

Few people understand that money only represents goods and services, and really has no intrinsic value other than for what it can be used to purchase something. Even gold or silver are worth only the value that is given to them for making jewelery or other products. Unless of course we decide to give these metals a superficial value as a medium of exchange. This portion of their value is no different than paper money.

When we understand that money represents goods and services, (the only alternative is barter)we need to realize that there are two type of money, cash money, and investment money. Most folks don't understand the difference.

We understand how cash money changes its value due to inflation or deflation, which is determined by the amount of cash money in circulation compared to goods and services.

Investment money is different, it is based on what someone believes something is worth. For example, a rancher has 100 cows worth $500 each, making a total value of $50,000. Suppose there is a drought and ranchers have to sell cows for $200 each because they can't feed them, their value is now $20,000. It was never cash money.

True. Clinton signed the Gramm-Leac-Bliley act that repealed the Glass-Stegal regulation. McCain supported the bill then (as a "de-regulator") and had Phill Gramm, one of the primary authors, as a financial advisor to his campaign.

Your conclusion that it's Clinton's 'policy' for signing a republican-backed bill is false.

Do you really want us to believe that Bush with a majority for 6 years wanted to change previous administration laws enacted? Just why didn't he? He had his majority. After the fact lies don't float. The republican control and administration for the last 8 years have a record for that time frame and you or anyone else talking differently is baloney. A persons or in this case administrations past and record speaks for itself. It is what it is. History will always tell the truth and so will ones past. Alot of us would like to change things in our lives in the past, but guess what we can't.

What I don't understand is why we need mortgage backed securities, tranches, interest default swaps, and overnight loans between banks. Thirty years ago we didn't. And got by quite well.

These things have got to go... including margin trading and short selling.

There are thousands of Wall Streeters who make millions buying and selling paper, and in many cases buying and selling electronic impulses representing money. This madness has go to stop. These thieves need real jobs like painting houses and digging ditches.

Crisis? What crisis? You should visit Argentina to understand what a crisis is.

Seems like most of the people on this board did not understand the article. 75% of the comments show a terrible lack of understanding of markets.

To wrz: 30 years ago (1978), mortgage rates were in the double digits. And I believe overnight loans between banks have been common practice for decades.

If you are going to pay me money for painting a house and call that a real job then you don't understand money.

Digging a ditch? You are a clown.

What if I make you a table? Or even better a microchip?

What if I make your life easier by doing your taxes for you? Would you pay me to do that?

What if I sold you a service like internet and managed your bill?

Everybody needs to just keep going. Rome wasn't built in a day and to pretend like the only work that needs to be done is digging ditches is crazy.

Our system works when everyone has confidence. It falls apart when everyone wants to be smart and think the value of a twenty dollar bill is the same as a five dollar bill because he size of the paper is the same and the cost to make it is the same.

Let's blame the fed for the difference and call them thieves.

It isn't that hard for us to just stay alive with food and shelter. Not a big challenge.

Keep your dreams alive. Don't give up!!!!!

We don't need anymore ditches either.

It's interesting that the crisis was created in the northeast by men from Ivy league schools and now they're telling us that the real money we intrusted to them and was supposed to increase just as their fat bonus' and perks did are not real but a figument of our imagination.How comforting that it's been explained by a Yale type. I feel much better even as the scoundrels take the bail out money and head to California for a retreat to comfort themselves.As my ol southern Daddy used to tell me you can steal more with a pin than a gun and get little or no time.

Is one of the best written on this issue to date, and it is %100 accurate. And look at how many people are sitting in shock and disbelief. The ignorant masses. Sigh.

The reason this entire mess occured was because so many people never learned or bothered to ponder the principles discussed in the article. That two-bedroom, turn-of-the-century-built house was never really worth $500,000. The stock you bought?
You paid $50 for a PIECE OF PAPER that has a fluctuating value between $0.00 and the sky-'s-the-limit, but expect it to hover much closer to the $0.00 than &1,000,000. I mean, this is just common sense stuff. People are honestly shocked?

It looks like our school system needs the bailout.

First, people kill, not guns. If someone wants to kill, they will use other methods.

Second, the number one killer in the US is auto accidents. If you really want to save human life, do something about automobiles.

Third, it doesn't matter if guns ever do get outlawed. I've lived in countries where guns have been outlawed. Law abiding citizens become underground gunsmiths because they know that they need someway to defend themselves from the criminals who have guns anyways.

Gun control laws are about as effective as the marijuana laws in the US. Sure pot is illegal, but everybody knows people who smoke it, or they smoke it themselves.

How about the right to keep and bear arms being interpreted as the real meaning of arms. This means guns, tanks, missiles, etc. The idea was for the citizens to defend themselves against their own government. Guns are hardly effective against a tank. Shouldn't citizens have the right to have much bigger weaponry. I know you all are going to call me nutty, but seriously, how can the American people protect themselves against the US government by using only guns?

understand why so many people were so eager to play the stock market. Think about it. You take cash and give to some guy to buy stock. He automatically gets a commission IN CASH from what you handed over. What do you get? A piece of paper that has no set value. THe company does well, you do well. The company goes belly-up, your paper becomes worthless. The only person who keeps any cash is the broker. You take your chances on being able to sell that piece of paper for more than you paid for it. It doesn't take a genius to see that the value cannot keep rising and rising and rising. It has to stop somewhere, because no company on earth can keep raking in massive amounts of money without having that value offset by inflation rates, and when you reach a point where the common man can't purchase the good or service, the price will drop, along with the value of your stock. The stock market is exactly what many say it is: a big gamble where you might win, or you might lose. Putting all your eggs in that basket is downright stupid.

Polititcians are only concerned about being re-elected and all the perks that come with it!! If anything is ever going to get done in DC we the people have to demand only 6 years for congress and senators. Then and only then something might get done for us. Alot of the problems we are now facing is the result of these bums back in washington DC.

So it's the "worst article of the year," just because you don't like the truth? Really messed up thinking, dude.

This article is incorrect. I contributed my salary to a 401k to buy shares. My employer matched my contribution. This was real money, folks, used to buy stock. I understand that you say the stock was overinflated, but that's too simplistic. I still paid money for that stock, and when the value drops, I would lose the money if I had to sell today. Geen in the face is right. Real money was lost. This is not all on paper for people who have had to cash in.

to wrz: you are obsessed with the Husseins. Get over it. Prediction: Obama is elected, despite those 5 precious electoral votes in UT, and we will all be just fine! At least, we will be better off than we have been the last 8 (between NYers and 9/11, LA and delayed Katrina aid, dead soldiers in Iraq keeping the price of oil as voletile as possible, the Patriot Act,etc). Take a deep breath. If you truly believe your life will crumble because his ethnicity is not the same as yours, then, well, there's a word for people like you. Starts with a b....

The money went straight to your broker's salary and into the warchest of whatever company you bought stock in. You gave the company the money so that they could "grow," and you paid your broker/seller/account manager for the privelege of handling your dough. All you had left was the stock itself, which is given value by the "market," which is about as fickle as Olive Oyl. I have never liked 401K, stock market, etc. just because of the way the game is played. Unless you are business savvy and want to manage your own money penny by penny, I would NEVER invest a significant portion of money in these markets. If you know what you are doing, you can do well, but you need to remember that there are thousands of guy with years of knowledge and experience who lose their shirts and are left dumb-struck during these downturns, too. It is GAMBLING, no matter how they try to sell it or make it look like a "safe" and reasonably "sure" thing. If you want to make a guaranteed profit, you need to be actively buying and selling. Otherwise, you just hope the market is sound at retirement....